Also, a recap of how I did regarding UAB down below.
2 games are, in my opinion, not quite enough yet to say, "This is who this team is, and this is what that team is." Not definitively. After this game, we may have a clearer picture of who Georgia is. South Carolina has a respectable defense, but their offense will be hard-pressed to move the ball consistently against the Dawgs. QB Luke Doty is, I would assume, going to be held out. I know Beamer doesn't want to send a message to his team that this game is a lost cause, but I have to believe he doesn't want to throw a not-100% QB out there against a swarming defense right out of the chute.
Speaking of Carolina's defense, they've done a tremendous job of getting off the field on 3rd down. They're tops in the nation giving up just over 8% of third down conversions. Now, to be fair, Eastern Illinois is bad even for an FCS team, and App St held East Carolina to virtually the same offensive output they had against uSCjr. They have a good front seven, that is athletic but somewhat undersized at certain spots. Kingsley Enegbare is not necessarily elite as a pass rusher, but he's certainly damn good. Overall, though, this should be a team we can run on if we are ever going to be able to run on anyone this year. That is, unless uSCjr sells out against the run. After last week, I feel like they are definitely having second thoughts about whether or not that's the best strategy.
We've heard that Kearis is a possibility to return to the offense in some capacity, after being relegated to strictly punt return so far. Based on nothing but woman's intuition, I have a feeling we'll see someone else take the field that we maybe weren't expecting as of this moment.
This should be our first opportunity to see how Brock Bowers does when he's drawing a little extra focus. Not saying he'll be double-teamed all day, but there's no way he sneaks up on uSCjr unless they are as dumb as a bag of hammers. I don't think it will matter a whole lot, as Bowers seems just that talented, but let's see if he's navigated through a bit more traffic this week.
Outside of QB play, for the Cocks on offense look for Georgia native Josh Vann (can't remember if we recruited him much or not, but don't think so), former commit Marshawn Lloyd (almost forgot he ended up at uSCjr), and JuJu McDowell. Zaquandre White, Lloyd, and McDowell have been splitting carries, and they have a nice complement to each other, with McDowell being more of a jitterbugger. Who the Cocks opt for early could indicate how they feel about their O-Line vs our D-Line and LBs. My guess is they will test the middle early, but quickly switch to getting McDowell on the edge and in space if possible. Vann has been waiting for a breakout year, so we'll see if his performance last week (7, 143, TD) was a fluke against a mediocre team, or a springboard.
Any time your offense gets over 500 yds, you've done plenty of things right. But, if you nitpick, you know that the running game was 'adequate' at best, and the passing game was a lot of, to make a 'Better Off Dead' reference, "Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn." If (big if) uSCjr is able to force us into 3rd down after 3rd down, are we going to be able to convert at a high level, and score TDs on drives of more than just a few plays? I haven't seen that through 2 games. I feel like that will be a focus on Saturday, unless the Cocks D is dumb. You want Georgia to have an explosive offense, but also one that doesn't have to rely on big plays to score. One additional thing to consider in that respect: Averages and percentages always tend to the mean for, well, average teams. uSCjr's 8.3% defensive 3rd down conversion rate is going to trend rapidly toward the mean. It almost has to, unless they have the defense their fans seem to think they do.
No reason this game should end up being close. I do hope the weather holds out (Blocker57 seems to think it won't be much of a factor). Since the Dawgs are the better team all around, a slopfest slog would be the only thing that could help even things out a bit.
UAB Recap, or, I Have No Idea What I'm Talking About Half The Time
While a couple of things happened that I thought would, I was very surprised that we were able to so thoroughly run roughshod over UAB offensively. I was never concerned that this game would be especially close, but I did think we'd be looking at a situation where we got up by maybe 7-10 in the first quarter, and then methodically extended our lead by 6-7 points per quarter from there on out.
UAB features a much larger O-Line than Clemson, averaging about 6'4+ and 320. In theory, though, they are not able to recruit the best athletes at that size. So, while it will be a bit more difficult for our D-Line to just bulldoze them, I look for AA and Nolan Smith to have some success off the edge. Their speed should prove to be a problem for UAB. In general, UAB's o-line held up fairly well, all things considered. While the Georgia defense dominated overall, UAB did find some modicum of success on the ground. While they gave up 3 sacks and some additional pressure, it was nowhere near the free-for-all in the backfield that we saw against Clemson. AA had his 2nd sack of the season.
