SB Nation User Blog: MaconDawg

Life In The Fastlane: Why Gus Malzahn's Auburn Offense Is Willie Martinez's Worst Nightmare.

MaconDawg — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:21:33 -0000

In 2007, I set the Georgia/Auburn game up as a referendum on Willie Martinez's coordination of the University of Georgia defense. Then the question was whether Martinez would outscheme UGA alum and Auburn defensive coordinator Will Muschamp. That game turned out fairly well, though things have been mostly downhill defensively from there. Which leads us to the 2009 UGA/Auburn showdown.

This year Coach Martinez is again facing questions going into the matchup with the Plainsmen, more questions than in the previous two seasons. And his latest adversary, new Auburn offensive guru Gus Malzahn is perhaps his most formidable to date.

Chris Brown over at Smart Football can tell you everything you could want to know about Malzahn's warp speed offense. For my money Chris is the best X's and O's blogger out there, and he's done a good job of explaining Malzahn's exceptionally unique approach. It's interesting to consider that Malzahn was coaching at Arkansas's Springdale High School as recently as 2005. Now he's being hailed as one of the most innovative offensive minds in all of football. Like former Texas high school coach Bum Phillips (one of the early innovators of zone blocking schemes, and reputed to be one of the first to number the gaps along the line of scrimmage), Malzahn is the type of original you can spot from a mile away.

I've hinted for some time that Malzahn's offense worries me silly. However I haven't talked about why that's the case until now. Bottomline, this offense exhibits several features uniquely suited to beating the pants off our defense, including:

Play action. Yes, our old hobgoblin. Malzahn's offense employs the same bootleg action that Tennessee absolutely eviscerated us with and the read-option look that Florida shredded us with under Dan Mullen. One wrinkle is that they will sometimes bootleg the QB one way then throw a screen back the other way. The result is a game of gridiron three card monte that I have no confidence in our ability to stop.
Tempo. As Chris notes, Malzahn's offensive playbook isn't that revolutionary. Auburn runs counters, bubble screens and other plays that everybody has been running everywhere for years. The main difference is that Malzahn's Tulsa offenses ran over a thousand plays a year. Auburn may not quite be on track to do that, but they do fly up to the ball on every snap. There's no standing around checking and motioning and otherwise burning time. This has two marked effects. One is that defenses do not have time to make adjustments to the set that Auburn lines up in. The ball will generally be snapped within 5 seconds of being whistled into play, so there's no time to communicate. You have to play using the calls you come out of the huddle with. Defenders, even smart defenders, wind up out of position. Things just fall apart. Second, the offense just wears defenses down. 80+ snaps a game is a lot of plays. Auburn has been practicing that grind all season. We haven't, and have looked a little out of shape against less demanding offenses. I envision lots of winded Georgia defenders. And of course fatigue generally contributes to our other old friend, missed tackles.
Chris Todd. I know, Todd is not a unique aspect of Malzahn's offense. But Malzahn's offense has done something unique for Todd. He's thrown 17 touchdowns this season versus only 3 interceptions. While Todd is only completing 58.6% of his passes, Malzahn's offense doesn't ask him to take a lot of downfield shots, and it doesn't ask him to make a lot of post-snap reads. In other words, Auburn's offense helps protect the kind of quarterbacks who've had career games against us this season. Coach Richt has talked about how this defense's biggest problem has probably been its inability to create turnovers. I doubt this Auburn offense will do them any favors in that department.
The Wildcat. We haven't seen a lot of the ubiquitous Wild____ formation this season. Malzahn of course is credited with bringing the concept to the front of the national football consciousness at Arkansas with Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. He has a less heralded but solid group of tailbacks and receivers at Auburn who are capable of running the wildcat, which is designed to get playmakers out in space against defenders. Can anyone think of any area in which Georgia's defense has struggled more of late than tackling shifty skill players in the open field? Yeah, me neither.

Of course, Auburn has also given up a ton of points this season as well, including 31 to LSU and 44 to Arkansas. Perhaps we'll have similar luck and win in a shootout. And perhaps I'm treating a chihuahua like a pit bull just because this season has turned me into a rampant pessimist. But I simply can't shake the impression that whatever else happens Saturday won't be a good day for Willie Martinez. Until Thursday . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!

5 Things: Tennessee Tech Edition.

MaconDawg — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:44:58 -0000

1) Brandon Boykin. The Tennessee Tech kick return units have been pretty solid this season, averaging 23 yards per return on kickoffs and 10.7 yards on punt returns. However, they've also given up some return yardage, including 2 kicks returned for touchdowns against Kansas State. I'm guessing Boykin takes advantage of the Golden Eagle special teams for at least one big return. For all the early grumbling over special teams this season (including from yours truly) it's become clear that Boykin is a weapon with the ball in his hands, Blair Walsh is as good a placekicker as we could hope for (especially now that he's being allowed to kick it in the endzone) and Drew Butler has the ability to flip the field on punts (assuming we don't turn the ball over before getting to fourth down). At this point I'll take my bright spots wherever I can find them.

