Questionable Thoughts About 2013, and Beyond

Think that Vanderbilt is serious about football.

Comes a time when you put up of shut up. Vandy likes winning and plan to continue doing so.

McGarity, Vanderbilt figured out a way to build a indoor facility, might want to discuss the "process" with their higher ups. Realize you are a "newbie" at your position in Athens, spending 10 or so years under Jeremy Foley did not allow you to learn the tricks of the trade.

You mentioned rain and bad weather comes only two or three times a year. There are "other reasons" to have an indoor facility. Guess you will learn as you go. Sure hoping we don't see more decline in our program due to a lack of "leadership".

Sometimes universities make mistakes when hiring head football coaches . . . . sometimes universities make mistakes when hiring athletic directors. Believe all of us know the end result of leadership slipping between the cracks.

The Georgia G would look real good in a facility like the one in the video below, don't think the Falcons would allow changes to their facility.

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Also . . . .
www.robinsmorton.com/projects/auburn-uni...r-practice-facility/

We don't need a indoor practice facility. Just ask the guy that sits in a office all day. It's ridiculous we keep falling further behind other programs.

DAWGtm, looking everywhere this morning for the James Franklin news. TV report said that he is now the head coach at Penn State. urban won't back this guy down. Big whatever needs someone like Franklin to give ohio state a run for their money. Might take a short time, but can see that happening on the horizon.

Going to be interesting to see who takes the vacated spot in Nashville. Might be a surprise, me thinks.

Here is a tweet from Franklin. Headed your way urban.

Franklin: "I've worked my way through every division of football and no other school boasts a fan base like we do. We Are...Penn State!!"

Interesting piece of information. Appears the upper level group at Vanderbilt know how to handle contracts and personnel.

Also appears Penn State is serious about returning to glory. Not sitting on the money, know what I mean . . . .

Vanderbilt Commodores head coach James Franklin will be leaving the SEC to take over as the leading man of the Penn State Nittany Lions, but there is an interesting clause in his contract that could make it difficult to lure Franklin away from Vanderbilt. Apparently, the buyout that would be required to get Franklin out of his contract with Vanderbilt is tied to a $31 million indoor practice facility. If Franklin was to leave Vanderbilt, the team that brings him on board would be forced to pay off the remainder of the project.

This is VERY long (sorry) but an interesting read that I'm sure will crank everybody up.


