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Georgia football report card: Bulldogs’ 10-3 win over Clemson passes test on national stage
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Georgia football report card: Bulldogs’ 10-3 win over Clemson passes test on national stage
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Georgia football passed a major test Saturday night with the nation looking on, finding a way past a Clemson program that hadn’t lost back-to-back in nearly 10 years over a span of 127 games.
Comments
what about special teams rating?? Camarda was the MVP for most of the game, until the defense kept racking up the sacks and pressure.
Report card or not...
Great day to wake up a Dawg fan.
In general, I'd agree with your grades overall Mike. The offense sputtered and Clemson's zone defense created confusion for Daniels.
A few other comments...
James Cook was ineffective. I think he netted 7 yards in all his completed passes. Zeus was the offensive workhorse. The other backs didn't produce much.
Clemson pretty well shut down those sweeps and short behind-the-line passes that JT used 80% of the time. JT made a couple of bad decisions that almost cost us the ball including one throw to the back of the end zone with the receiver double covered. But if it wasn't for Daniels releasing the ball as quickly as he did, there would have been more sacks on him by Clemson. So the O line needs to improve if we are going to march down the field with an aggressive vertical passing game against formidable opponents in the future. As Kirby said in his postgame interview, we've got to get the offense moving down the field....VERTICALLY....not horizontally.
I can't say enough good things about the defense. They played lights out - especially the front 7. Kudos to all those guys and Lanning for coming in with a game plan that surprised and confused Clemson's offense. I absolutely loved the aggressive play.
I'd give a B- to Special teams. Missed FG and kick coverage turnover marred an otherwise good outing by the kicking teams. Camarda did great.
(10) penalties on the Dawgs - WAY TOO MANY - and several of those were defensive pass interference/holding that gave the Tigers a first down and new life. It's one thing to be aggressive on defense, and it's another thing to shoot yourself in the foot with being too aggressive.
I will say this....after seeing Bama yesterday play Miami....from an offensive perspective we've got a LONG way to go to be able to compete with those guys (and so does Clemson). Bama's defense wasn't as impressive as expected, but Bryce Young is the real deal...cool, calm, collected, smart, and accurate for the most part.
The very good news is we have several weeks of inferior opponents to play ahead of us to get more players back on the field and work on improving.
GO DAWGS!!
Second the vote for Camarda as MVP for keeping Clemson backed up near their goal line the entire night. It is tough to go 80+ yards to score against this Junkyard Dog defense. Also, I can’t remember seeing more pass interference penalties in one game. I even heard the Clemson announcers calling them “soft” PI penalties.
I would give special teams an A minus or B plus if the missed FG is factored in. Punting and kickoff were both solid A's.
An overall A may be stretching it for this UGA performance. I would say B+. I say that because of the 10 penalties!!! So reminiscent of UGA. Many, as has been stated, were pass interference. UGA MUST somehow cut the penalties. Yet with all those 15 yard penalties and first downs for Clemson..UGA still won. Kudos!! That is pure grit football. Junkyard Dawg style. Now to re- insert the expected aerial element to the game with JT and the season belongs to UGA. UGA has to become more explosive. Lots of first-game mishaps will be ironed out as the season deepens. I have extreme confidence in this rather young 2021 team. GO DAWGS!!!
IF AMYBODY HERE IS HAVING A BAD DAY GO TO THE GA TECH BLOG IT WILL DEFINITELY CHEER U UP 😂😂💪🏿😂
We made some mistakes that's for sure.
The best parts of the article are the paragraphs explaining the grades. Great stuff. I'm not so sure about all the grades themselves but who cares.
The main grade I care about is the W.
It's extremely obvious that J T Daniels and Kirby Smart are well aware of exactly what needs doing, and why.
What's a bit of a mystery isn't that Clemson's defense fooled us from the get go, but why we didn't adjust to it at half time.
I noticed a couple of times situations where a toss sweep worked well, one in particular featuring Zeus. I saw opportunities to hit our running back with a quick pass as he penetrated the secondary and was wide open. On one I'm again thinking of Zeus. (On the Charlie Foxtrot incompletion in Clemson's end zone.)
