From Athens.... Deep Breath

Kirby has correctly spoke to what happens after we end our streak and lose a game.  Sharpen the axe and start chopping a new streak....

No excuses or whining... tonight the Tide was three points better ....     season went by way to fast....

Go Dawgs 

I'm really going to hold off commenting tonight. But I will have something to say tomorrow.

GO DAWGS!

Ok, taking YD's advice, I took a deep breath.

First of all - and above everything else - thank you to Kirby Smart and this and the previous Georgia teams that contributed to this absolutely unbelievable run we've had. The joy, excitement, pride, and fun they've given to us over the past 3 seasons has been the best of my life as a college football fan. 29 games, back-to-back National Champions, SEC Champs, just unbelievable. Surreal really. We may never live long enough to see something like that happen again. But I do know this - Kirby certainly has Georgia poised to make deep runs every year. These really are the glory days and I am loving every second of it. Am I sad that we lost? Of course I am. It was a ride that I never wanted to get off, but eventually, the ride comes to an end. If anyone was going to do it to us, Alabama was. We all knew this in the back of our minds. 

I'm also excited to see the 12-team playoff next year so that teams like Georgia don't get frozen out when they clearly belong in a playoff chase. Now, the committee is going to tell us [like Kirby said in the post-game presser] that they put the 4 best teams in the playoffs, not the 4 most deserving. If they were putting the 4 best teams in college into the 2023 CFP, it would look like: Michigan, Washington, Alabama, Georgia. But there's not a snowball's chance in hell that's what they CFP will reveal at noon today. It's going to be Michigan, Washington, Texas, Alabama. If we were in a 12-team format right now, Georgia would drop to #6 and host Ole Miss at home next Saturday. How cool would that be? 

Onto the game thoughts...

This was the first game in the 2020s era that I felt like we simply had a ill-prepared team. What cost us this game? Well, a lot of things

1. At the risk of pissing off the adherents of the "Bobo's my man" philosophy , here it is in cold hard reality: the offensive scheme in this game was bland, predictable and utterly ineffective. The same 12 plays all game that continually did not work. There were zero -ZERO- offensive adjustments at the half. What didn't work in the 1st half was the same sh*t that didn't work in the 2nd half. Ride or die, that was our game plan and we were sticking to it. I had a flashback to the Richt days at one point in the 3rd quarter. At one point, we ran the ball 7 straight times and didn't get more than 3 yards on any of them. I am beyond over these screen pass laterals running east and west where we get hit at the line or 3 yards behind it because the outside linebackers close the gap by the time the balls lands in the receivers hands. The offense most of the night was not vertical in any way. In the first quarter, the camera caught Beck's mouth after the 2nd three and out and you could read his lips as he looked skyward toward the booth clearly saying "what the f**k are we doing?!" Beck looked frustrated and befuddled (I love that word) all game with the play calling. Am I blaming Bobo for this loss? Not at all. It was a team loss, but Bobo's play-calling was most definitely a part of it. 

2. We were utterly man-handled by Bama in the trenches. It was apparent, fairly early on, that our line simply wasn't up to the task of pushing around Bama's line for 60 minutes. Milroe had a friggin eternity to throw the ball [mainly because we kept running 2 spies]. And when the pass wasn't there, Milroe basically had his way with a scrambling running game. Once again, Kirby's kryptonite is a fast-moving scrambling QB. They get him every time. We didn't have the same caliber of NFL talent on that d-line this year. Cold hard reality. And I'm not slamming our guys at all, but the Georgia d-line of 2023 was not the Georgia d-line of 2021 & 2022. And it showed. Win the battle in the trenches & you win the game 90% of the time. We were not even close to winning the battle of the trenches last night. 

3.  Injuries finally just caught up with us. It was painfully obvious that Brock was injured and McConkey was injured. Mims was injured, Van Pran was playing injured, we didn't have RaRa, didn't have Dumas-Johnson, Rosemy-Jacksaint was playing hurt. It is what it is. We all know that health is that undeniable tangible factor that is and is not within a team's control, but plays directly into the outcome of its destiny. And our good fortune and our next-man-up success just ran out last night. 

4. Let's give credit where credit is due: Bama was prepared. We knew they would be. No surprises. These two teams know each other like the back of their hands. Saban was absolutely going to have his team ready to make a statement, and a statement they made. Congrats to Alabama. They're a fantastic team. They earned it. They scored last and won the game. 

5. And yes....you thought I'd forget? Nope. I've been watching football for a long time. I am usually the first one to throw my remote at a couch cushion over these endless and far-too-frequent reviews on plays that are as clear as day. But the time when a play objectively and obviously needed to be reviewed, the booth was missing in action. For all the BS time-wasting reviews that we have to endure every season under the label of "we want to get it right," how that 4th & 9 pass to Isiah Bond wasn't reviewed defies any explanation. There is absolutely no excuse - NONE - why that play shouldn't have been reviewed and ruled an incomplete pass. The ball hit the ground. End of subject. Normally I never blame the refs for a loss, but they 100% contributed to Georgia losing this game. Notice I said contributed, not caused. Total abomination. The league really needs to start having some public accountability for these refs that make egregious and inexplicable mistakes.  

All in all, one hell of a season boys.

The transfer portal over the next month is going to be very interesting. We need some WRs, a d-lineman, and a RB. 

My prediction (CFP announcement is in one hour) is that CFP will put us against Ohio State. We shall see.

GO DAWGS! 

 

SD ....   without question you crossed all the T's and doubled dotted the I's.  Totally agree with your statement.

As in the past Kirby will look at the state of team coaches and players .... Bama did us a favor pointing out that we have much work to do before next September and our visit to Tuscaloosa.

plan now to start our next streak with a bowl win....  stay well & safe.     Go Dawgs 

It seemed like the play calling did not trust Beck at times. The O line looked average. The D Line is missing that guy Like Jordan Davis that just mauls in the middle.

In the end the streak cannot continue to eternity and we just start a new one. I trust Kirby

KD .... EXACTLY.... Kirby ... will become even more focused...

Trust is the proper word choice... stay well. Go Dawgs