Good Saturday morning Dawg fans...coffee is steaming and I'm looking forward to seeing Miss State pound FU today at noon - but...it's sad. I hate to see the curtain call on Sunbelt Billy's tenure. He has been a good friend to the UGA program, I wish they'd keep him around. In fact, I think they should rename the football buildings "The William H. Napier Center of Football Achievement" to celebrate his mark on the FU program. But reality says they're going to can him.
Seems awfully bizarre talking about an idle week in Week 4 of the college season, but this will be the first of many new changes this season. So where do we stand as of Week 4? How is everyone feeling about this 2024 squad? I'll share my humble thoughts on things.
A lot has been made of last week's matchup in Lexington and I for one am thrilled to have that #1 tag off our name. The amount of tire pumping of and fawning over UGA has been nauseating and I am more than happy to have the talking heads move on to their new darling in Texas. It will be interesting to me to see how Sark handles the #1 attention.
As for the game play, I was happy (but not surprised) in our game play against poor lil' ol' disrespected Clempson. They were outmatched at every level but maybe for special teams. Clempson does have a good D-line, so I thought this would have been a good gauge for where our O-Line play would be this season and that's what fueled the disbelief that I had last week was in the way our O-Line played, even before Ratledge went down. I haven't seen a UGA line get that utterly dominated since the Richt era. Our first half play was abysmal. And I know all the Bobo sycophants are going to be ready to burn me at the stake, but our play calling was stale, predictable, and boring. It gave me PTSD flashbacks of the Richt era Bobo where the motto was surely: "If it ain't working, by God we're gonna do it again!" I don't know about y'all but I did not see much in the way of offensive adjustments in that second half. Etienne was the only real bright spot on an anemic offense. He has the ability to create his own holes as a slasher which is something we have not seen since Sony Michel.
Something is going to have to give before we go to Tuscaloosa next weekend. I am sure that Kirby has his finger on the exact problems that need addressing, but it only gets tougher from here on out. Losing Ratledge hurts us. I know it is next man up, but still, losing Ratledge hurts. Next weekend feels like a playoff game to me, and we all know it is going to be a hostile environment. We need Beck to be a game changer, not a game manager.
Anyone else have thoughts on this situation?
GO DAWGS!