2) Marlon Brown. With Rantavious Wooten starting in place of the injured A.J. Green, Brown moves up a slot in the rotation. I'm thinking either the freshman from Memphis or the recently MIA Israel Troupe gets at least two catches. I'm betting on Brown, who I believe is just too talented not to have an impact at some point.

3) Logan Gray. Mike Bobo double-pinky swears that we will see Logan Gray, maybe during the first half. This should provide a lesson in perception for the astute observer. If Gray shines, we'll have a reinvigorated quarterback controversy, and questions about why we didn't see more of him earlier. If he lands with a thud, there will be much grumbling regarding the quarterback situation for 2010. Oh, the power of rampant group negativity.

4) Watson Brown's buddy the cowboy plumber/trainer/manager. Thanks, Paul. I've been waiting two years to link to this.

5) UGA 34, TTU 10. I expect a fairly flat performance that is nevertheless good enough to beat a team that's not only a 1-AA squad, but not a particularly good one at that (the Golden Eagles are 5-3, 4-2 in the Ohio Valley Conference). Here's hoping the 'Dawgs take care of business early heading into next week's showdown with Auburn that will go a long way toward defining the last third of this season. I'll see you in the open comment thread in a few hours. Until then . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!

Cocktail Friday: BYOB Edition.

MaconDawg — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:43:50 -0000

I tried. I really did. I labored exceptionally hard to think of an appropriate pregame cocktail for this game against the Tennessee Tech . . .

{Stops. Looks down at notes] . . .

Golden Eagles. My home wet bar looks like Dr. Frankenstein and 'Lil Wayne opened a bartending school. So many wacky experiments in potent potables and wordplay. All for nothing. The Washaun Ale-y didn't quite work. The Rumtavious Wooten seemed a little derivative.The Vodka Martinez (shaken, not stirred) was only really appropriate if it was set on fire like the UGA defense, which seemed a tad dangerous. Like dropping 8 into coverage on 3rd down against Florida and watching Tim Tebow run unmolested down the field. Not that I'm holding any sort of grudge.

So we're going open bar. Feel free to leave your beverage choices for the day in the comments, along with your nonbeverage plans for the day. I'm going with Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale, but you should feel free to go with the early kickoff, Homecoming game beverage of your choice. I'll be back tomorrow with something preview-like. Until then . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!

Looking Back, Looking Forward.

MaconDawg — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:06:19 -0000

First things first. I’m really not as upset about this loss as I should be. I knew it was coming, I steeled myself for it over the course of a week, and I’ve already moved on from it. We have four games remaining, and will be heavily favored in exactly one of them. If we win three out of four, then a bowl game, we’ll have something to build on for 2010. As Vamoultrie Dawg points out there are some reasons for optimism next season. But right now it is desperately important that the seniors on this team not give up because they won’t play for an SEC Championship. Because 6-6 may see the Bulldogs home for bowl season for the first time since the beginning of the Jim Donnan era. That would make for an incredibly long offseason.

Mississippi State and Arkansas provided a pretty good roadmap for how to shut down the Florida offense. Chris Brown highlighted it on one of the most widely read college football blogs on the planet (and easily the most widely read blog penned by a Southern Miss fan). Willie Martinez ignored this model in favor of the softest soft zone he’s played in all of 2009.

They say that the late converts are always the most zealous. I was certainly a late convert to the fire Willie Martinez cause, but I’m now 100% certain it’s the thing to do. I hate that, because I don’t want anyone to lose his job. It really is something that I don’t think I’ve ever seriously campaigned for, even in the worst days of the Dennis Felton basketball era. But the defense that trotted onto the field at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium on Saturday played like a troupe of hungover circus makaks for most of the first quarter, setting the tone for the rest of the day. The fact that they turned in this effort with a week off to prepare only makes it more obvious that Willie Martinez is no longer capable of effectively leading our defense. If Auburn puts up less than 35 in two weeks, I’ll be shocked beyond belief. Because Gus Malzahn does this crazy "adjustment" thing we’ve been hearing about . . .

Sure, Willie Two Thumbs can’t be blamed for Joe Cox’s interceptions (more on those shortly). And as we saw this time last year, I’m usually the first to defend a defense which plays the whole day with its back against its own goalline. But at a certain point a championship level defense has to make championship level stops. Every so often, a quality defense needs to be able to force a three-and-out after being dealt a bad hand. By analogy, if Kyle and I only won the easy cases, we wouldn’t be very good attorneys. If a surgeon were only capable of saving people who hit the operating table with paper cuts and hangnails, he wouldn’t be very good at his job. This Georgia defense needed to come out and set the tone for the day early. Instead, they gave up two hot knife through butter touchdown drives. From that point forward, the game was never seriously out of hand for the Gators.

About Joe Cox. All indications are that Joe Cox is a wonderful young man. He is a good student, a polite kid, and all of us who have children would be very lucky if they grew up like Joe Cox. He is what Urban Meyer would call "the top 1% of the top 1%."