Enough with so many horizontal passes behind the LOS. We do 'em so much they're predictable. Surely we can, should, and must adjust in far less predictable ways.
Obviously the main adjustment to a pass defense like Clemson used should be to run the ball. We didn't do well with that. That looks like an offensive line issue more than anything else.
Am I the only one who thinks James Cook should be a pass catcher more than a running back? I don't mean a behind the LOS pass catcher. Exactly how to make this happen is above my pay grade.
Even though we all have a bit of Sunday morning quarterback going at the moment - certainly I do - mostly the entire DawgNation is over the moon celebrating a truly impressive victory over a strong, capable, well coached, very talented Clemson team who gave us all we wanted and more.
We gave them even more. Amazing defensive performance. A great game. One of the best I've ever seen.
Go, Dawgs!
I think most people would complain if they were given a million dollars. We beat the best team the acc has to offer in basically their backyard and we made plays when we needed to. We got the win, who cares about how bad some things looked or not!! Go Dawgs!!
Odd ratings.
Anyway, awesome job Dawgs! HUGE win and a crushing defeat for Clemson. DJ probably lost any chance at the Heisman and Clemson will now have a tough time proving they are Playoff contenders given their weak remaining schedule.
... wait, Smart said that our "next opponent was tough". Did he get confused? It's UAB. We have a 94.4% chance of beating them and should be solid 14-21 point favorites.
Also spot on about the receivers and their “less than adequate” blocking. Those quick throws to Cook and other RB’s have no chance if the WR can’t at least screen the DB and give them a chance to turn up field. These high skill pass catchers Kirby has recruited show little willingness to stick their nose in and make a block. We haven’t had a strong blocking WR since Chris Connolly went to the NFL. He was often the secret weapon that sprung Chubb and Michel on our way to the playoffs in 2017.
I think Mike's grading was pretty fair. We were playing Clemson and before last night, Clemson's defense were being proclaimed by the sports casters as the best in the country. Georgia's defense seemingly over took them last night. Our receivers room has taken a hit with injuries etc. I hope Jackson, Blalock and Gilbert can get well and back in action. The A's, B's, and so on are fine and a good way to break it down. But the final grade of W is what counts to me. Great win over a truly great team. 2 top ranked teams going at it.
Anybody know the injury report on Tate Ratledge?
Yes, I'm glad someone else noticed this. I counted 3 bad pass interference calls against our DBs - either minimal to no contact, or contact during a pass that was clearly never going to be catchable. We had an iffy decision or two go our way as well, so this isn't to blame the refs for anything. It's just a pet peeve of mine when people point to the number of penalties without acknowledging the bad calls.
There are certainly some things to clean up, but I think most of it is simply a matter of time; the receivers need time to heal and the offensive line needs time to gel as a unit. With those issues being what they were, and going up against one of the deepest, most talented, experienced and well-coached defenses in the country, I think the play calling and Daniels' decision making were exactly what the situation called for. I thought the pass into heavy coverage was fine; he seemed to put it where either his receiver would catch it or no one would, and it was very nearly a touchdown.
Overall, it's a pretty promising sign when you can come away from a win over a top 3 opponent with a list of things to improve on.
If you haven't heard yet, from what I saw, Ratledge is done for the year.
I agree, 2 of the calls, the ball surely seemed to be uncatchable. Now the 1 at the goal line was pretty bad. But I would rather that happen, then give up an easy td. And I honestly believe that Ringo is going to be a stud. He just needs to learn to use his aggressiveness and physicality at the line of scrimmage to get the receiver out of timing then downfield. Even though they let it go for Clemson. Go to the Clemson page and all you hear, earlier, was the no call on Dean out of bounds. But it's amazing how nobody remembers on 1 of the P.I. calls, how Nolan Smith got his helmet ripped off because of hands to the face. SMH.
Different topic- grade of the o-line. Yeah and no. Mike said, they kept him upright, which was pretty true. But JTD had to keep throwing 0-3 yard passes, because of the pressure, or was it just happy feet? But ok with the grade because, when it mattered the most at the end of the game, they ran the ball and picked up 2-3 first downs to salt the game away.
Other grades, as some others have said, the W grade is the best.
GO DAWGS!!!!