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ATHENS – When Georgia loses five games in a season something went wrong.
The simple answer is quite simple – you can’t lose as many offense players that Georgia did for the amount of time that Georgia did and expect to consistently win football games.
Anymore the SEC and college football is about scoring points – just look at the BCS bowl games – four have already been played (in order of points scored): Central Florida 52, Oklahoma 45, Baylor 42, Clemson 40, Ohio State 35, Alabama 31, Michigan State 24 and Stanford 20.
The offenses in the SEC now score 32 points a game – the league has changed in a way that didn’t seem possible even two years ago.
Not that long ago in college football, and certainly at Georgia, if you scored 30 points or more in a game you were probably going to win… not so much any more. So consider the points scored by the opposition in the games Georgia lost – Clemson (38), Missouri (41), Vanderbilt (31), Auburn (43) and Nebraska (24).
To say that Georgia could have won all of those games is not a stretch by any means. The botched snap against Clemson turned the tide in that one; Georgia limped into the Missouri and Vanderbilt games and those were still in doubt late in the fourth quarter… a little help from SEC officials didn’t hurt Vandy’s chances – two more special teams goofs were too much to overcome in that one; Auburn – I don’t think I need to go over that one, and Nebraska – a game Georgia lost, somehow, even though it twice had the ball late in the shadow of Nebraska’s end zone.
Georgia also could have lost to Tennessee and Georgia Tech, but, to be fair, it wouldn’t have lost to the Vols had a sniper not been firing injuries bullets during that game from somewhere inside Neyland Stadium. The Dawgs shouldn’t have needed overtime to beat Tech, but I digress.
So what’s the point of the review? Consider it a refresher course.
The offense, with the exception of the two games against Missouri and Vanderbilt, was what it needed to be in 2014. In those games Georgia, quite frankly, was at its lowest talented level with the skill players as it had been since it kicked off against Mississippi State in 2010… that was the game without A.J. Green.
Georgia finished the season averaging scoring 37 points a game – #21 in the country. Quick – which two games were the only two games where Georgia scored less than 30 points in the regular season? Yep, Vanderbilt and Missouri.
Aaron Murray is good – damn good – but it was asking a lot to have him win the game with two skill players of note – Chris Conley and Artie Lynch. It’s not going to happen in this conference any weekend. You have to have a legitimate run game – and this is not putting J.J. Green and Brendan Douglass down – to win in this conference. Once Keith Marshall went out after Todd Gurley’s injury things got very, very complicated for Mike Bobo.
LSU has the #23 scoring defense in the country; South Carolina has the #14 – did Georgia put up 44 and 41 on those teams with smoke and mirrors? No shot. You know it, and I know it – Georgia had players in those games they simply did not have in October. The return of Todd Gurley from the Florida game on made a huge difference in offensive production.
The point? There are a few.
Todd Gurley needs someone to spell him at running back. He was banged up from the LSU game on. Once Keith Marshall was out Georgia’s season became very, very challenging. Georgia has tons of talent – no question – but there is a reason third string players are third string players – them being true freshmen didn’t help matters any.
The return of Marshall to the run game will help, but the addition of either Sony Michel or Nick Chubb alone would help at that #3 spot. A.J. Turman is now available as well. Lest we forget what Brendan Douglass can do when called on – he’s a valuable commodity for what he is, and that’s great. But defenses were not respecting the Georgia run game when he and Green, who will likely get more reps in the return game than at running back in the future, were in the backfield.
Of the two incoming backs Michel is probably the back to keep note of, but he’s not a heavy lifter… he’s a home-run hitter. Chubb is certainly more prepared right now body-wise for the fight that is the SEC. But you don’t have to take sides as to which of the two is better because unless something strange happens between now and Signing Day you get both.
Again, that group will help. Any time you can run you can win, and it will be easier to do that with a stack of backs behind Gurley than with pretty much just him carrying the load in crunch time. He also needs to be competed with on a peer level. He’s damn good, but he should have to feel like he’s going to have to move it or lose some snaps in the games. There is no way that’s a fear for him right now because that’s not reality.
The addition of Malcom Mitchell and Justin Scott-Wesley will help the quick pass game – and certainly the down-field passing. I don’t expect Hutson Mason to be big play-action pass guy – that’s going to be Brice Ramsey in the near future. Mason doesn’t have the talent of Murray or Ramsey, but he’s a perfectly fine fit if he can play the way he wants to play – fast. That was impossible in the rain at the Gator Bowl. With the turf wet and soggy and officials throwing in dry balls for wet balls – it was a mess. He was obviously never comfortable there, but still his targets in the hands who should have positioned Georgia for a second come-from-behind win. It didn’t happen.
He’s also going to have to get better in the red zone. Some of that is going to be Gurley being a man in the red zone. Some of that is going to be the offensive line getting it done. Some of that is going to be the receivers going to go get it.