That being said, Joe Cox has as much business quarterbacking an SEC football team as I have running for President of Uganda. Sure, the tipped pass interception by A.J. Jones was a great defensive play. But Joe Cox had no business trying to throw that ball over him. Sure, the interception downfield on the ball tipped by A.J. Green was another great defensive play. But it was one of a handful of throws into triple or quadruple coverage that had no business being made. As I’ve said before, when Joe Cox is trying to win a football game he presses. I now believe he presses more than any Georgia quarterback I’ve ever seen. If he were a redshirt junior I think he might learn his lesson and be much better next season. But there is no next season for Joe Cox.

This is why starting a redshirt senior quarterback for the first time as a redshirt senior is an exercise in failure. There’s just no substitute for going out and actually throwing dumb interceptions and holding onto the ball too long and failing to check down to the tailback. But Joe Cox will never have the chance to apply the lessons he’s picking up now. There’s no payoff for this football team in Joe Cox’s current failures. Joe Cox may take the lessons he’s learning and use them to excel in his chosen career. But as things stand now whoever replaces him will be making the same mistakes next year.

Of course, Logan Gray once again showed that Mike Bobo has not necessarily been starting the wrong guy. Gray looked as bug-eyed and terrified as any quarterback I’ve ever seen during his two drive march to oblivion late in the game. The only recent example of similar concentrated futility that I can think of was D.J. Shockley’s disasterous relief work against Georgia Tech in 2004. Of course, he came back from it and turned out OK.

Which brings me to what I believe must happen this Saturday on Homecoming in Athens. Joe Cox should still be the starter, and he will be. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s our best quarterback (even if he may or may not be all that good) and gives us our best chance to win (even if that chance appears disturbingly slim on a weekly basis). But Logan Gray needs to play the second half. He needs to fumble some snaps and hold onto the ball too long and miss some open receivers. He needs to make some great throws and take off running for a big gain and hit Tavarres King in stride for a touchdown. He needs to take a sack and then get up and dust himself off. Because sitting in the film room watching Joe Cox’s mistakes is not making Logan Gray any better. It's time for Logan Gray to make some mistakes of his own.

Next year this Georgia offense will return ten of eleven starters, but the one newby is going to be at the most important position on the field. This may be our only chance this season to get Gray some quality reps, and if Mark Richt and Mike Bobo don’t take the chance they are missing a very important opportunity. They did not play Joe Cox enough the past two seasons, and it has shown. Let’s hope they don’t make the same mistake again.

Miscellaneous Wardrobe Malfunctions and Party Fouls

Brandon Spikes’s eye gouge: Not the worst thing I’ve seen done on a football field by a longshot. Dirty? Yes. Classless? Sure. But that sort of thing goes on two dozen or more times in any given college football game. I’m more outraged that at the age of 47 Brandon Spikes is still faster than any linebacker we have. The guy looks like he should be drawing Social Security by now.

The uniforms: As soon as I saw them I knew it was over. Because if you need a pretty new helmet to get jacked up for this game, or if as a coach you believe that your team needs that to get jacked up for this game, then it’s already over. If Mark Richt really wants to make a uniform statement he should strip the "G" stickers off the helmets and play with plain red headgear. And he should tell his football team that they’ll be doing so until they prove to his satisfaction that they deserve to wear the "G". This won’t happen, but that just makes it item #87,920 on MaconDawg’s list of things that should be but aren’t. It’s right behind "if you go through the drivethrough window at the bank with more than 2 separate transactions, you should have to split whatever is in your account with the people waiting impatiently behind you."

Hope. It Comes In A Thousand Forms: Florida could easily lose as many as 6 starters from both their offense and defense after this season depending on how many juniors choose to head to the NFL. Which means that Tennessee and South Carolina may be battling for the top spot in the East. And there went that ember of hope I was nursing.

Speaking of losing people, watching Bryan Evans lose sight of Tim Tebow on his second touchdown run was pretty much an encapsulation of the season, wasn’t it? I sometimes wonder if Evans was the basis for that new alien abduction movie. On occasion I think scientists from planet Zartxap snatch #3's brain while he’s running down the field, only to return it at the end of the play, leaving Evans dazed, confused and walking kind of funny, with no idea what happened. More Bacarri Rambo, please. This may be the rare Georgia squad that is truly improved by graduation.

If forced to identify a bright spot from this game I would have to point to the running game. Washaun Ealey looks like a slightly less quick Knowshon at this point, which is actually quite a compliment. The holes were there to break some runs against a defense that has been among the nation’s best this season, and in the end the offense turned out 121 rushing yards. Ealey led the team with 70 yards and averaged 4.1 per carry. It would be interesting to see what the outcome of the LSU game would have been had we been able to run the ball like that in the first half. Of course, if my Aunt Fanny had a beard she’d be my Uncle Fred. Or maybe Brandon Spikes.

Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!

Five Things: World's Largest Outdoor Irrational Optimism Festival Edition.

