Too Much Information: Georgia Bulldogs v. Arkansas Razorbacks

“I’ve received some constructive criticisms about my dour attitude, "

I noticed the link to my comment in the previous thread. First, I apologize again for my tone. I was frustrated. Second, I never realized the extreme pessimism was “part of the joke.” I guess I’m taking things too seriously when I miss the joke.

I’m just so tired of “rebuilding”. So tired of being always the bride’s maid and never the bride (no national title since 1980). So tired of getting behind the 8-ball early, and having to hope for other teams to lose. So damn tired of losing to Florida. I like that people respect our program and our Head Coach, but I’m sick of never being feared.

My family moved to Atlanta in 1977 when I was 5 years old. 3 years later, like most other 8 year old boys, I was pretending to be Herschel Walker jumping “up and over” for a TD in gym class or in the yard. I’ve been a die hard Bulldog fan ever since. I suffered through Goff. Suffered (a bit less than with Goff) through Donnan. I went to (and graduated from) UGA law school 1995-1998, and experienced nothing but bad or mediocre teams. I remember being happy when we got into a bowl game. :(

From 2001-2005, I thought maybe the suffering was over. But that is looking like just a temporary blip on the radar.

Since I became a fan in 1978, I’ve experienced 5 seasons that were truly special (1980, 1981, 1982, 2002, 2005), 3 that were enjoyable (1983, 1992, 2007), and the rest (22!!!) pretty much sucked.

I don’t know if we are snakebit or a victim of infinite bad timing or what. Either we have a freshman QB and a veteran OL, or a green OL and an experienced QB. Or we have a terrible d-coordinator and otherwise good team, or bad o-coordinator and otherwise good team. Or we have 97 injuries after a preseason #1 ranking, or a star playing who sells his jersey and gets caught.

This is the state of the program right now, as I see it:

1) Our strength and conditioning is horrible. This has becoming more and more clear every year. Other teams manhandle us. Nobody is afraid of us physically. Even when we play baby teams like ULL it doesn’t feel like “men vs. boys.”

2) Mike Bobo is not an elite offensive coordinator. Maybe he isn’t horrible (like Willie was), but he doesn’t have any particular genius for offense. Nobody else is trying to hire him away, and can you blame them? We won’t consistently win SEC titles, and likely never a National Title unless we have 2 excellent coordinators to go with our head coach. Spurrier was his own genius o-coordinator, but he needed Bob Stoops on defense to finally win it all. Urban Meyer needed Mullen AND Strong.

3) Either the kids aren’t buying in or they just don’t fear CMR. Discipline has absolutely gone out the window for the last 3+ years. Many people have said that you can only coach somewhere for 8 years or so and then kids stop listening. I do not want this to be the case for us. I like CMR. I respect CMR. I’d love for him to be our Bowden or Paterno. But for whatever reason, the kids aren’t listening.

To have Washaun Ealey say right to CMRs face that he won’t drive, and then he does???? In the same offseason that CMR already BOOTED a top QB whose mom worked for the athletic department? If he can’t strike fear in their hearts by kicking off a kid like Mett, then how can he? I don’t know the answer, but something is broken there and it scares me.

4) Our teams just aren’t physical any more. Maybe this is related to #1. Sure, we have occasional players like Marcus Howard or Justin Houston who, individually, are physical beasts. But overall its not happening. We don’t push people around. We don’t scare people. We don’t routinely have multiple guys like Thomas Davis or Greg Blue just destroying people.

5) Nobody fears us. People respect us, but they don’t fear us.

Anyway, that’s it for this rant. I hope things change, but I fear another year of missed opportunities and shattered dreams.

I know this might sound a little bit of a downer, but it is more of a reality check for the UGA football team.

1. QB Mallett has not won on an opponent’s home field since he took control of the Arkansas offense last year. If UGA loses this game, we will be the first team to be defeated by Mallett when their team is on the road.

