Vanderbilt vs UGA . . .Unfinished Business

Soon we will face up with Vanderbilt. Easy to remember days past when this was a walk over. While I know (know) that we have more talent on both sides of the ball, a bit worried about situational football. One team can get beat in one area and lose the game, came close to that last season.

Allow me to ramble a bit.

I do not believe that our coaching staff started game planning for the Commodores after the FAU game. Do you? This group of coaches seem to have a different way of doing business.

This is not the same group of coaches that hung around Athens four or five years ago.

Time for this group of UGA Football Players to take the “wraps” off and make a simple statement. We (players) know that this is the beginning of the journey that “we” said “we” returned to the Athens Campus for. This group called it “unfinished business”. I believe that. The returning players were not pointing out Vanderbilt, but if business is unfinished, Vanderbilt is on our plate September 22, 2012. That right now is “unfinished business”.

Anyone that reads and participates on this board understands that many of us have been around UGA Football for more than a few seasons. We don’t play the AJC game of “first”, that is for the “newbies” that think you can make a statement for whatever reason, and you are a qualified UGA football “know it all”.

Vanderbilt will get better. Don’t particularly agree with Franklin, but it has to be said that Franklin has changed the Vandy program and I believe that the old “Homecoming” tag no longer fits the program. I love SEC Football, here is hoping that Vandy does well after leaving Athens not before, and Vandy is better than their record shows. My opinion.

Down to the “Game”. If our young men play to their capabilities, Vanderbilt is good competition, but they are between the Hedges and that leaves no room for doubt. Vanderbilt beat Presbyterian handily, UGA beat FAU handily, this is not a game that was played last season, this game is now. Many on this board have said . . . . Win by a point and move on. That could prove to be true. We have played three games, but we have not played a team that will have the same intensity as Franklin and his group of players from Nashville will exhibit.

Appears to me that on a scale of 1 to 100% value rated, UGA is probably playing at 70/80% on the offensive side. On the defensive side, hard to say, but will use the same numbers, 70/80%. I do believe that both sides of this football team will get much stronger than what we have seen to this point. I do not believe that Mike Bobo or Todd Grantham have come close to showing just how much strength they have with their respective squads. All of us are aware of that.

I believe that the only thing that will stop us from winning in Athens this week will be stopping ourselves. Reason that I say that is this . . . . Watching the game against FAU, regardless of the competition, I am pretty sure that I saw our players talking to each other about situations. This is a very smart football group, and for the first time in a long time, I believe they are sincere when they talk about “goals”. These young men hold each other accountable.

Should not do this, and don’t often, however . . . . This is not Presbyterian that Vanderbilt is playing . . . . We win comfortably. Too much depth for the young men from Nashville to handle in the 4th Quarter. Who would have thought in one year UGA would be kicking butt in the fourth quarter. We might see more of this as the year moves along.

Would be interesting to see the “real point spread”. thriller has a handle on that. I think that we are +9 realistically. We are a very good football team, both sides, maybe the Vandy game is when we put four quarters together. Not talking about scoring a lot of points, mean quite simply playing heads up football for all of us to see.

Go Dawgs, 2 SEC East wins mean a lot . . . . changes some things down the road . . .

Like your post Buc. The Dawgs are getting it together on both sides of the ball, plus special teams. And Bobo is calling a good games. This weekends game is going to show a lot where the O-line is, and I'm hoping we get some players back on the defense side of the ball.

The kicking game (field goals) is better this year from last year, I'm glad of that because it may come down to a last second/play of the game for the win.

Good call, buc. I've never been one to buy in to the "we're not showing our full hand" ploy, and until this year, that's not been the case. However, this year, I think we still haven't shown our full hand, especially on D. Obviously, because of the suspensions, but I don't think they've really been tested, so to speak. I think we'll start to see what the D really has.
I think I was the first one to call out the D in the first game this year. I fully believe I was mistaken.

sadlerdawg, believe that prior years had many of us on the war path, quite frankly think that it was deserved. Seeing too much change in leadership for all of us to have been wrong about the direction of the football program.

Think that Todd Grantham really got into the hearts and minds of his players/fans in Nashville last season. UGA needed someone to come along and say there is too much talent in the State of Georgia, and the surrounding Southeastern states to be playing second fiddle to other schools.

The schedule up until now has really worked in our favor. Many of the young players that have participated in the first three games would not have played that much had the schedule been different. Really like the fact that South Carolina was moved further down. Can't get away from the fact that they have a solid football team. Like ogredawg keeps repeating, take it one game at a time and there is much truth in those words . . . . all one needs to do is check out Arkansas and Auburn this past weekend.

Think that all eyes are now on the offensive line, and like TampaDawg said in his post, this weekend we will find out a lot more. At this point I have great faith in the choice of Friend as offensive line coach. Think we might be one class away from making that next step up along the front. Did notice that Beard was inserted against FAU, moved our left tackle to guard. Thought for a minute that Todd Grantham was running the offensive line being as he believes in cross training. Another thing with Beard, apparently the coaches think he is next up among the group of players in line to see some action. That is a good sign.

Lots of hype for Vandy, that is a good thing. Sanford Stadium will truly be rocking for all to see on national TV. Might influence a certain young offensive lineman from Florida to cast his vote with UGA. That would be huge and a definite step up.

Vandy will come ready to play. We will be ready also. I expect to see exactly what we have seen in the previous games. Slow start and then coming on mid way thru the 2nd qtr. We must get over the slow start syndrome, that is really the only problem that I have so far. It may come back to haunt us in the not to distant future.

We should beat Vandy by at least 30 points.

ogredawg wrote: Vandy will come ready to play. We will be ready also. I expect to see exactly what we have seen in the previous games. Slow start and then coming on mid way thru the 2nd qtr. We must get over the slow start syndrome, that is really the only problem that I have so far. It may come back to haunt us in the not to distant future.

We should beat Vandy by at least 30 points.

Yes, we should beat Vandy by at least 30. Games of the recent past would tell me opposite. But let me pose this question to everyone. Would you be happy if we blanked Vandy, and say won by 21?

After last year, would it be more satisfying for our D to pitch a shut-out? Total domination by the D!

Just asking