MaconDawg — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:02:23 -0000

You've got your pregame libation. You've got too much information about the upcoming game. Now it's time for you to have access to the five things you'll see tomorrow afternoon when your Georgia Bulldogs take on the Florida Gators. In no particular order, you're going to see:

Xavier Nixon. The Florida true freshman may get the start at left tackle after Carl Johnson struggled at that position against Mississippi State. While our pass rush this season has been iffy, and Corch Myers has been running him against future NFL'er Carlos Dunlap in practice, I still like the idea of a true freshman getting his first start opposite Justin Houston in Jacksonville. This Gator offensive line is simply not protecting Tebow as well as they did last season. Yes, even Tim Tebow needs protection sometimes, and not just from the Filipino authorities who would like to speak with him about his habit of touching young boys' netherparts for alleged "medical" reasons.

Speaking of offensive linemen, I'm curious to see if Clint Boling does get the start at left tackle. He has been working at that position this week in practice, and he performed well in that spot last season. He's not a prototypical left tackle from a size perspective, but he has exceptionally quick feet and just seems to get in front of folks, especially on the toss sweep. If we can run behind a left side consisting of Boling and Cordy Glenn at left guard, I think our offense really starts to come back to life. It's a big if, but I'm desperate for things to hope for. What's wrong with that?

Montez Robinson and Cornelius Washington. As Kyle notes, Chris Brown has found the key to stopping the Florida offense: get pressure on Tebow. Of course, that's not news to anyone, but as usual Chris does things up well with frame-by-frame explanations and video. Despite his reputation for soft zone coverage, Willie Martinez has actually dialed up more pressure than usual this season, at least according to my anecdotal observations. That will continue, because even one of the least statistically formidable Gator receiving corps in decades is still a mismatch for our secondary. Justin Houston cannot do it all by himself, and we cannot afford to send Rennie on the blitz and let Tebow take off running up the middle. One of these guys is going to have to step up and get some pressure off the end.

Tavarres King. Let's be honest with ourselves here. Ours is not a team which can run the ball to set up the pass. At least until we get our offensive line issues straightened out. Right now I think our optimal offense includes Green and King making plays on the outside, Mike Moore or one of the tight ends as a threat underneath and down the seam, and no more than 7 defenders in the box. Florida will probably have Joe Haden matched up on A.J. Green, which should be an excellent matchup. The key to our passing attack, the one that's now the key to whatever rushing attack we may have, is for Tavarres King, Rantavious Wooten, or one of the other guys to force Florida to drop a linebacker or play out of the nickel package. Of all the guys we have to fulfill this mission, I think T.K. is the one most likely to succeed. His matchup with Janorris Jenkins will go a long way toward deciding the outcome of this one.

Blair Walsh. To win games you have no business winning, you usually have to win the turnover battle and the special teams contest. I'll take Drew Butler versus any punter in the college game right now, with the possible exception of Florida punter Chas Henry, who has not had a single punt returned this season. A Brandon Boykin/Prince Miller kick return for 6 would certainly be huge. But I think Blair Walsh is more likely to be the guy who makes the difference if this thing is close. In order to win in Jacksonville we'll need to maximize our scoring opportunities and get some kind of points every time we're inside the Florida 30. If the Gator offense continues to sputter and Blair Walsh comes through with a trio of field goals, we could find ourselves in this thing.

UGA 23, UF 31. I really want to pick the 'Dawgs, Heaven knows I do. But there's just nothing in the past 7 games that inclines me to believe that this team will prevail against Florida. That doesn't mean I'd be shocked if it happened. It wouldn't be the first time that a Mark Richt-coached team showed up and unexpectedly torched a better squad despite my pregame pronouncement that is was unlikely. If the 'Dawgs do prevail, ensuring that Tim Tebow leaves the University of Florida with a losing record as a starter against Georgia, it will undoubtedly be ne of the most satisfying victories in recent memory. But I'm afraid that this sleepwalking Gator squad is going to wake up sooner or later, and I further fear that it will be on Halloween. But I hope that I'm wrong, and I urge you all to explain to me why I am. Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!

Cocktail Thursday: Cocktail Party Edition.

MaconDawg — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:01:17 -0000

This is an interesting week, isn't it? If you're like me (and your patronage on this blog indicates that you indeed are) you want to beat Florida with every fiber of your being. I've gone on record as saying that, as a Georgia fan who came of age as a football spectator in the 1990's, Florida is the UGA rival whom I most despise. In much the same way that Kyle's formative experiences with Pat Dye's Auburn teams shaped his views on all things Plainsman, my experiences with Spurrier-led Gator squads inclined me toward bileous Gator hatred from the word go. To put things succinctly, we could be up on Florida 45-0 with 15 seconds left on the clock and I would still want to put it in the endzone one more time. And then I would want us to attempt an onside kick. And then I'd want Urban Meyer to catch ebola from the silverback gorilla that mauled him on the way into the lockerroom. During this one week of the year there is nothing that I want more than for the Georgia Bulldogs to beat Florida.

However, I have absolutely no objective rationale for thinking that this Georgia Bulldog team which has been erratic at best and putrid at worst has any hope of sneaking up on Florida. True, Urban's boys have posted a series of lackluster performances over the past 3 weeks. If you've watched the Florida Gators recent efforts against LSU, Arkansas and Mississippi State you may have found yourself thinking (though not daring to say aloud) "Hey, we may have a chance on Saturday." After all, Tim Tebow is frustrated, and the offense he captains looks kind of out of sorts. Brandon Spikes has some flavor of lower extremity injury that he may or may not have suffered in a football game (alternate causality? Dry humping a wild boar he'd just chased down at his summer place outside Budapest after mistaking it for Knowshon Moreno).

