First, I'll say that there's a difference between defending our play and play calling, and not worrying about it. I'm not defending it, I'm just not remotely ready to start worrying.
Beck is an upper-classman, but this was also his first start. Numbers-wise, he didn't play a bad game by any means, didn't turn the ball over, and also made some better-than-expected plays with his feet. He completed 68% of his passes for 9.5 ypa. And, factoring in 1 or 2 PI's that were missed, and a couple that probably should have been caught, and it was a generally respectable debut. The obvious hope is that he will only get better as he continues to settle in.
The offensive line was not at championship level last night, but there were no sacks allowed. Some odd play-calling saw us running into the teeth of a stacked box at times, but they were largely inconsistent in terms of creating running lanes against what was surely an overmatched defensive front from UT-Martin.
This is where my mildly tin hat take comes in. No, I don't think we were intentionally putting our offense in difficult situations, but I have this itching feeling that we were also not trying to make things especially easy for the offense, either. That is to say, I feel a lot of what we were calling were more straight-ahead 'man up and beat your guy' plays, versus finding the best matchups and creating mismatches, etc.
I felt our defensive front didn't exactly play inspired football. They certainly didn't get pushed around, but there was not a ton of disruption created between the tackles.
Some nice surprises were Mekhi Mews (obviously), CJ Smith getting some action and looking good, Tykee Smith, and seeing Smael get some PT and looking pretty healthy.
Nothing can be said about Bowers that hasn't already been said. I'm still amazed by his play, even though I shouldn't be.
Vandagriff and Stockton made some nice plays. But, if you don't know by now to trust Kirby's decisions on QBs, kindly see yourself out of this thread.
The smile on Kyron Jones' face after the pick-six, putting on the savage pads was my favorite moment of the night. No idea what his future will look like down the road, but the look of absolute, pure joy was fun to see.
While the Skyhawks were outmatched physically, you can tell they are a well-coached team. They didn't do much to just hand us the game. I certainly would have preferred us to be a bit sharper early, but they made us earn what we got. That's a good thing for the opener. And, what you get is a very lopsided victory in the end, with plenty to improve upon. Really, it's an ideal scenario to serve to knock some folks down from their pedestals and show that nothing is going to be ceded to us just because we're Georgia.
Beck is an upper-classman, but this was also his first start. Numbers-wise, he didn't play a bad game by any means, didn't turn the ball over, and also made some better-than-expected plays with his feet. He completed 68% of his passes for 9.5 ypa. And, factoring in 1 or 2 PI's that were missed, and a couple that probably should have been caught, and it was a generally respectable debut. The obvious hope is that he will only get better as he continues to settle in.
The offensive line was not at championship level last night, but there were no sacks allowed. Some odd play-calling saw us running into the teeth of a stacked box at times, but they were largely inconsistent in terms of creating running lanes against what was surely an overmatched defensive front from UT-Martin.
This is where my mildly tin hat take comes in. No, I don't think we were intentionally putting our offense in difficult situations, but I have this itching feeling that we were also not trying to make things especially easy for the offense, either. That is to say, I feel a lot of what we were calling were more straight-ahead 'man up and beat your guy' plays, versus finding the best matchups and creating mismatches, etc.
I felt our defensive front didn't exactly play inspired football. They certainly didn't get pushed around, but there was not a ton of disruption created between the tackles.
Some nice surprises were Mekhi Mews (obviously), CJ Smith getting some action and looking good, Tykee Smith, and seeing Smael get some PT and looking pretty healthy.
Nothing can be said about Bowers that hasn't already been said. I'm still amazed by his play, even though I shouldn't be.
Vandagriff and Stockton made some nice plays. But, if you don't know by now to trust Kirby's decisions on QBs, kindly see yourself out of this thread.
The smile on Kyron Jones' face after the pick-six, putting on the savage pads was my favorite moment of the night. No idea what his future will look like down the road, but the look of absolute, pure joy was fun to see.
While the Skyhawks were outmatched physically, you can tell they are a well-coached team. They didn't do much to just hand us the game. I certainly would have preferred us to be a bit sharper early, but they made us earn what we got. That's a good thing for the opener. And, what you get is a very lopsided victory in the end, with plenty to improve upon. Really, it's an ideal scenario to serve to knock some folks down from their pedestals and show that nothing is going to be ceded to us just because we're Georgia.
