Season 4 Volume 5: South Carolina

Intro

Georgia fans, myself included, need to adjust their mindset as we continue to move through the lighter part of our schedule. We are not going to blow every team out by thirty, especially by halftime. Take a breath. We are going to continually get every team’s best shot week in and week out. We will have to outlast early energy/crowd driven fast starts and use our depth to take over and eventually control games against lesser opponents. The spread may be 24.5 but these are still talented SEC east teams with scattered 4/5 star players. Adjust your mindset to view the positives of these early season games that we end up winning easily. Georgia faced unexpected adversity to start the Tennessee game and easily rose above it to take control of the game. Later opponents will be much tougher, but the experience of being slightly behind and clawing back is valuable and teaches a talented squad of players to be resilient. I know you’ve been hurt a lot in the past Dawgs, but smile and enjoy this team. Good teams win, great teams cover and the Dawgs did both last week.

Bend Don’t Break

The defense has been unbelievable this year. We are currently the only team in the country who has yet to allow a rushing TD. This group is very talented but more importantly, they are extremely well coached. I do have some concerns with our aggressive secondary busting some coverages or biting too hard on run fakes but overall the unit has been steady. For as much crap as we give Trey Scott for inability to consistently recruit elite defensive lineman, he has his guys ready to hold the line on Saturdays. Maybe it hasn’t been against elite offenses, but ive been thoroughly impressed by the aggressiveness, physicality and athleticism of this defense. This is the kind of unit that can carry you and even produce points if the offense is challenged.

Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images

Who’s Hot

Zeus- Zamir White is an absolute battering ram. He needs more touches. Once he gets additional confidence after he breaks a 40 yard run, watch out. I said preseason that I expected Zeus to be a huge difference maker by Florida. We are well on that path

Trey Hill- how about Hill filling the shoes of Lamont Gaillard and doing a hell of a job pointing out protections. 1 sack in 5 games, well done young buck

Azeez Ojulari- Azeez is so damn fast to the QB if he gets around the edge. He is the main contributor to Georgia’s increase in havoc this year. Kept Tennessee’s freshman QB off balance most of the night

Who’s Not

TEs- welp, they’ve disappeared again. With the addition of big bodies like Cager and Landers, this may not be the worst thing in the world. But it would be nice to get some looks for Woerner and Wolf again

Short Yardage- it’s been ugly since 2016. We have made such huge strides in OL and yet we still struggle in 3rd/4th and short. I like what we did on 4th and 1 against Tennessee, throwing a screen to Eli Wolf but that is high risk high reward. Not sure what the answer if here

Punt Return- I will take a game full of safe fair catches and modest returns, but improvement is necessary. As Dom Blaylock gets more comfortable, I expect him to show more athleticism

South Carolina Preview

I think Carolina will look to run the ball this weekend, leveraging Bryan Edwards for big plays over the top when possible. They will attempt to limit exposure of a young QB on the road while also limiting possessions. Fast paced, hurry up games for big underdogs often result in shoot-outs where they cant keep up. Two years ago, South Carolina played an absurdly slow pace and it resulted in one of Georgia’s closest games of the year (still a 14pt win). The 2017 pace was so slow, I was worried Georgia would not posses the ball enough times to win. South Carolina will try to replicate that effort this weekend. I do not expect them to be successful. Even without Jordan Davis, this is one of the stingiest run defenses in the country. No team has been able to establish a perimter run game, hell, even an interior run game. Our corners and safeties do an excellent job of maintaining edges and getting ball carriers on the ground. On offense, we simply have too much depth up front and at running back for this game to be close. Dawgs 37 Cocks 13

Bucky’s Easy Money of the Week

Yikes! The season win percentage of 60% finally crumbled and I turned in a garbage performance last week. I believe this is the first 0-5 week in BEMOTW history and it hurt. You decide what’s next. Fade me or get back aboard the train

Last Week: 0-5

2019: 12-13

Overall: 102-94-3

Oklahoma (-10.5) vs Texas: Texas

Washington (-6.5) vs Arizona: Washington

LSU (-13) vs Florida: LSU

Alabama (-17) vs Texas A&M: Alabama

Notre Dame (-10) vs USC: Notre Dame