The Gators are preparing for Georgia after hard fought games in which they didn't get to rest a lot of starters, and had to take the dreaded midnight flight back from Starkville, which is never a good way to jumpstart your new week of preparation for SEC football. Granted, the secondary which I believe to be the strength of this Gator squad shut down Ryan Mallett a lot more convincingly than we did. And, granted, there is nothing in either's prior history that makes me believe that Prince Miller has a prayer of making an open field tackle on Tim Tebow. But the luster is off this Gator squad. They're really good, especially on defense, but they no longer appear unbeatable. There are some cracks there. So much so that Orson Swindle/Spencer Hall just doesn't know what to believe anymore. He also thinks, by the way, that Lavelle Edwards's wives are doing a swell job of upkeep on the former BYU coach (if you're curious, the secret is regular oil changes, only using the premium petrol, and not driving him above 55). But that part's beside the point.

As DavetheDawg wisely notes, there are a lot of things that have to fall into place for the 'Dawgs to pull an unbelievable upset in Jacksonville. I'm not certain everything will go just as we need it to, but stranger things have happened. Former University of Texas golf coach (and unlicensed though highly effective sports psychologist) Harvey Penick was fond of saying that some golfers are optimistic and others are confident. The difference is that the confident golfer has hit any given shot before and thinks he can do it again. The optimistic golfer has never hit the shot he must, but nevertheless believes there's a chance it will happen.

This week, I'm an optimist. I'm optimistic that the latest iteration of our offensive line, which moves Clint Boling back to the left tackle slot where he excelled last season, will allow us to run the ball just well enough. I'm optimistic that Caleb King will run tough and seize the starting tailback job, and that Mike Bobo, with a week to exercise his strategic muscles will call the game of his life. I'm optimistic that Tim Tebow will continue to focus on Aaron Hernandez and Riley Cooper to the exclusion of other options and that Emanuel Moody will put the ball on the ground. Actually, I suppose I'm more confident than optimistic about that last one.

But you get the idea. Hope springs eternal. You just have to drink the Kool-Aid. Which reminds me, the last time we drank the Kool-Aid things turned out rather well along the banks of the St. John's River. It's and oldy but goody which I hope will carry the same mojo it did the last time we beat Vanderbilt, followed it with a strong performance against "Bye" and then decamped to Jacksonville. The Bulldog Kool-Aid:

3 teaspoons of cherry kool-aid powder, 3 ounces of rum, and 6 ounces (half a can) of mountain dew. Mix it up, add ice and enjoy. If you're headed to the coast, stay safe and have fun. Until tomorrow . . .

Go 'Dawgs!

Looking Back, Looking Forward.

MaconDawg — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:47:58 -0000

After this season's tough home loss to LSU, Kyle pointed out the similarity between that game and a Rorschach test. This one, however, more closely resembled the phenomenon of multistable perception. That is, like an M.C. Escher lithograph, you saw in Georgia's 34-10 defeat of the Vanderbilt Commodores a jumble of dots and lines and shading which looked like one thing, then another. However, you couldn't really control the gestalt switch from one perceptive reality to the other. You saw Megan Fox in an evening gown, then Rich Brooks in drag then the whole thing flip flopped back again. Or maybe that's just me, and this team has finally driven me insane. I suppose that's also a valid possibility.

Still, I bet that if you went into Saturday's contest believing that this team was in a state of freefall which could only be halted by some end of season bloodletting, you saw nothing that would change your mind. The offense looked awful from the beginning, and the running game in particular looked as bad as it has all year. Penalties of an utterly preventable nature cropped up repeatedly and at bad times. The special teams play was inconsistent. The defense gave up a forceful drive to begin the second half that allowed Vandy to hang around far too long, and play action passing again appeared to be a wondrous thing which we've never actually seen before.

If, however, you thought going in that this team was not as bad as its ugly loss to Tennessee and would recover, you saw green shoots of recovery all over the field in Nashville. For one, we actually beat an SEC team by 24 points. Rather than clawing out to a lead then spending the 4th quarter looking for a way to squander it (South Carolina, Arkansas, Arizona State) we actually pulled away in the final stanza. What's more, we did so in the way that Mark Richt's teams used to, by running it right down the throat of a battered and bruised opposing defense. Speaking of defenses, ours gave up fewer than 300 yards of total offense, 10 points total, and very few really big plays. The pressure up front was perceptible, if not overwhelming.

Miscellany of a High and Aggravated Nature

Fred Munzenmaier had as many receptions (3) as A.J. Green. Some see that and think there's something terribly wrong. I think however that you can't argue with the fact that the fullback screen was pretty darned effective. Munzenmaier was thrown to 4 times, and the 3 completions went for 8,9 and 4 yards. I think that if Mike Bobo had been in the press box he might not have called that play that often. However, down on the field and cognizant of the ebb and flow of the game, he saw that it was open. Vandy played a lot of cover 2 in the secondary trying to force us to beat them with the run game and short passing. This was one good way to respond.