Mason is going to have to play smart and deal with what he’s got – he did that against Tech, and was fine – actually he did quite well. Then again an inch of rain wasn’t on the turf at Tech either.
Look, Mason is going to be pushed in the spring by Ramsey. The Camden County native is the most natural signal caller at Georgia since Matthew Stafford. Big, broad and with the best arm this side of Stafford, Ramsey is going to have to nail everything down in the spring in order to get playing time. I have my doubts that he will get a ton this fall, but I can assure you that he’s as talented at his position as anyone in the program is at their position.
But Ramsey is young and needs time to transition from the Wing-T to the pro set. And before you think that a Wing-T quarterback can’t do that, or that somehow the Wing-T hurts him – go back and check to see what offensive system Joe Flacco and Jameis Winston ran in high school. Wing-T doesn’t seem to be hurting their ability to slash folks, and it won’t hurt Ramsey’s either. Doubt Ramsey’s ability and find out just how little you know about football at Georgia.
Expect the hurry up offense from Mason. Expect him to be the starter the entire year. Expect that if he plays well to fine that Georgia will win the East in the fall. There is so much turnover in the East outside of Georgia that it is crazy.
Everyone will focus on everything that went wrong in 2013 – particularly the Gator Bowl – that they will forget everything that Georgia has going for it. Georgia’s offense won’t have Aaron Murray as the trigger man, and it will have to figure out two starters on the offensive line, but that’s about it – everyone else is back and the cavalry that is Mitchell, JSW, Marshall and even Jay Rome will return in the fall.
That brings me to the defense – statistically the worst in school history (although many schools are statistically the worst in school history and the best offensively in school history as I pointed out above with scoring) – and the youngest in school history according to the record kept at Georgia.
Did Georgia get better as the season went on?
Yes. That’s not up for debate if you are talking about statistics. After facing Clemson, South Carolina, LSU and Missouri in the first six games of the season Georgia was allowing 34 points a game. The last seven games of the year? Georgia allowed 24 points a game.
Yeah but the teams Georgia played in the second half of the season were not as good at offense…
Well that’s true – no argument there. But doesn’t that mean that it would be natural that Georgia should have giving up more at the beginning of the season, too?
Still, you want to improve as the season goes on, and that was the case in terms of points per game, yards allowed and turnovers Georgia got better. For instance, Georgia had one interception before October 19th – one, that’s really, really bad. That shows a lack of pressure and lack of playmaking in the secondary. It had six in the final seven games. In the first six games of the year quarterbacks were 122 of 195 for 1,556 yards and 12 touchdowns. The final seven? 99 for 187 for 1,400 yards and six touchdowns.
To be fair, three of the final seven opponents were run-based teams (Auburn, Tech and Nebraska), so it is somewhat expected that the passing numbers would go down – but those numbers really went down a lot (from 63% completions to 53%; from 222 yards a game passing to 200).
But why did the numbers go down? Part of it had to be consistency. During the first six games of the season you got the feeling that the coaching staff was trying to figure out just what it had in the secondary. In the first six games of the season the team started four different starting combinations back there. In the last seven the team started – basically – Wiggins, JHC, Mauger and Swann.
The change from Langley to Wiggins at one corner was noticeable right away. I can’t see Langley starting over Wiggins from here on out. Wiggins is attitude personified – he’s got a great mentality for a corner. He’s going to run his mouth, try to make plays and forget it when he doesn’t. He’s going to be a heck of a player by the time it is all said and done.
The main group that started at the end of the year – Swann and Wiggins on the corners with Mauger and JHC at the back – is what I would say will be the number one group going into the spring. Mauger will hold off Tray Matthews unless Matthews turns the corner. He has plenty of ability, but he’s not had a great year, and dependability will beat out the spectacular many days of the year. Matthews, too, has great potential – he should not be seen as anything close to dead or passed over. Mauger is just playing very, very well. He was a major surprise.
With all of that said, my opinion is that Todd Grantham’s defense was (is) too complicated for a true freshman to come in and learn off the bat – just too complex. I don’t know if it was watered down, but it should have been. I have been told it was not, and that makes learning very, very difficult for young kids.
I remember first learning the system we ran in college my freshman year. I could run our high school stuff because it was not complicated. It was repetitive. It was one thing with slight variations here and there. In college the terminology was ten fold. I have a Masters degree from Georgia, and I had a very difficult time remembering what to do on “Wisconsin” or “Indiana” for the first two months. I knew what “Hoot Owl” was – that was easy… I didn’t have to do anything. The problem was when you started getting into variations on multiple sets it became more difficult. You weren’t just playing you were thinking too much. It got better over time – actually it got very simple over time. But at the start it was not fun – a massive learning curve.
