Game Day: Oregon Ducks vs Georgia Bulldogs

THAT was a complete Game!

GO DAWGS! GATA!

Just going to get better!!!!!!!

Can’t think of a better outcome or better way to start this season than what I saw out of us today! Absolute dominance. 

Wow. Let me bask in the glow of this performance and I’ll opine in a bit. 

GOOOOO DAWGS!!!!

I usually call for the 24 hr rule to comment after the Dawgs play

After watching the Dawgs disassemble the Ducks… scoring touchdowns the six times SBIV had the ball I will offer the following thoughts..

Yes the Ducks aren’t a elite opponent but they aren’t a cupcake either…. To answer the question… are we that good or is Oregon that bad…. Honestly….I feel it’s more of us being that good… yes even dominating…..however only giving up a FG tends to support that our defense is also a force… maybe best to just call it a team win… saw very good stuff on all 3 phases of our game….

Going to stay with my earlier statement… “This ain’t your Daddy’s Georgia football team”. Nope we got us something completely different….a number of our young pups took several steps in growing up in today’s game,,,, more later…

Go Dawgs

Good morning gents... sitting here having my steaming cup of Guatemalan battery acid on a very wet & rainy Sunday in the woods reading analysis, watching film, and really reflecting on a awesome opening weekend of college foosball. I watched the UGA v. Oregon game, Arky v. Cincy, FU v. Utah, and Buck Nuts vs. Irish. I'm glad they're scheduling these type of matchups on Week 1. It takes you from the malaise of summer and thrusts you into the adrenaline rush that you've been missing like a junkie missing his high for the last 8 months. 

Let's talk UGA....

That was a game of total dominance, men vs. boys out there. But if we slip behind the curtain of the stage show we saw that dazzled and entertained, we find some things that really stand in stark contrast to last years Dawgs. I don't know about ya'll, but watching that new Dawg defense yesterday made me appreciate how phenomenal that 2021 Dawgs defense was. The speed of the defense wasn't the same, and I'm not implying that we played poorly on defense at all - but Oregon gave us a lot. We got zero pressure behind the line of scrimmage, zero pressure on the QB. There were two plays where we stopped the runner at the line or maybe just a hair behind it, and we were soft on the edges. If Bo Nix wasn't complete and total overhyped trash (probably the most overhyped trash I've seen since the Danny Wuerffel days) and actually had a head that matched the strength of his arm, he could have dissected us with the cushions our DBs were giving.

In the post-game presser (posted in this thread), a media talking head actually recognized this and had the gumption to ask Kirby about the lack of sacks or QB pressure, and we got a little coach speak from CKS: "guys, Bo Nix is tough to bring down." Yeah....so is Bryce Young, so is KJ Jefferson, so is Hendon Hooker, so is any number of QBs we face each season. We didn't seem to have a problem with that last season. I get the fact that Kirby is protecting the honor of his young team, but if there's one area on this defense that needs quick and serious improvement, its the d-line getting pressure. Fortunately, I don't see any monster o-lines we have to face on our schedule this season so that improvement should be quite attainable. What did I like about the defense? Lots. Swarming to the ball just like last year's Dawgs. I saw fundamental tackling, not shoulder tackling. I saw the flats shut down by the outside backs, and Malaki Starks is going to be something special. Only a couple of stupid penalties for defensive holding & late hit out of bounds.

Offensively, there's not much we did wrong except commit some unforced errors at the line. We absolutely dominated the Oregon defense in every phase of the offensive game. I saw a stat, and don't know if we finished with it, that we were averaging 9.9 yards per play on offense. That's a long, long, lonnnnng day for a defense. Stetson looked like a Heisman candidate yesterday. Let him have 3 more performances like that and he will be one. Our TE corps is exactly what we knew they were, and Monken, as predicted, wore them out yesterday. The real talent differential in our receivers and ESPECIALLY our tight ends was their ability to create space and do it very quickly. It was a total mismatch between Oregon's defenders and our receivers. As an aside, I think Washington can fall down and gain us 5 yards. 

Lastly - I thought it was very out of character for Kirby to say in his presser "he (Lanning) knows we've got better players. He'd never say it, but he knows it." That's a little shady. That's not what you say out loud about another team. For a guy that takes the high road 99.999999999% of the time, I'm not sure why he saw fit to say this out loud. Of course its true, the whole football world knows its true. They just watched Georgia beat the brakes off of Oregon for 60 minutes in an embarrassment for the ages. It goes without saying, so stay classy & don't say it. 

GO DAWGS

I had a different take on Kirby's comments. I think it was just his way of saying Lanning is a great coach and Oregon is going to be a great team at some point, but they just need a little time. That Oregon team is mostly a lot of the previous regime's players.

Just my opinion...

About the Dawgs... The defense is not last years defense, but that had to be expected after all the player departures. They'll get better as the year goes on, but don't expect them to be what last years team was. The secondary is top notch but the front 7 are a good step behind last years generational defense.

The passing offense was as potent as anything I've seen from a Kirby Smart team, but we have to see them against a tougher opponent. I was surprised that we threw so much from the playbook at Oregon.. I thought we would have played it a little closer to the vest this early in the season. I think the run blocking was a little off, but hopefully the line will gel a little more as the season goes on.

More to come..

God Bless and Go Dawgs