Kirby made the comment, "You're either elite, or you're not," after defeating Clemson. Will this carry over to this week? Whether it's Beck or Bennett, or both, Georgia will need to be confident enough to run its offense. I imagine we'll be a little more run-heavy (not counting the kneel down at the end of the game, Georgia was basically dead even run/pass), but we should see another balanced approach. With any luck, of course, we will be up comfortably in the 4th quarter, and might see the numbers skew heavily toward the run about halfway through the final stanza. Way off on this one, with the caveat that we did run our offense based upon what UAB was showing. I did expect us to try to forcefully establish the run come hell or highwater, so I was genuinely excited that we came out gunning. UAB, seemingly, refused to believe that we would actually throw the ball downfield. Time after time, assuming it was not just blatant miscommunication, their CBs just let WRs/TEs run by them, not because they couldn't keep up (although that would have been true, too), but because they just seemed to believe Georgia would not throw deep.
UAB's defense is experienced, and they play sound football. Redshirt freshman Mac McWilliams is the only underclassmen on that side of the ball, with several 5th (6th?) year seniors. Again, if you're elite, then you don't 'worry' about Georgia's offense struggling. However, the hot knife through butter analogy might be wishful thinking, especially considering all the injuries we have on offense. Barring Georgia's defense getting multiple turnovers, I would expect Georgia to slowly build a nice lead over the course of the game, rather than seeing a boat race situation. Way off. As mentioned above, Georgia threw the ball at will, with no resistance at all. The slight factor in my favor was that Georgia could not run the ball with any real consistency, but I was dead wrong here. I will be interested to see how UAB's defense does against more similarly talented competition, though.
Conventional wisdom says that, when you're starting a new QB (if that's what we end up doing), you ease him in with running plays and short, simple passes to get the nerves out. I would love to see a play-action call on either the first or second snap, taking a shot downfield. Low risk (even if intercepted, it would be 50 yards downfield), high reward, and what better way to counter any nervousness than by telling Beck to throw it as far as he can. This is just 'fan speak,' more than anything, but I'd like to see it nonetheless. Well, Stetson was hardly new or inexperienced, but again, I was thrilled that we opted to go deep given the defense's refusal to accept that we would.
With all the talk late-week about the QB situation, I haven't read or heard how guys like Burton, Smith, and Fitzpatrick have been progressing with their injuries. They all played, most of them significantly, but how they were used suggests that they were still dealing with injurious effects. Nothing to predict here, but it will be interesting to see if they're able to be utilized more in the offense. Burton and Smith got in the act early, though Fitz was basically a non-factor in the passing game. Burton, to me, still doesn't look as explosive as he did last year. I know that sounds odd, given his long TD reception, but a big part of that was how UAB chose to cover the play (they chose not to cover it at all, apparently). As we all know by now, I don't think there's a CB in the country that can cover Arian Smith deep one on one. This is HUGE for so many reasons.
Lastly, we all understand that winning is the most important thing. Setting that aside, though, there is some score/margin of victory that will be 'fine' in the eyes of the CFP committee, media, and the CFB community in general. Some may say, "I don't care," and I can't argue with that. But, to many, it does matter. Not a score prediction, but I feel like that minimum score would be something like 34-10. With all the injuries, and the perception that UAB is a decent team for a mid-major, that should enable us to hold on to the #2 spot, and not have that game viewed as a blemish should we need to get into the CFP with 1 loss somewhere else. While 34-10 wasn't really a prediction, I was thinking the score would be somewhere in that range. Mostly, though, I was really wanting to see us show out and win by a large enough margin to where nobody would be thinking we struggled in any way. Mission accomplished and then some. Interestingly, UAB is still viewed in general as a pretty decent mid-major team, despite the thrashing. We got what we needed from this game from a perception standpoint, and while it's not of major importance, I'll be rooting on UAB to have a solid year.