Everyone seems to be raving about Bobo coaching from the sideline and wondering why he was up in the box to begin with. The answer of course is that it's a lot easier to see the whole field from up there. All other things being equal, I'd prefer the OC be up there. But right now all things aren't equal. We have an offense suffering a crisis of confidence that needed its General to be a Field General. I assume he'll be back down there against Florida, and I applaud him for thinking, quite literally, outside the box. That being said, if our offensive line doesn't show significant improvement Bobo could stand on Brandon Spikes's right foot and it wouldn't matter.

While most of the rushing offense happened after the game was essentially under control, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. At a certain point, when you can't just line up and ram it down peoples' throats, you have to start passing to set up the run. I'm fine with that, so long as we execute well enough to make it happen. Our inability to execute consistently has been the hobgoblin of this offense since the Arizona State game, and this one wasn't very different. That being said, Mike Bobo did the right thing by taking a few minutes late in the 4th to see which tailbacks really want to run the ball, and to give our offensive line some work on the thing they've been worst at all year long. I think it was a wise use of time. And there's really no better time to run the ball effectively than in the 4th quarter of a game which you're leading.

Brandon Boykin is an absolute weapon. When you have a guy returning kicks who people are legitimately scared to kick to, it cannot be a bad thing.

There's a passage in Jim Dent's great book The Junction Boys, chronicling Bear Bryant's stewardship of a struggling Texas A&M squad in 1954 that has come to mind several times as I've watched this struggling Georgia defense this season. I don't remember precisely how it goes, but I do remember the context. A&M suffered a series of tough losses that season, some blowouts, some close losses, some coming on inexplicable officiating calls. But one of Bryant's assistants noted how excited he was about the youth on the team and its freshmen (who at the time were not allowed to play). "Coach" he said, "with the young guys we've got coming in, if we can just keep the wheels on this wagon we'll be chopping high cotton before you know it."

With Branden Smith, Brandon Boykin, Bacarri Rambo, Deangelo Tyson, Justin Houston, Cornelius Washington, Abry Jones, Nick Williams, Sanders Commings and several others, I feel the same way. I'm not saying we don't need changes on the defensive staff. I have come to the conclusion that we probably do. But if a change is made, whoever replaces Willie Martinez will not suffer from a lack of talent. And that young talent is growing up week by week.

Caleb King quietly played an excellent football game. Sure there was the 21 yard touchdown on a screen pass and a rushing TD to boot. But he also pass blocked extremely well. It was a complete effort, and I have to believe he has a really good shot at starting against Florida in two weeks if he practices well between now and then. On the flipside, I got the impression that Bryan McClendon would rather drink hemlock (which, by the way, will not be in the Thursday Cocktail for Halloween despite DavetheDawg's very valid suggestion) than play Richard Samuel. I think the question of whether Samuel gets moved to linebacker is still out there, but I don't think you'll see it happen. We have tons of depth at linebacker (albeit young depth) and another inexperienced linebacker doesn't do us a lot of good at this point. On the flipside, we really need a battering ram of a tailback who can hold onto the football and get yards on 3rd and short. Samuel's a lot closer to succeeding in that role than as a will linebacker, though there's no guarantee he ever fully fills either role.

I've liked Bacarri Rambo since he was in high school, and have been pretty vocal about it. When I watched the highlights from his junior year at Seminole County High School I said that he just has a knack for making plays, and the kind of athletic ability you can't coach (though admittedly, I thought he'd end up at weakside linebacker. Oh well.) But even I am surprised that he has emerged as quite possibly our most consistent playmaking safety as a redshirt freshman. To repeat, Bacarri Rambo is going to be something else over the next couple of seasons.

To many fans this game was a temporary diversion from a season that seems destined for disappointment. As David Hale notes however, for the players it was something entirely different:

. . . I went down to the field and I watched the players walk into the locker rooms with giant smiles plastered across their faces. I talked to A.J. Green, who raved about the way the running game came through in the end. I talked to Joe Cox who raved, yet again, about how amazing A.J. is. I talked to Brandon Boykin, who went on and on about how much fun it was for Georgia to play that game. I talked to Caleb King, whose jaw was so sore he wasn't even supposed to be talking, but he couldn't contain his excitement either.

Sometimes "just a win" is more than that. I really think this win for Georgia meant something far more than it might have meant for a lot of the fans.

I'm not saying it means Georgia pulls the upset in two weeks, but I do think it was an absolutely necessary step toward making it a possibility.

I got the impression after the game, from the above passage and other sources, that the team didn't let on precisely how low their morale was after that loss to Tennessee. But it's now pretty clear that they needed this one badly. The next five games are like a whole new season.

