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Comments
Fields is gone, Eason ...gone, Fromm...gone! Bennett..here...Mathis ...here....Beck ...here..and yes...JT Daniels is still here and very much in the picture to date. Kirby can still make this good! If the season continues?
No reason to stick around these days if you don't feel the coach is giving you a fair shake at the job. If you can't manage any playing time behind the likes of Bennet and Mathis then yeh, probably time to start looking elsewhere. Not like playing behind Lawrence or Fields. LOL!
Understood. All I know is that first year OSU coach Ryan Day took a very inexperienced Fields and turned him into a Heisman candidate in a very short amount of time. We'd better figure out how to see our future at QB, develop it, and run with it. Fromm was not our future. Fields will be a #1 pick in the NFL draft. Fromm was lucky to get picked in the 4th round.
That BIG mistake was on Kirby and his staff. Will he fumble his way through Daniels, Beck, and Vandergriff next year? Will we lose a great QB? Certainly a decent probability.
I don't think Bama, Clemson, or even OSU have had any problems figuring out who is their best QB to take them forward. Good gosh, look at the studs all three of those schools have had at QB pretty much every year - Clemson and Bama especially. Mac Jones doesn't even have a full year under his belt as a starter (was playing his 7th game as a starter when he played UGA). Even DJ at Clemson coming in for Lawrence the last couple of weeks looks pretty darn good considering he is a true freshman. He almost pulled it out against ND.
Fields choose us. We let him wander, and we lost. Fields will go #1 in the Draft. Fromm was lucky enough to get picked in the 4th round. We need a LOT MORE than a game manager.
I like D’Wan a lot, but he seems to panic a in games which is understandable considering his lack of experience. I know he loves UGa and how they took care of him during his brain surgery rehab Unfortunately, he may be a player who leaves to get more playing time. Most people don’t realize that UGa was his 4th commitment during the 2019 recruiting cycle. He initially committed to Iowa State and then Michigan State and then Ohio State and finally UGa. Hopefully he will honor his final commitment and not add a 5th one. Go Dawgs and Stay D’Wan!!!
Well, I don't think it's accurate to call him "very inexperienced." The intent seems to be to liken the sophomore that Day got to the freshman that Smart had, which I don't think is all that fair a comparison. I don't believe at all that anything short of being named the starter would have been enough to keep Fields in Athens. And for reasons that I've already gone into, I really don't think that was the right move to make at the time. Ohio State didn't have an established quarterback in 2019, so going with Fields was pretty much a no-brainer for them.
It always seems to come back to a "Fields was our future" argument from the critics. I don't think anyone's disputing that; I'm certainly not. The hitch is, he wasn't the quarterback of the PRESENT in 2018 when Georgia had a championship run on the table. But we're beating a dead horse. Now, we actually do find ourselves in a season where there's nothing to play for but the future. NOW is the time to put aside the established guy and try to find someone who will be better going forward. If Smart doesn't pursue that, then you and I will be in agreement that he's bungled it.
The most important position in all of sports and we just had the lowest/worst QB rating performance in modern college football! All that while two future first round draft picks FROM GEORGIA are likely taking their team to the playoffs. We have averaged the highest rated recruiting classes over the past four years and will likely be playing a dump bowl this year. I am disgusted.
If we would have had an AVERAGE college QB playing for us last weekend, we would have beaten Florida. I hope Stetson and Mathis never throw another pass in a UGA uniform on a Saturday. Nothing more needs to be said about Stetson, Mathis just doesn't have it between the ears.
I pray we don't lose Brock Vandagrif!
How complex is our offense? QB is cerebral in any system. But if the system requires a rocket scientist (at one end of the spectrum) to run it well, you may never get the game-changer athlete (at the other end) to play the position.
If this is true, how to get the offense simpler?
Fair enough. I guess from my perspective Fields was pretty inexperienced considering he went from little playing time and the UGA offensive schemes and mindsets to a brand new, completely different offense under a first year coach in Ryan Day. That's a pretty drastic change. He handled it beautifully.
The best QB out there won't necessarily win Championships - look at Oklahoma with Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield. Heisman winners that never won a NC. No defense at all for Oklahoma in those years. However, like it or not, Oklahoma has made the playoffs in 4 of the 7 years since its inception. It must be even more frustrating as an Oklahoma fan to make the playoffs 4 times and usually lose in the 1st round. Not sure which is worse - them losing constantly or us only making it once and barely losing in the Championship game. On the flip side, look how fast LSU has fallen off their lofty perch. Sure they lost a ton of players (like we will on defense this year), but LSU doesn't win that NC without Joe Burrows. So, you've got to have all the pieces to make a Championship run. It's just mind boggling to think how easy Bama and Clemson make it look year after year. It's certainly not because they recruit better players than us. Under Smart, many times UGA has had as good as or better recruiting class than either one of them. Let's hope Kirby can get all the pieces at the same time to make another run for it.