2 games are, in my opinion, not quite enough yet to say, "This is who this team is, and this is what that team is." Not definitively. After this game, we may have a clearer picture of who Georgia is. South Carolina has a respectable defense, but their offense will be hard-pressed to move the ball consistently against the Dawgs. QB Luke Doty is, I would assume, going to be held out. I know Beamer doesn't want to send a message to his team that this game is a lost cause, but I have to believe he doesn't want to throw a not-100% QB out there against a swarming defense right out of the chute.
Speaking of Carolina's defense, they've done a tremendous job of getting off the field on 3rd down. They're tops in the nation giving up just over 8% of third down conversions. Now, to be fair, Eastern Illinois is bad even for an FCS team, and App St held East Carolina to virtually the same offensive output they had against uSCjr. They have a good front seven, that is athletic but somewhat undersized at certain spots. Kingsley Enegbare is not necessarily elite as a pass rusher, but he's certainly damn good. Overall, though, this should be a team we can run on if we are ever going to be able to run on anyone this year. That is, unless uSCjr sells out against the run. After last week, I feel like they are definitely having second thoughts about whether or not that's the best strategy.
We've heard that Kearis is a possibility to return to the offense in some capacity, after being relegated to strictly punt return so far. Based on nothing but woman's intuition, I have a feeling we'll see someone else take the field that we maybe weren't expecting as of this moment.
This should be our first opportunity to see how Brock Bowers does when he's drawing a little extra focus. Not saying he'll be double-teamed all day, but there's no way he sneaks up on uSCjr unless they are as dumb as a bag of hammers. I don't think it will matter a whole lot, as Bowers seems just that talented, but let's see if he's navigated through a bit more traffic this week.
Outside of QB play, for the Cocks on offense look for Georgia native Josh Vann (can't remember if we recruited him much or not, but don't think so), former commit Marshawn Lloyd (almost forgot he ended up at uSCjr), and JuJu McDowell. Zaquandre White, Lloyd, and McDowell have been splitting carries, and they have a nice complement to each other, with McDowell being more of a jitterbugger. Who the Cocks opt for early could indicate how they feel about their O-Line vs our D-Line and LBs. My guess is they will test the middle early, but quickly switch to getting McDowell on the edge and in space if possible. Vann has been waiting for a breakout year, so we'll see if his performance last week (7, 143, TD) was a fluke against a mediocre team, or a springboard.
Any time your offense gets over 500 yds, you've done plenty of things right. But, if you nitpick, you know that the running game was 'adequate' at best, and the passing game was a lot of, to make a 'Better Off Dead' reference, "Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn." If (big if) uSCjr is able to force us into 3rd down after 3rd down, are we going to be able to convert at a high level, and score TDs on drives of more than just a few plays? I haven't seen that through 2 games. I feel like that will be a focus on Saturday, unless the Cocks D is dumb. You want Georgia to have an explosive offense, but also one that doesn't have to rely on big plays to score. One additional thing to consider in that respect: Averages and percentages always tend to the mean for, well, average teams. uSCjr's 8.3% defensive 3rd down conversion rate is going to trend rapidly toward the mean. It almost has to, unless they have the defense their fans seem to think they do.
No reason this game should end up being close. I do hope the weather holds out (Blocker57 seems to think it won't be much of a factor). Since the Dawgs are the better team all around, a slopfest slog would be the only thing that could help even things out a bit.
UAB Recap, or, I Have No Idea What I'm Talking About Half The Time
While a couple of things happened that I thought would, I was very surprised that we were able to so thoroughly run roughshod over UAB offensively. I was never concerned that this game would be especially close, but I did think we'd be looking at a situation where we got up by maybe 7-10 in the first quarter, and then methodically extended our lead by 6-7 points per quarter from there on out.
UAB features a much larger O-Line than Clemson, averaging about 6'4+ and 320. In theory, though, they are not able to recruit the best athletes at that size. So, while it will be a bit more difficult for our D-Line to just bulldoze them, I look for AA and Nolan Smith to have some success off the edge. Their speed should prove to be a problem for UAB. In general, UAB's o-line held up fairly well, all things considered. While the Georgia defense dominated overall, UAB did find some modicum of success on the ground. While they gave up 3 sacks and some additional pressure, it was nowhere near the free-for-all in the backfield that we saw against Clemson. AA had his 2nd sack of the season.