At this point, Florida hasn't beaten Arkansas any more severely than we have, and they've won one against an LSU team that we were about 2 plays from beating as well. Georgia will rest and prepare for the annual showdown in Jacksonville while Florida travels to Starkville for a Saturday night showdown with Dan Mullen's physical offense, then takes a late flight back. Only a fool or an incredible optimist would predict a Georgia win on October 31. But I thought the same thing after we pulled out a last minute victory over Vandy in 2007. Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!

5 Things: Crawling Out of the Rubble Edition.

MaconDawg — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:33:36 -0000

Now that we've completed the wailing, gnashing of teeth, collective hand-wringing and selection of new defensive coordinators (who's in for bumper stickers?) it's time to talk about what's happening on the field today. I've avoided the 5 Things Preview recently for a couple of reasons. One, I've been exceptionally busy doing other things, and this is one feature whose brevity belies the effort involved in its creation. The other is, well, let's be honest, predicting what you'll see when this Bulldog squad takes the field is a fool's errand. Seriously, there's a reason I don't play the lottery or gamble on sports. Predicting what this team will do carries some serious risk. They're the Amy Winehouse of college football teams: everybody tells me there's talent there, but all I see is weird hair, bad teeth and a poor imitation of a Joss Stone cover of a Diana Ross song.

All that being said, this team and its fanbase need some serious rehab. I'm not saying any of us wil get that, but I am saying we'll get this:

1. Vandy QB Larry Smith on the bootleg. Every quarterback who has really torched our defense owes a huge debt of gratitude to Colorado's Dan Hawkins. That's because in 2006 Hawkins brought his underdog Buffaloes to Athens and very nearly pulled a stunning upset by doing nothing more than working the boot action on every play, including a wicked run/pass option that was unstoppable for most of the first half. It kept our talented defensive ends (Quentin Moses and Charles Johnson) from teeing off on the passer, and threw the whole defense into a sort of paralysis by analysis which we've now come to expect from Willie-ball.

A couple of weeks later, the Commodores from Nashville did the exact same thing in actually pulling off a 24-22 upset in Athens. We've now seen Stephen Garcia, Jordan Jefferson and Jon Crompton execute this gameplan with frightening results. The boot action passing game does two very valuable things for an offense. One, it allows you to attack defenses in much the same way a downfield option attack with a decent passing component does, freezing the secondary with play action fakes that take place at different points in the backfield. Two, when you have a quarterback who has trouble making decisions in a drop back setting, it narrows the field (essentially cutting it in half) and makes his decisions much easier. Jon Crompton, like most guys who get a scholarship to play quarterback at an SEC school, can hit a 12 yard out route on the run. If the only thing you ask him to do is a) look for the wide receiver on the out route, b) look to the tight end drag, then c) if neither is open tuck it and get what you can, he will accomplish that.

Ditto for Vandy's Larry Smith. Smith is currently 94th in the nation in passing efficiency and completing just over 46% of his passes. But as we've learned this season there's no guarantee that he won't have a career game against Georgia.

2. The zone blitz. Ok, this is more of an aspirational statement than a prediction. One of the best ways to stop that boot action is to bring a zone blitz from the outside on occasion. Sure, sometimes you'll blitz to the side away from the bootleg. But it helps make those simple QB reads a little more difficult. And if you guess right (or even better, if the offense somehow tips which way the action is going) you can totally disrupt that facet of the offense. I don't believe we've totally disrupted an offense since the 2007 Sugar Bowl. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

3. Logan Gray. Nah. You won't see Gray starting. But you will see him play his most significant snaps at quarterback on the season. Gray showed nothing in his duty during the Tennessee game to make this blogger think that Mike Bobo's been playing the wrong guy all season. And I know Coach Bobo is worried about Gray going down with an injury and leaving us one snap away from starting a true freshman against the Gators in Jacksonville. But you have to take the shrink wrap off the punt returner who doesn't actually return punts (shhhh!!! don't tell the competition!!!) at some point, and our offense has to find a spark from somewhere.

4. Tavarres King. I believe King was sorely missed during the Tennessee game for two reasons. One, the absence of a second credible downfield threat allowed Tennessee to roll a safety over top of A.J. Green to stop the longball and occasionally drop one under him to limit short passes. Also, King is perhaps our most elusive receiver on underneath throws, creating yards after the catch (YAC, for short) with surprising consistency. I believe that some of the dink and dunk passes that Joe Cox was forced to throw would have gone for longer gains had they landed in Tavarres King's hands. Having him back is huge for this offense, though not as huge as averaging 4.5 yards a rush would be.

5. UGA 27, Vandy 17. I think we'll see a team with a bunker mentality, whose collective backs are against the wall, come out fighting. There are serious, systemic problems that need to be fixed, and this week will provide the first glimpse of how Mark Richt and his staff intend to conduct the repair. Vanderbilt has a blackout planned for this Homecoming matchup, and the thinking among the Vandy faithful is that this might be the win they need to get their young team on track. Of course, Vanderbilt fans also think that Malcolm Gladwell is entertaining though lax in his methodology, and that some of the better estate grown viogniers can rival California's chardonnays in the battle of tailgate-friendly white wines. So take that with a grain of salt.

