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Comments
Drew Bobo did a good job on the play, but "pass"—-I don't think so. Thinking of Monroe Freeling as the "Rock" and standard of our once and future offensive line is a scary thought. I'll say again—does anybody have Matt Luke's phone number? I'm sure he'd like to get out of that "Rat Hole" where he lives now.
I’m sorry but he needs to be let go or demoted. He wasn’t very good under Richt and he hasn’t improved any. Booboo convinced Kirby that he was better, but clearly hasn’t.
What about Eric Mateos at Arkansas? Throw some money at him.
Did I see that right…Freeling and Greene are the linemen rudders for2025? Oh boy..UGA needs to get on the phone and hit the portal. UGA is again diminished in OL and now DL. Gotta wait and see how this all shakes out. We now have top WRS out the yang and good QBs and some RB power…but no front again to protect them, especially Gunner! I am holding my breath on Searels and Bobo. If we can manage to prop up a good defense and offense…their job will be easier.
Individual talent wasn't the issue. When the whole falls short of the sum of the parts, you have to wonder about the coaching.
Ratledge and Fairchild were highly recruited and were selected this year as All-Americans. Jared Wilson was highly recruited and talked about before the season as more talented than SVP. Truss was never a slouch, is huge and had five years of college experience coming into this season.
But, after a month off, this totally healthy OL was terribly unprepared for ND. They were easily our worst performing unit iagainst an undersized DL that was missing its most talented player. One could easily argue that the OL's per performance cost us that game.
In Fairchild and Wilson, we have two guys leaving whose draft stock would have benefited by staying. Under previous OL coaches, they might have. It makes one wonder whether they just didn't have confidence that they were developing under Searels.
Even worse, all four of the promising NFL linemen who are leaving were recruiting by Luke or Pittman. Under them, we were regularly drawing top 50 guys (overall) at the T and IOL positions. Under Searles, only one recruit (Freeling) has been ranked in the top 100. The other two most likely 2025 starters were recruited by Luke.
Other than perhaps Freeling, there are no Thomases, Wilsons, Salyers, Joneses, Mims or Ratledges in the pipeline. So, we're expecting to fill one hole with a redshirt freshman and the other with … who knows? The cupboard is getting bare.
I've hesitated to judge position coaches from the outside. But it sure doesn't look good from this vantage point.
This could be a key decision for Kirby's success moving forward Much as his own mentor did at Alabama, Smart is now mentoring a growing coaching tree — Lanning, Pitmann, Fran Brown and Dell McGee are all head coaches, with the first three all improving their respective programs. Schumann and Hartley are likely candidates as HC slots in the future.
But the track records of some assistants — notably the three guys on their second go-around on the UGA staff (Bobo, Coley and Searles) — seem a bit shaky.
Saban was also fairly ruthless in letting coaches go if they weren't elite in their positions. Surely, Kirby — who's an incredibly smart guy — understands that such hard decisions are part of excellent management.
5 stars want the money and to be coached up to NFL level of play. If we don't have the coaches to deliver NFL quality coaching, throwing money at the problem won't be enough.
I agree somewhat but would put safeties, OLBs and maybe WRs and CBs ahead of DLs as question marks. At least in the same neighborhood. In other words: a lot of questions!
There also are bound to be some concerns anytime you're replacing the QB (although I am feeling good about Stockton).
To be fair, the UGA Joe Moore OL award contenders were mostly Sam Pittman recruits. They became part of the UGA culture before NIL became the determining factor for elite HS recruits. The UGA OL recruits in the last few years have not been as highly ranked (talented) as the previous recruits were. We have seen the results of the talent drop off. UGA has not invested NIL in premium OL recruits as other programs have. Whatever Searles is or isn't he has not had the same level of player that previous coaches have had. You could change the coach and the problem could still remain.
As for next season, IF EGreen comes back, UGA would have some good pieces to develop and build around. An OL of (L-R) Green, Morris, Bobo, Calhoun, Freeling is a pretty good group to try and develop. JJackson at RT and some of the other, very large humans have potential to be very effective and should push all/any starters.