Kirby made the comment, "You're either elite, or you're not," after defeating Clemson. Will this carry over to this week? Whether it's Beck or Bennett, or both, Georgia will need to be confident enough to run its offense. I imagine we'll be a little more run-heavy (not counting the kneel down at the end of the game, Georgia was basically dead even run/pass), but we should see another balanced approach. With any luck, of course, we will be up comfortably in the 4th quarter, and might see the numbers skew heavily toward the run about halfway through the final stanza. Way off on this one, with the caveat that we did run our offense based upon what UAB was showing. I did expect us to try to forcefully establish the run come hell or highwater, so I was genuinely excited that we came out gunning. UAB, seemingly, refused to believe that we would actually throw the ball downfield. Time after time, assuming it was not just blatant miscommunication, their CBs just let WRs/TEs run by them, not because they couldn't keep up (although that would have been true, too), but because they just seemed to believe Georgia would not throw deep.
UAB's defense is experienced, and they play sound football. Redshirt freshman Mac McWilliams is the only underclassmen on that side of the ball, with several 5th (6th?) year seniors. Again, if you're elite, then you don't 'worry' about Georgia's offense struggling. However, the hot knife through butter analogy might be wishful thinking, especially considering all the injuries we have on offense. Barring Georgia's defense getting multiple turnovers, I would expect Georgia to slowly build a nice lead over the course of the game, rather than seeing a boat race situation. Way off. As mentioned above, Georgia threw the ball at will, with no resistance at all. The slight factor in my favor was that Georgia could not run the ball with any real consistency, but I was dead wrong here. I will be interested to see how UAB's defense does against more similarly talented competition, though.
Conventional wisdom says that, when you're starting a new QB (if that's what we end up doing), you ease him in with running plays and short, simple passes to get the nerves out. I would love to see a play-action call on either the first or second snap, taking a shot downfield. Low risk (even if intercepted, it would be 50 yards downfield), high reward, and what better way to counter any nervousness than by telling Beck to throw it as far as he can. This is just 'fan speak,' more than anything, but I'd like to see it nonetheless. Well, Stetson was hardly new or inexperienced, but again, I was thrilled that we opted to go deep given the defense's refusal to accept that we would.
With all the talk late-week about the QB situation, I haven't read or heard how guys like Burton, Smith, and Fitzpatrick have been progressing with their injuries. They all played, most of them significantly, but how they were used suggests that they were still dealing with injurious effects. Nothing to predict here, but it will be interesting to see if they're able to be utilized more in the offense. Burton and Smith got in the act early, though Fitz was basically a non-factor in the passing game. Burton, to me, still doesn't look as explosive as he did last year. I know that sounds odd, given his long TD reception, but a big part of that was how UAB chose to cover the play (they chose not to cover it at all, apparently). As we all know by now, I don't think there's a CB in the country that can cover Arian Smith deep one on one. This is HUGE for so many reasons.
Lastly, we all understand that winning is the most important thing. Setting that aside, though, there is some score/margin of victory that will be 'fine' in the eyes of the CFP committee, media, and the CFB community in general. Some may say, "I don't care," and I can't argue with that. But, to many, it does matter. Not a score prediction, but I feel like that minimum score would be something like 34-10. With all the injuries, and the perception that UAB is a decent team for a mid-major, that should enable us to hold on to the #2 spot, and not have that game viewed as a blemish should we need to get into the CFP with 1 loss somewhere else. While 34-10 wasn't really a prediction, I was thinking the score would be somewhere in that range. Mostly, though, I was really wanting to see us show out and win by a large enough margin to where nobody would be thinking we struggled in any way. Mission accomplished and then some. Interestingly, UAB is still viewed in general as a pretty decent mid-major team, despite the thrashing. We got what we needed from this game from a perception standpoint, and while it's not of major importance, I'll be rooting on UAB to have a solid year.
