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Georgia defense reloaded, flexes muscle in G-Day Game, what that means for offense
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Georgia defense reloaded, flexes muscle in G-Day Game, what that means for offense
ATHENS — The 2022 Georgia football team introduced itself on Saturday, and it’s not exactly who we thought it was.
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Interesting take on the defense. I hope you are correct, @MikeGriffith .
I do think the defense showed well against an offense that they knew was going to try to air it out—similar to actual games where an offense has to go pass heavy.
I suppose the offense also got some good reps for how it might have to play down two or more scores in the second half of an actual game.
I hope Kirby and Muschamp stay forever. I know Muschamp probably won't so how about until his son graduates at least? Muschamp is the X-factor. Fantastic defensive coach on top of Kirby. WOW. Best defensive coaching staff in the nation at UGA.
I couldn't post this under Jordan's article so here goes: Jordan could have walked away at the end of last year and gone Pro probably in the 2nd round somewhere, but he decided to come back and his decision influenced DeVontae Wyatt and look at what they have accomplished as a team and as individuals! THey have helped in a huge way bring a Natty to UGA, they have moved up the draft board and in essence made for themselves hundreds of thousands, if not millions more for their signing bonuses. That's how you do it! Congratulations young men for delayed gratification and thinking of team first! That's a rare thing today.
Not only that but these guys will always be legendary in the future. THey should never have to pay for another meal again in the state of Ga.
I believe Muschamp had an equal hand in UGA winning the CFP Title , along with Monken last season. I believe if the Dawgs make it back to the CFP, he will once again play a major part, helping to get the secondary peaking at the right time.
A comment re Connor Riley's post on WRs (where comments aren't loading):
So long as we don't have another run of injuries, we'll have more depth at high-performing wide receivers than in 2021.
Healthy versions of Blaylock, Jackson and Mitchell will be comparably dangerous to last year's Burton. With a bit more experience, Rosemy-Jacksaint and Smith could also be at that level. And the weapon known as McConkey is basically the SBIV of WRs: undersized, underestimated and more physically gifted than people realize.
It's true that nobody has shown themselves to be a George Pickens. On the flip side, however, given Monken's ability to play to strengths, our TEs will take a lot of pressure off the WRs.
I didn’t miss Bowers. Will be glad when he’s back but plenty of talent at position to showcase and get reps. Also WR group showed great improvement (see Conners piece.
Honestly, I'm not sure. My gut says that this wasn't a "lights out" defense as it didn't feel like the QBs were being chased all day. Instead, it felt more like the Defense was "cheating" in that they knew that Smart wanted to air out the ball and they also knew that the Offensive line wasn't going to hit as hard as they would in a Live game given the fact they are teammates. The batted passes indicated that they were just kinda hanging out trying to block the pass... that's something that would not and could not happen in a Live game.
Also, the lack of the ability to pass (in my opinion) was more on the offense not completing the passes due sometimes to the throw (behind the back instead of in front) and honestly just dropped sometimes. I suspect there is far more work on the D that needs to be done compared with what the numbers might show.
I never really worry about the D, though, as you know between Smart and Muschamp that they will put together the best D that they can. The offense is always the one you worry about.
I tried posting a similar response in the article about the receivers, but it wasn't accepted. Strange. But my point was we don't have any exceptional WR as of right now, but I feel like we have a bunch of good to really good ones. And they can all catch the ball, unlike just a few years ago the options we had outside of just a couple of decent guys couldn't catch it at all. Certainly not in a critical part of the game.
That limitation is gone. Sky is the limit.
What I saw Saturday was guys running shorter routes or out of the backfield were open all day long, but the QB's all want to prove they can hit the big play over the middle.
Dawg D will be just fine... top talent X top coaching = junkyard D. But Mike, maybe as Kirby puts another stellar product on the field, you can find more compelling photography for these posts... surely you can upgrade the not-so-flattering stock pics of Muschamp and Schumann you've been using for a while now. ;-) Go Dawgs!
First string defense was better than expected but it is still a rebuild with two new coaches & two new reassigned co-ordinators. The offense is loaded even with players sitting while recovering from injuries. They were being led by a 6th year CFP Championship Grad student with 17 starts & 26 games under his belt. Not only should we have seen improvement, the #1 QB should have at least had a good day if not an outstanding one. Instead we witnessed the same "boneheaded", uninspired, unimpressive effort seen numerous times last season which led to questions across the board about the choice for starting QB. The potential is there for this offense to be as dominant as the 2021 defense. Prior to spring practice, Kirby felt the need to question the effort & leadership & obvious feeling of entitlement at QB. G Day showed those comments were justified. Why should we believe anything is going to change over the next 4 months? No matter which way you slice it, there needs to be significant improvements made at the QB position by August or as we are already seeing in the media & hearing from analyst, the QB controversy will far eclipse what we saw last season.
I felt like this was the second straight G-Day game where the #1 D-line out performed the #1 O-line in the trenches. There were several times when the pass protection looked more like a swinging gate than a stone wall. As Mike noted, the running game went nowhere as it looked like the O-line was only going through the motions at times. While the O-line is populated with a bunch of 4* and 5* guys, I am starting to worry that they think they can just show up and the other team will bow down to them. Coach Searles has his work cut out for him. Coach Luke wasn't doing that much better with them last year either.
You really have to get down and dirty to run block. You have to be all in as they say. Usually not going to happen in a scrimmage. Hence very few runs with very little yardage..
@MikeGriffith
Very good assessment Mike. I agree completely. The defense is going to be better overall next year, because of the Backfield. It WILL be different, though. They won't be as dominant on the front end, but, given the upgrade on the back end...they won't have to be. There were some guys playing with the 2's that I think you could see move to the 1's.
And, the offense...well, forget about it. They are loaded. So much so, that you didn't see a whole lot of drop off between 1st team and 2nd team. I think they will be practically unstoppable next year.
FYI...BAMA's defense is going to be off the chain in 2022. I believe it will be Saban's answer to UGA's 2021 defense...maybe not as deep, though.
@Betheredge
LOL...Couldn't disagree more about the QB position. I've seen a number of Spring games this year, and from everything I've seen, Bennett has performed at the highest level...all things considered.
He was not allowed to leave the pocket or run with the ball. He made some good decisions and 1 or 2 bad ones. But, he wasn't given the opportunity to play HIS game and that's okay.
Kirby knows what he can do. He didn't have to see it again in a Spring game. What he needed to see, was Bennett stay in the pocket and make fast decisions. Scan the field, go through his progressions and get rid of the ball by either targeting a receiver or throwing it away.
The defense was allowed to pin their ears back and go after him. The offensive line did an admirable job of slowing down the rush from some very talented defenders.
Sometimes, people look so hard for the bad in failure, that they fail to see the brilliance in the successes. Bennett made some big-time throws over the middle and 2 bad ones. What you see as a throw behind a receiver or low or high,, 9 out of 10 times is intentional ball placement,, depending on where the defender is.. it's the receiver's responsibility to make the necessary adjustment, unless it's a timing pattern designed to be thrown to a spot on the field. That's just a fact. It's not all on the QB, but, that's all the average fan sees.
You should have seen Young and BAMA's offensive performance. It was so pathetic, they had to sit Will Anderson in the second half to give them a chance to score...which they eventually did, on a 60-70 yd run by GT Transfer, Gibb. Do you think that means Young is a crap QB...just because he had a lousy Spring game with a fumble and INT, very few completions or yards and zero points.
Just sayin'.