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What Brock Bowers can and should learn from George Pickens’ Georgia football career
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Posts: 10,430 admin
What Brock Bowers can and should learn from George Pickens’ Georgia football career
Georgia football tight end Brock Bowers would be wise to note the career of George Pickens.
Comments
Too bad that Bennett didn’t have the luxury of playing with Pickens until the end of this past season. Oh well, we still won the National Championship so it really didn’t matter. Go Dawgs!!!
Bowers might not get the same volume of targets this year, and that might not be a bad thing.
If the receivers get healthy and play up to their potential and if Washington and Gilbert take another step in their development, there would be multiple players who would be capable of making plays against any defense.
More capable players are better than just having two or three.
"It should be noted though that when Monken spoke about Gilbert, he compared him to Bowers and not the other way around."
As it should be. Bowers is a known commodity. And it's incredible.
Great story, Connor. I'm curious: Who's faster flat-out, straight-line faster - Gilbert or Bowers?
If we get Arik, Brock and Washington (and that leaves out Delp and Goode) say 10 catches combined(say 3 each), then that leaves 10 catches for Mitchell, Jackson, Rosemary, Ladd, Smith and Blaylock, and the new guy. or about 1 and a half each on average, and that's not even including any backs out of the backfield. That's 20 completions in 30 attempts, for a 66% completion rate. We only averaged 26 attempts last season, so 30 is a stretch.
Unless we go to a more pass oriented style of play, there's not going to be enough passes to go around and keep people happy. Much less draw in the big time receivers. Somethings gotta give.
It's obvious, Conner wasn't around for Herschel's career. LOL. With Walker, the focus was never on statistics, although, he had his share. Mostly because Dooley gave the ball to him 30-40 times per game. After his Freshman year, every team UGA played, schemed to stop Walker. Yards and TDs didn't come as easy, yet, he still wasn't the Heisman.
Bowers strength isn't just his catching ability or ability to get seperation or blocking ability...he becomes a Larry Zonka after the catch. His YACs were unbelievable. He broke 3 tackles after and during the catch, on UGAs last TD in the SECC game. He's got the speed and vision, to out maneuver and outrun DBs as in the TD against Ga Tech.
I believe Gilbert and Delp bring similar abilities to the TE position. Which makes UGAs TE position unlike any that football, college or pro, has ever seen. Monkin knows just how to use it and it won't be like anything ever seen before. come., go ahead and scheme to stop Bowers...who's gonna stop Gilbert, Washington, Delp, K. Jackson, K. McIntosh, A. Smith, AD Mitchell, etc., etc, etc....
Defenses aren't prepared to stop this offense in 2022. They may adjust in 2023, much the way they did with Walker in '81, but, that won't help them this year. LOL
Sportswriters better start thinking outside-the-box, or UGAs gonna leave them scratching their heads at the end of the 2022 season...again...wondering how they missed it. Last year, it was a generational defense with 1 preseason All-SEC defender. This year, it's gonna be be a generational offense with a Heisman Candidate QB that was a preseason question mark and completely overlooked on preseason hype lists.
Consider this...Sports247 reporter put out a TOP 12 list for the SEC. The 4th best player on that list and 2nd best QB was ARK QB, K. Jefferson. Jefferson's numbers were virtually identical to National Champion Stetson Bennett.
Bennett had more passing yds, more yds/rec, more TDs, fewer pass atts, more yds/rush, sacked half as many times as Jefferson and owns a Natty ring...yet, Jefferson is the 2nd best QB in the SEC. Why? Because, Bennett has been put in a box and the only way out, is to keep winning. And, he will...probably in the most novel and unconventional way a UGA QB ever has.
Smart and Monkin are about to unleash a masterpiece offense on the College Football world that many teams will attempt to emulate in years to come.
Go get em Dawgs!!!
"he still wasn't the Heisman."
Supposed to be, "still won the Heisman". Frigging auto-correct.
Those “experts” didn’t list Travon on the 1st or 2nd All SEC teams…nor anywhere at all on the national level. I’m curious if this has ever happened where a player was selected #1 in the NFL draft while not even being mentioned as an “all conference” player. Hmmmm 🤔
Good question. AJC/DawgNation and Athens On-line are among the geniuses that missed what was right under their noses. LOL. They are good at evaluating and reporting "what was"...not so much, on the "what will be". Actually, they're not all that great at evaluating "what was", either. They still aren't sure why Bennett is a better QB than Daniels.
Yeah it helps if you have a good passing QB when you are a WR. Ask Pickens. Ask ANY of them. So yeah Bowers was helped by having Bennett at QB and very likely will be again, if Bennett keeps the job. As soon as Bennett is not the QB I expect receivers numbers to go up dramatically as a group, but Bowers production won't drop much, if any, because you know what? He is a unicorn. Pickens numbers would not have dropped in year 2 either had he had a sufficient-to-good QB most of that season, they would have skyrocketed! The unicorn Bowers has the same QB again in year 2 and he is so talented and determined and such of a mismatch, I do not see them dropping. And again same QB, at least to start with. The 2nd half of the season, may be a different story. Time will tell.
That's all you see? Bowers and that's it, huh? You might want to look again. Or, you can just do like the rest of em and talk about it at the end of the year. LOL
Oh, and keep your eyes on Kearis Jackson. He's about to have a 1000 yard season.
BTW...You might want to actually look at the 2020 STATS before you make proclamations.. LOL
In 2020, Kearis Jackson and James Cook were the leading receivers from the 1st game to the GA vs FL game, when Bennett injured his throwing shoulder. From the Missouri game to the Cincinnatti game, Pickens and Burton had the numbers. The STATS completely flip-flopped between those 2 receiving groups, from the first half of the year, to the second half.
Bennett preferred throwing to Jackson and Cook out of the backfield. Daniels favored Pickens and Burton. Either way, the production in the passing game, was virtually the same with those 2 receiving groups. And, if I'm not mistaken, Bennett just won a Championship doing it his way.
I've been saying this for awhile now, but we could(not necessarily will , depends on if CKS will take the reins off)) see an even better version of what we saw in the 1st half of the Michigan game, where we came out throwing it all over the yard and they never knew what hit them. I thought we were going to see exactly that all last season with a healthy JT and healthy Pickens but injuries derailed that chance.
Still, we had a mini-version of it with SB and Ladd,Bowers, and Mitchell.,then Jackson and Pickens got healthy again. This year is going to be(I believe) something we haven't seen in Athens for well, maybe ever. One 300-400 yard passing game after another. Take the brakes off Kirby. At least for 3 quarters, then let your back up QB's compete for 2023, as in let them throw it and of course mix in a lot of run, just not exclusively.
I like that mathematical approach. It helps show that there will be plenty of targets to distribute the ball to, especially since you didn't even include our two RBs, both of whom are good receivers.
A small point: We're likely to be starting some drives on a longer field so that could add to the number of plays. On the other hand, more explosiveness would cut down on the number of plays (while extending yardage).
Last year, we were 26th in total yards at 442.8 (counting all 15 games). Tennessee was third in the SEC and ninth nationally with 474.9 yards. I think it's reasonable to expect that we'll be in that neighborhood or better next year-- about 30 yards more per game.
In 2021, Alabama averaged more than 25 completions per game, Ohio State around 29 and Georgia just over17. We'll be in a sweet spot if we end up in the low 20s this year while producing a running game similar to last year's.
Contrary to impressions, Bennett packed more yards into each completion than Stroud or Young did. So just 20 completions a game with the same 16-yards-per-catch as last year would put Bennett at the same YPG total as Young was. That alone, would put us 70 yards above last year's passing yards.