GAME DAY: UGA VS OLE MISS

Had a small amount of time to reflect (to myself) about the game today.

Came away with some “stuff” . . . .

What I have seen in the four games thus far, basically a bit more of the same “stuff” that I was hoping could be corrected. Some of what I have watched is not a lot different than earlier years.

I am one that cannot be convinced at this point that “depth” was or has been fulfilled. Looking over both the offensive and defensive lines, I have concerns with some of the names that I see on the sideline, not getting “any” playing time.

Is that because the talent does not exist? Is it that we made some recruiting mistakes?

I watched Ole Miss come close to emptying their bench today. They know that the NCAA is going to “pounce” at some point. Their head coach is preparing for that “day”. Probably many scholarships lost, but it could very well go deeper than that. There will be a severe penalty or penalties. When that day comes, there will be some players that have played, like today for example. There will however be a “depth” problem.

Depth has been a major point of conversation on Dawgs.com. Did not start yesterday or today, has been discussed for several years. My friends, it has BITTEN US IN THE ASS.

Could say a lot more but, there will be a lot of discussions on games we face throughout 2016 and the ups and downs of our program.

Ole Miss coaching staff understood the need for receivers with height, and with enough speed and strength to make games like the one today against us look relatively simple.

Hard for me to put a number on when the overall improvement will occur, I do however have enough faith in what I see happening around our program to understand change is happening now. For the better . . . . I think so.

One major improvement . . . . INDOOR PRACTICE FACILITY. Coach Pruitt said prior to his leaving . . . . want to recruit “effectively” . . . . build the IPF and THEY WILL COME. Truth.

Go Dawgs, Coach’em Up!

Ole Miss Head Coach Hugh Freeze

Opening Statement…

“I was really pleased with our guys this week playing another one of the top teams in the country. We have had our fair share of that in the month of September. We certainly had experiences that we should learn from. I really thought we took control. This is the first time we were able to win the toss to get the ball at halftime and put it away early in the third quarter. I have tremendous respect for the Georgia Bulldogs and their program. Kirby (Smart) is going to do a great job. I can't think of times in my life where a team has done that to Georgia. Credit to our players and our coaches. We got to play a lot of kids in an SEC game, which is not the norm. I'm really proud and I hope we can build upon it and get some guys healthy so we can finish strong next week.”

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Comments that I pay attention to. Coach Freeze understands that player development for Ole Miss is critical at this point. Preparing for what he knows is coming to his program. Freeze is not a dummy, actually he has proven to be a good x and o coach thus far in the SEC. Things that I think about.

Not going to argue the point that Freeze has some "problems". We are all aware, or think we are. Never know what the NCAA will or won't do.

Appears that Tennessee woke up this weekend.

Eh... Freeze understands the necessity of paying players to come to Ole Miss. He's dirty and he runs a dirty program. I'm too close to the Grayson Georgia football team to not ignore what went on with the recruitment of Robert Nkemdiche.

Wartdawg, think it goes deeper than Robert Nkemdiche.

Nothing I can do about it.

Have watched Auburn get away with a lot over many years.

Miami the same.

Watched the previous coach give up the farm on the AJ Green "stuff".

We're going to be having this conversation a lot this season. Our problems are apparent and guess what we have? We have a coach that sees the problems, identifies the problems publicly (sometimes by name) to us, and knows what he has to do to fix them. I still have to pinch myself to believe that we have that.

There are two main fixes to our problems, and both demand time.

1. Coaching them up - yes, we are going to have to coach up what we have to work with. Yes, while Kirby certainly has inherited a mess, now let's see him coach them and do his best to clean the mess up. This is where coaches earn their stripes and test their meddle. It takes many a stripe before a star comes.

As the season progresses, I do believe that we will see improvement in certain areas. I don't think that those improvements will be by leaps and bounds, but they will be honest and genuine improvements in the team forming a cohesion around what CKS wants.

2. Recruiting - this is self-explanatory.

More about the bleeding hearts...

Trust me folks - if you think the Richtbots will come out in full force over us having a mediocre season, I urge you to think for just a second how they would sound if CKS won the SEC East or even more in his first season. I lived through this very scenario in the immediate post-Tony Dungy days of the Buccaneers when Jon Gruden took over. When Gruden beat Oakland for the Lombardi trophy in his first season at the helm, oh my Lord, the local Tampa Bay media and the Dungyites did everything they possibly could to both (a) save face for poor-persecuted-fan-favorite-genuine-nice guy Tony Dungy and (b) discredit Gruden as a coach by saying the team he inherited were Dungy's players. It's still talked about to this very day if you rub shoulders with the local knuckle draggers in the sports bars of the Bay area. "That was really Dungy's ring. Jon just did it with Tony's guys. He never did anything else after that."

Let's enjoy watching the dawgs this year grow up and start to take the shape of what our coach wants. It was a tough day to be a dawg, but brighter days are ahead. Proud of Eason today. He made freshman mistakes for sure, but he also showed tremendous grit and toughness to go out there and take his lumps. Kudos to our coaching staff to show us total commitment to him and let him play out the game. Kudos to Grayson Lambert for his support and mentorship on the sidelines. For all the negativity hurled Lambert's way, he's handling himself and the situation with class.

Knoxville was out of control today.

Post-Game Presser
www.dawgnation.com/football/team-news/wa...lay-against-ole-miss

Oh it goes a lot deeper... that situation though was up close and personal. It was openly known around here. Nkemdiche himself hardly kept it a secret.