A year later the defense, returning ten starters, should be much better. Example – Todd Grantham’s defense in 2010 wasn’t as good as the one in 2011, and the 2011 one wasn’t as good as the 2012 one (save the whining about how it wasn’t as good as it “should have been” – the facts are the facts, and the numbers don’t lie about the production from one year to the next).
If the defense is not better in 2014 then something is wrong. These players were the ones Georgia wanted – and they signed them and won some pretty big recruiting fights (in some cases) to get them. It is on Scott Lakatos to get the secondary ready for a season where, quite frankly, the offenses Georgia faces to start the season are not nearly what they were this year.
Reality, though, dictates that Georgia will be better on defense in 2014 if for no other reason than that they have actually played college football before. Consider that Georgia regularly started several players who were playing their first (Chris Mayes, Leonard Floyd, Shaq Wiggins, Quincy Mauger, Tray Matthews) or second (Sterling Bailey, Jordan Jenkins and Josh Harvey Clemons) year of college football. It can’t be surprising that the most productive players on defense in 2013 were the oldest guys – Garrison Smith, Amarlo Herrera and Ramik Wilson.
The defense started a true freshman 31 times this fall – the offense started a true freshman twice, and Georgia lost both of those games. Oversimplification? Sure, but you get the point.
Now its time for those young kids – particularly Matthews – to mature on the field and off it and become what they need to be. In 2014, half of Georgia’s defense won’t be underclassmen, and there should be improvement to be sure.
The last item, for me, is the one that cost Georgia several losses (Nebraska, Clemson and Vanderbilt) – special teams. People say “Oh man, Georgia has terrible special teams – terrible.”
No they don’t. That’s a simplified statement of ignorance or a statement with a lack of attention to detail.
Georgia is a top-20 punt team – allowing only 4.3 yards per return on punt. Georgia missed two kicks all season – two. Marshall Morgan was the SEC’s leading place kicker. He lead all kickers in points per game. He won the game at Tennessee on a 43-yarder. Georgia hit 90% of field goals attempted this season – impressive. He did not miss an extra point.
Mark Richt said last off-season that he wanted to become an expert at all things kickers (something like that). He had become concerned about that aspect of the program. He was right. He did something about that, and it worked. Marshall Morgan’s attempts are no longer an adventure in which crossbar he will hit.
But now Richt has something else to work on – Georgia is horrible at one thing: punt return.
Horrible.
Reggie Davis, truth be told, ended the season as the SEC’s 7th best punt returner by average with only 3.8 yards per return. Apparently returning punts is not what it used to be because only a couple of guys in the SEC are actually really good at it – Odell Beckham, Chris Davis and Christion Jones. Other than that everyone else is very average to what I would call bad. For all of the complaining from Georgia fans about Rhett McGowan fair catching everything – that seems to be what’s going on everywhere in the conference. The SEC’s punters must be pretty good right now – I don’t know. Teams are only averaging about 1.5 punt returns per game… not much. In fact, and this sounds wrong, but its not, only two teams in the SEC – Alabama and Auburn – returned more punts than Georgia… so there might be a misconception about punt returns in the SEC today.
But that’s not the point here.
The problem is not the return itself. The word “return” implies possession of the football – and that’s the real problem at Georgia right now… the football.
Georgia doesn’t need a special teams coordinator… Georgia needs a posses-the-football coordinator.
Georgia lost a fumble on a punt return three times – and all three directly led to a score for the opposition. Georgia lost two of those three games (Damien Swann at Vanderbilt; Reggie Davis vs. Kentucky, vs. Nebraska).
Twice, as well, the Dawgs goofed up a snap-to-player situation – both times they lost the game (at Clemson; at Vanderbilt).
In all of those situations the problem was not special teams – the problem was possession of the ball… or put simply the kids just messed up those situations. Critics would have you believe no action was taken… but that’s incorrect. There were ramifications from those mistakes.
Nathan Theus had to re-win his starting snapping job mid-season… the snapping problems have been non-existent since. Punter Colin Barber wasn’t performing the way Richt and company wanted and some of the miscues on the punt team happened while he was punting (may not have all been his fault) – fumbled punt vs. South Carolina; dropped snap at Vanderbilt; blocked punt at Tennessee for touchdown; blocked kick vs. North Texas set up touchdown. But a punting competition broke out during the season.
Even though Barber is the best punter on the team – statistically he’s the sixth best in the SEC – by the end of the year junior Adam Erickson had taken over the starting punt spot.
The point? As Richt said in response to my question after the Gator Bowl – “field the ball.”
You don’t need a coordinator for the punt team – you need guys to do the job or get replaced… and it probably has gone unnoticed, but that’s what happened this season. Still, basking in the glory of an 8-5 season will make folks only remember what they want to remember… that happens after 12-2, too.

wlayton, read every word, have a first question. The author.