UGA is very heavy on play action. Seems that the UGA OL is initially taking pass pro sets on running plays to disguise play action/pass pro sets that are coming later. With UGA's OL size, need to return to road grader get off on running plays. Big OL needs to take it to the DL in front of them.
BTW, UNC led CFB in rushing Searels last season there. As I have said before, UGA's biggest offensive problem is predictability and limited number of plays. Teams know what is coming before the snap. WR screens have replaced sweeps and RB screens. The problem is they take too long to develop if the ball isn't perfectly placed or the QB doesn't have the arm to get the ball out. Running play action on a WR screen just seems self defeating.
UGA has great size on the OL but sacrificed OL mobility by going with such big guys.
@CandlerPark Jared Wilson was a 3* (Rivals) in the '21 class. You are spot on regarding the level of Pittman's recruits to what UGA is getting in the NIL era.
Bobo's defense the past several years at Auburn or SC was he just didn't have the talent to work with. And he comes to UGA and now it's the same ole song and dance. It's the talent. At the begiining of the year the three most talented rosters were UGA, Ohio St., and Texas as said by so many. We have a poor offensive year and now guess what the argument is: Bobo just didn't have enough talent to work with. GIve him Bowers and McConkey and he's great.
Appears to me that will always be the case with Bobo. GIVe him Aaron Murray, Charles, Moreno, Malcom MItchell, Taverres King, Chris Conley and he can score some points. And so could your average run-of-the-mill college OC.
I agree. I remember the announcers in the game talking about the undersized ND line and how the UGA OL could just lean on them to move the line. It didn't happen.
Hard to disagree with much on here, but there is still one elephant in the room that affects all of this: WR drops. Worst in FBS. That affected everything and they tended to be on the very biggest plays.
While I agree with most of the Searles points, much of the Coley points (other posts), and many of the BoBo points, having receivers that can't catch kills it all. That's not on the O line, the D, or even coaches (with the possible exception of Coley)... it's a person's ability to catch, pure and simple.
I'm not suggesting we could eliminate all drops or even most. Not even that we have to be Top 5. However, if you go back and randomly convert 50% of Smith's and Bell's (or pick whatever high play count WR you'd like for #2) drops, and we have a very different year... and we'd all be MUCH more excited for tonight's game 🫤
Yes, fix all the rest. No doubt. But unless we fix drops, 2025 will likely be even worse, given this year's player rotation.
It is indeed looking like a coaching problem.
Kirby is risking everything - his legacy, his reputation, our team's record, future championships, recruitment, etc. - if he's keeping coaches who are not excellent.
102nd is an F- for our offensive line coach. Injuries are not a sufficient excuse. Our OL line players in the Notre Dame game were said to be healthy yet our line looked like dog squeeze compared to Notre Dame.
Go, Dawgs!
I sure hope Kirby reads some of these comments. He probably doesn't, but I can hope. It's sad we have to lean on hope. Starting to understand why Saban was so good. He would can your butt in a heartbeat, and everyone knew it…
I heard saban was on a show talking about a recruit who went to another school that Bama didn't even offer - Saban said he wished he could go back and fire that position coach. I know that sounds bad to most of us, but those coordinators are still getting paid a half million to get it right, which is more than the vast majority of CEO's. Elite pay demands elite results.
When you are hundred and something in rushing and giving up 25 sacks in a season it's obvious your o-line has under performed. As a unit these guys were consistently inconsistent and at times left the running backs and quarterbacks on their own. A lot of it was technique (or lack of). With the issues on the offensive side of the ball, doubt you could get even Monken to make it work.
1st half points: 6-Clemson, 3-Kentucky, 7-Alabama, 6-Florida, 7-Ole Miss, 0-Ga.Tech, 3-Texas, 3-ND
1st Qtr Pts per Game: 120th/15th (National / SEC Rank)
1st Half points per Game: 99th/14th
Rushing Yards per Game: 102/15th
Yards per completion: 78th/15th
$775 K to be 102th in rushing. What corporation would not fire that guy. Dawgnation needs to put all stories below this one. It's the only thing Dawg fans care about right now. It's OBVIOUS