2. A 2-1 start this year is possible going into the third week, but we could go 1-2 if we lose this one, and the outcome for the rest of the season isn’t good if that happens. The last time we started 1-2 was in 1996 during Jim Donnan’s first year as head coach. The 1996 squad finished 5-6 with no bowl. The next recent time when UGA started 1-2 was in 1993 during Ray Goff’s tenure. The same year, Arkansas defeated Georgia in Athens 20 -10. The 1993 squad finished 5-6 with no bowl.

3. Arkansas offense has averaged over 500 yards so far on offense.

4. Mallett reminds me of Matt Jones the QB from Arkansas about 6 years ago, very tall at least 6’5, throws a lot, and an extremely good arm. The few times we faced Matt Jones, UGA won at Arkansas 20-16 in 2004 and 30-3 in the SEC championship in 2002.

5. Early this year, Mark Richt really wanted Mallett to consider for the NFL maybe partly because Richt knew he had to play against him one day if he stayed. If I was a coach and the opposing quarterback threw over 400 yards and scored 40+ points against me and had to play him again next year, I would hope he went for the NFL, so I don’t have to play him again.

6. This is not a factoid, but I want to point this out. We will be hearing all those things about “Mallett hammers the Dawgs” or “Arkansas pounds the UGA defense with 350+ passing yards” if we lose this game. The punchlines and puns from the crazy commentaries will echo loudly and be tinnitis to our ears for the rest of the season if we drop this game.

Conclusion, this game is a MUST WIN for UGA, however, if we could score a lot of dang points, I think we’ll do it.

For better or worse, this may be the real coming out party.

I think this game will be decided, in our favor, by our pass rush. While our tackling was not spectacular against South Carolina we were getting a good pass rush most of the game. I felt that we were getting some penetration in the running game but were not able to effectively bring down Lattimore on a regular basis.

Arkansas is a transparently one dimensional team. Arkansas top rusher against LA-Monroe had 12 carries for 45 yards while Mallet threw for 400+. I feel like this(pass first) offense is what we are the most prepared to handle right now( although I’m not as suicidal on our rush defense as some- how many times did Moreno make fairly effective defenses look foolish?).

We brought pressure both up the middle and from the edge against Carolina and I’d look for more of the same against Arkansas. If Arkansas starts to run the ball effectively and we can’t tackle then we are going to be in trouble(both in that game and down the road).

I think the offense should score its share of point. Bobo/Richt offenses have been effective for the last several years. We were winning SHOOTOUTS last year when we had zero defense and were turning the ball over at an alarming rate. Our problem for the last two years has been our defense had little to no ability to either A) Create opportunities for the offense(turnovers, field position) and B) Hold the opposition to less than 30 points.

I’d also look for some more toss/sweep/outside type runs this week. We seemed to be more effective running the ball on the outside than in the middle against SC.

respect to Mark Richt and his teams. So I am not even going to read his article before posting this___I assure you he always has the glass more than half full when looking at Richt and UGA. In any even, Mallett is, and always will be, just a big slow Big Ten quarterback who can throw it a mile if no pressure. Hopefully, Ark has no running game. In any event, I’ll be watching it from a skybox which is communist in and of itself.

Well my first post on this blog was yesterday so I can’ say I have a long history of being any sort of an apologist.

Richt has had failings. Moreno and Stafford’s last year was a disaster(but not because of the offense) and I thought at the time Richt should have been tougher and fired Martinez then. Last year I was of the opinion that if Martinez didn’t go that Richt was probably on his way out of Athens because the defense had been so unredeeemably bad for the past two years. This lead not only to some losses but also to the wasting of really excellent circumstances that could have gotten us to the national title game.

I’m obviously not Kyle King, just defending us “reasonable” fans as not cockeyed anything.

optimism but………

Looking back will give you a sore neck quicker than you can say look back.

Figuring most teams change 1/2 of their roster every two years I can’t see the value of looking beyond last year.

For what it’s worth I see the Dawgs righting the ship and playing inspired ball.