UT - Analyzing the game

Just a few notes after the rewatch - Please feel free to enter your own grades!

Special Teams A+ - I'm going to mention them first as they are often 3rd on everyone's mind. People here though like Buc and many, many others understand the importance of this phase of the game. "Hot Pod" seems to be Blankenship 2.0 without the awesome glasses. He calmly nailed all of his chances and looks to continue the strong tradition at PK. Jake Camarda has been a game changer all year. That continued Saturday, and flipped the field twice when UT thought they had gained a field position advantage.

Defense A - The D line gets an A+. They completely dominated; swarming the running game and disrupting the passing game with pressure, strip sacks, caused interceptions. If you have to put your "finger" on anything this game, the D line overwhelming Cade Mays and his mates would be it. DB's get an A- The defensive backs were solid as the man I first told you about as a Freshmen, Eric Stokes has proven to be a shutdown corner. We did give up two big plays on the other side but one was an under-throw with man on man and that is ALWAYS a huge advantage for the receiver, and the other was just a pass dropped in perfectly: Sometimes you don't do anything wrong and the other team makes a play. The only knock was there were a couple of 3rd downs where we didn't get off the field giving up some underneath crossing stuff.
Linebackers were an A as well but you sometimes don't notice with the play of the line in front of them.

More to follow - Next up the Grades on offense:

Wart... onboard with your grades and observations...

Not sure if it was half time adjustments.... us wearing them down on both sides of the ball... with superior depth...maybe a little of both...

But defense caught another gear in the second half..

Didn’t expect CJP to do so much dancing and coach speak at post game presser........ it was more of what his team didn’t do rather than what the Dawgs were able to do... so much for their eight game win streak...

Really hope Pickens gets his head and act together.... HC wasn’t to pleased with his actions.... didn’t call them stupid..

Be does call his lack of maturity into question....

Damn right it’s great to be a Dawg ....

Go Dawgs

Offense gets a B+ Really that's conservative but there's a few things I
noticed. 1st is Stetson (A-) is incredible at the intermediate passes and deadly accurate over the middle, but he does not have the arm strength to really be effective past 35-40 yards down the field. At some point (probably next week) someone is probably going to be able to force him to go over the top and he hasn't proven he can do it. Pickens has proven to be a non entity because of it. Still.. he is smart, deadly accurate within his range, and a surprisingly cagey runner.
O-line gets a B+ and thats a tough grade not because of anything they did wrong, but as I noted before last weeks game: Being able to just dominate D-lines every week in the SEC is a non-starter. There will be weeks when you just can't do it consistently. Give UT's D-line some credit here. We did however wear them down and ended up with solid rushing yards. My knock is the lack of really explosive plays, and the troubles in the short yardage game.. not all of which falls on the line:

Speaking of which: Going for it on 4th down on our own side of the field was a bad move. It was just unnecessary at that point in the game when our D was asserting themselves and we could have buried them deep in their own territory. Plus we ran a play with Stetson trying to power his way on a sneak: Stetson one of only two sub 6 foot QB's playing in a power 5 conference. On the goal line later we had a failure to execute and RB mistakes. On 1st down the lead blocker turned to the man edge rushing and the man he should have blocked filled the hole and stuffed the play. On 2nd and 3rd downs the RB lowered his head and tried to burrow through or launch himself at the backsides of his own linemen. Had he maintained a "heads up" position he could have made the slight move necessary to slip through.
This is also the 2nd of 3 games where our center has struggled snapping the ball. We have to do better in several areas here on offense if we hope to beat Alabama.

On the very positive side, Monken again demonstrated wrinkles and creativity we have lacked in prior seasons. Plus we have some serious depth and some playmakers out on the edge.

YD...

I was really disappointed in that clown move from Pickens. Serious immaturity. I don't mind fire and personality, but if it's
classless and costs you 15 yards.. I have a problem with it.

Thankfully we are not a one man show at receiver this year.

Eric Stokes was targeted 5 times

0 completions allowed

2 forced incompletions

Wart ..... truly we are not a one man band at receiver.....

George has to decided....am I going to be a college football player..
That plays up to his God given talents?

Or be a candidate for the Crowell want a be award.... the clock is running....