Two words. Talent. Development. I don't disagree with "rock bottom" and there are a convergence of many elements that combined to get UGA here. I do think Kirby and his coaches did not do enough to develop the obvious (even then) talent that Fields had and has. Sure, Fromm has leadership in spades, but his talent would never compare to Fields. And even Fromm did not develop after his unreal freshman season. Was it Chaney? Was is Coley? Was it Smart? Certainly a combination of all three. Regardless, Fields clearly should have had many more snaps in consequential circumstances in order to make the mistakes all freshmen make and still give UGA an opportunity to win games. Unfortunately, this season's goals must be a week at a time now. And this time should be used to DEVELOP the TALENT. That isn't Bennett, God bless him. I wouldn't completely give up on Mathis, but Daniels and Beck absolutely should get long looks over the next however many games we have left this year and bowl season. I don't know if Vandagriff will be an early enrollee, but if so, he should be able to get some time in bowl practice, since league games and championships won't end much before Christmas. Go Dawgs!
Also, you cannot judge anything from Monken this year. Without spring practice and summer workouts and personnel in and out, he hasn't had anything consistent to work with. He's scored points everywhere he's been, including scoring records in the NFL. Let's see what a full offseason (hopefully) of work with his team produces next year. Matt Luke has done an excellent job under the Covid circumstances. I hope we can keep both, but I suspect Luke will get a HC offer after this season. And Monken could get a better offer, too. Go Dawgs!
You can only throw a football so far or with so much zip. While zip and length can have their advantages, most QB's 4-5 stars can throw the ball 55 yards when needed. Stetson can certainly do that. The critical factor is accuracy. Some zip plus accuracy then you have the world as your onion. Jake Fromm had average accuracy and a weak arm. What he lacked in physical attributes he compensated by the mental part of it.
Then throw in the things that can't really be taught, you either have it or you don't. Things like anticipation, the leading of a receiver, when to put a little extra on and when to take a little bit off, the ability to slow the game down in your head, when to be patient and when to unload it, almost a 6th sense, and then the fight in the dog. Like people said about Tua, when he's in there you just know good things are going to happen.
I'm convinced these things can only truly be tested under pressure. It's why Franks started over Trask until Franks gets hurt. Franks looke like the better guy in practice to Mullins. So much for the QB whisperer, non contact practice didn't show Mullins how much of a better QB that Trask was. Mullins covered himself by saying the usual "well Trask really matured", or "was a work in progress", "late bloomer" blah , blah blah, no you couldn't see the diamond you had. You started Franks!
Game pressure or scrimmages where the QB can be hit. It's what separates the men from the boys. That's why IMO you look at game film, the film doesn't lie. Non-contact practice and everyone is Joe Montana.
Fields didn't leave because of playing time. He left because of the racial issue. He felt like his life was in danger. Remember? That's why the NCAA granted him immediate eligibility at Ohio State. (sarcasm intended)
There was 1 reporter that threw that out there. It was never confirmed and Fields never said a bad word about UGA and went out of his way to say good things about UGA. Clearly there are no hard feelings between UGA and Fields or he wouldn't have been allowed to visit practice.
Also, LOL at talking like Fields is the one making the case for himself. You realize that's what the lawyer is for. If anything was put out there is was the legal strategy of his lawyer which, frankly, would have been **** not to use. His job is to advocate for his client and it would have been malpractice not to use that event that DID happen--I swear some of y'all are more upset by a lawyer's strategy than the fact that the highest rated recruit UGA had ever gotten was referred to openly as an N-word in a crowd full of UGA fans. Telling...
In my opinion it's UGA needs to have a plan at QB and stop winging it. A lot of these problems can be considered problems specifically because UGA has failed to have a plan at QB and is just gathering talent hoping it solves itself.
If you recruit the highest rated player you've ever brought in, the plan cannot be "There is no plan." I'd say the same thing w/ Newman and JT this year. Is it possible Newman wasn't happy about possibly being benched to play JT Daniels after the school fought to get him immediate eligibility? I don't think Newman had to be scared of Daniels to wonder what the deal is there? As Conor showed, Newman didn't commit to Monken. If there is any doubt that he wasn't going to be the guy this year, he had no choice but to leave. Fans can talk about quitting, but it's his life that would have suffered, not fans, if for any reason things didn't go as planned this year. It seems in hindsight that the plan was to play Newman, but not sure how he could have known that. So again, the plan needs to be in place. That would solve a lot of these issues.
If Brock is as talented as everyone thinks he needs to get game reps consistently if he's able to. None of this 1 game hand off, don't see you for 4 weeks, etc. Have a plan.