From Athens - Game Day Friday #2

Just got finished listening to Richt as a guest on Mad Dog sports radio...

When asked what we did well, his response was that we played decent defense at times.

I'm not going to say much about the 3-4 scheme other than this: You can win with
the 3-4.. you can win with the 4-3. You can win with the old Bears 46 defense.
You can win with any number of things. It's not the scheme as they all have their
pluses and minuses. It's about your ability to understand how that particular defense
is supposed to work, and execution.

With the way our offense performed this past week.. putting our defense on the field
so much.. it's hard to accurately say how they did.

Other things of note: Richt thinks we were one or two plays away from having a
very competitive football game that we could have won. If we had just stopped
them twice in the red zone and limited them to field goals we would have been
right there. That may be true, but it's also true that if pigs had wings they
could fly.

Richt is happy we scored on long plays.
While I too am happy when we score on long plays, that tends to limit the number
of plays run in a game... a stated priority per Mike Bobo. That puts your defense
back on the field yet again. If he's happy with that, then why didn't we see more
reverses... more getting IC the ball in space. As soon as we saw one of our
big plays work, we promptly put it in the vault.

CMR also doesn't see the Boise game as a sign of a trend. It was one game, and
that's how everyone is looking at it. Really? Really???
Dude... maybe you should start looking at it as a trend, not an aberration. It
was the same listless, confused game we played against UCF in our last crap
bowl game. Saying it is just one game is brushing the entirety of 2010 under
the carpet. It's sticking your darn head in the sand.

You'll also be happy to know this team only has one goal, per CMR.. to win the
SEC east. Not to win the SEC championship.. just to win the east. We don't set
out to win national championships.. and I quote "because that is out of our
hands". HORSE HOCKEY!! You go out and win your ball games and it
most certainly is NOT out of your hands.

All in all it was a fairly uninspiring chat. I came away from it wondering if
I was listening to the coach of what should be an elite NCAA program, or if
I was just coming down with mononucleosis. It's really a hard call.

bulldawg36869 wrote:

We have all heard of "beer" goggles that occurs after you have been drinking and a less than attractive woman becomes "hot" because you are not seeing correctly.

I wonder what you call the "goggles" that Richt, Bobo and Belue have on?
because they evidently don't see the same games we see.

As for Belue, one short pass to Lindsey Scott and handing off to Herschel is the only reason anyone remembers his name. So take what he says with a grain of salt.


Either Richt changes or UGA changes coaches period !

BUMP!

I think Wartdawg made a comment about this too, but...despite what our offense is doing to our defense right now, I love the 3-4. I think it's perfect for the SEC because it gives us the big nasties up front to contend w/ the large O-linemen in the conference. It gives us the fast/athletic LB's (ala, Jarvis, Tree, etc.) to keep up w/ the Orson Charles' of the conference and it gives us the ability to mask, and run, sophisticated blitzing schemes that should keep opposing QB's either on their toes, or better yet, on their backs.

All that being said, the 3-4 can ONLY be sucessful (especially for the d-lineman who play with all that extra weight) if the offense does it's job and put's points on the board, sustains drives, and gives the D an occasional breather. I honesly believe we haven't seen what our 3-4 is truly capable of...first year in the system last year, and against Boise the defense basically spent the equivalent of a full game on the field at about the 7 minute mark of the second quarter because our offense came out dead.

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record on this board, but I truly believe, the ONLY thing keeping us from being successful right now (and I know it goes back to coaching/gameplan) is the lack of a sustained running game. EVERYTHING, in my mind, comes off of opponents respecting the run. The run sustains drives, eats up clock, tires out opposing defenses, gives our D a chance to rest, and pulls defenders into the box...opening up the play-action and long passing games.

If we run the ball successfully, we win...period. Not sure if this is completely accurate but I think I remember seeing a stat last year that Richt is undefeated (or darn near close to it) when he has a back go for more than 100 in a game...that says it all.

I love the 3-4.

However, with Tree out, we are thin at LB. I would consider switching to the 4-3 for this game.

I can imagine what Lattimore will do to him when he hits him.

Geathers and Jenkins in the middle at the same time---may work.

The beauty of the 3-4 is that it can be masked to look base or like a 4-3. Don't be surprised to see one, or both, or our outside LB's putting their hand in the dirt and rushing from the edge a good bit. We CAN'T give Lattimore space beyond the line of scrimmage...bring up an LB, shift the front three to eat up more space on the line and do EVERYTHING we can to shove as many O-lineman into their backfield as possible.

The main problem with us and the 3-4 is that the "4" in that scheme is 4 linebackers.

I'm not sure we have 4 linebackers.

I hope I'm wrong. We will find out Saturday.