In summary, I predict a victory that will provide no hint that this team can prevail in Jacksonville against Florida, but will show that the situation isn't quite as dire as many believe. If ,however, Vanderbilt comes out on top, you'll find me in my basement breaking into those MRE's I've been saving since Y2K for just such an occasion as a Bulldog squad staring 3-5 (and 2-4 in the SEC) square in the eye. Until the postgame . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!

Cocktail Thursday: Vanderbilt Edition.

MaconDawg — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:30:25 -0000

This week's edition of Cocktail Thursday is brought to you by the letters S, A, R,C, A, S and also M.

Worst week ever to be a Bulldog fan? Nah. Worst in about 8 years? Possibly. And I know exactly why:

Cocktail Saturday. The worst idea in University of Georgia-themed potent potables since the invention of the Cherrishinski.

Cocktails are back where they belong, on Thursday, until further notice. Admittedly, Cocktail Thursday might not have prevented Vance Cuff from getting cuffed for the most benign sounding offense ever. i think Coach Richt said it best when he noted that Cuff made a bad choice in the route he was traveling. Yeah, that's not the first or last time one of our defensive backs has taken a bad route this season. As I noted in response to Vineyarddawg's fanpost on the subject, Reshad Jones and Bryan Evans were only saved from confinement by the fact that, as usual, they were nowhere near the action. It should also be noted that Cuff was all set to run away from the officer at full speed, until the guy executed a play action fake on 3rd and 12, which guaranteed that the Georgia defensive back would come right back to him like a yo-yo.

In truth, this whole season has taken "a bad route". And while you most certainly shouldn't drink and drive (even on a scooter and even in an alley), drinking would be a perfectly rational response to 60 minutes of exposure to the Willie Martinez defense. In fact, I suggest that this Saturday you imbibe the cocktail which best sums up the zeitgeist of the Georgia defense at the moment:

The whiskey sour. You can find suggestions for how to make a better one all over the internet, just like suggestions on how to improve the patented Willie Martinez "bend but don't break, then break and break and break again" defense. It's light and a bit fruity and not the least bit harsh. It's been around forever, so every bartender in America knows exactly how it's put together by now. While it contains enough alcohol to pack a slight punch, no one is really scared of it or takes it that seriously. In my unscientific study, it's a lot less popular than it was several years ago. It's Willie-ball in a glass.

Back tomorrow with football analysis of a slightly less tongue-in-cheek variety. Until then . . .

Go 'Dawgs!!!

A Few Words From The Wreckage.

MaconDawg — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:58:40 -0000

I try to avoid posting on this blog for 24 hours or so after a game. I generally double that for a loss. But I feel compelled on this night to say a few things that I thought went without saying.

For one, it has come to my attention that some of us apparently fell out of the perspective tree and missed every branch on the way down. Those of you who have labeled this one of the worst losses in University of Georgia history must have missed out on some fun times in the not so distant past. I remember the 1996 home loss to Southern Miss. I remember the 1995 "half a hundred" game against Florida in Athens and the time we made Auburn's Ben Leard look like Peyton Manning. I also remember Peyton Manning making our defense look incredibly stupid on a recurrent basis. And I remember the fact that all of that happened in a very short period of time in the mid to late 90's. Believe me, on the whole Mark Richt's record in tough conference games in distinctly preferable to Jim Donnan's. Richt's teams can be counted on not to show up once a year. Donnan's failed to show up weekly.

I'm not saying some changes don't need to be made. A lot of changes need to be made, which was the reason I became so pessimistic after the Arizona State game. We have more changes to make than a team can accomplish during the middle of the season. At this point we have the team we have and will have to live with them for the next 6 games. I'm convinced that winning 4 of those 6 would be miraculous at this point. But that would put us at 7-5, which in the Goff/Donnan era would have been the rule, not the exception. That's the difference between the past and the present.

No author improves the persuasiveness of his message by insulting his audience. That being said (and this is where you should feel free to sling arrows at me in the comments section) those of you who truly believe that it's time for any sort of change at the top of our football program are 18 carat golden morons. Seriously. I almost hate to dignify such a sentiment by commenting on it. But as someone who suffered through the Goff and Donnan years, I'd like to let you know that it could get a lot worse than what you've "suffered" through in the past few years. Last season's "disappointing" season was on par with the single best year of the Donnan era. That's to say nothing of the SEC Championship in 2005 or a final #2 ranking in the AP in 2007. Mark Richt has orchestrated more success in the past four years than his two predecessors combined.

Some of you are just blowing off steam and I get that. Some of you think Willie Martinez is only barely competent to coordinate his own bodily functions, much less an SEC defense. I totally get that. And some of you wonder how the most experienced offensive line in the SEC can't block a simple halfback lead play to save its immortal soul. I get that, because I've been wondering the answer myself. I won't get it from Stacy Searels because he won't talk to anyone, but I still wonder.

Perhaps this is the loss that snaps this team and coaching staff back to reality. Perhaps not. But just try to remember that most football teams are not, in the aggregate, as good as their wins or as bad as their losses. And we've had far more crushing losses than this one. Believe me, the sun will come up tomorrow. It's still great to be a Georgia Bulldog.