Dawg Sports Live Doesn’t Need Quadruple OT to Breakdown the Alabama Game

One thing you can say about us is that we keep you guessing.... but Graham and I carved out a late night show previewing the SEC Championship matchup between Georgia and the Crimson Tide. Check it out on YouTube or on Twitter. We are including some of the graphs that accompany the analysis here as well. We always appreciate the feedback and welcome you to share, like, and review to help us spread the word.

UGA Offense v UGA Defense

So there’s a lot to look at in this matchup obviously. First, let’s dispel a notion… Both of these passing games are very explosive.

• Alabama Passing YPP: 9.3
• UGA Passing YPP: 9.5
• Stetson Bennett on throws 20+ YDS: 50% comp, 19.2 YPA, 8 TD/2 INT, 16.4% of att
• Bryce Young on 20+ YDS: 39/7% comp, 14.7 YPA, 12 TD/2 INT, 13.8% of att
• This isn’t just about UGA stopping a powerful Bama passing attack. This game is about Georgia’s offense as much as it is the UGA defense.

Josh Jobe is a DB that UGA could have taken advantage of from a WR standpoint in 2020, but the passing game outside the hashes wasn’t good enough to execute when a WR was open. That’s not the case now. Bennett will hit it if it’s there. His Adjusted Depth of Target last week before garbage time was 14.1 YDS an attempt. That is going to be difficult for Bama to defend. This is the best passing game they have seen all year.

Aside from the weird lack of timing to AD Mitchell on the boundary last week, Bennett looked totally in sync with his receiving corps. SBIV threw towards Mitchell 5 times with just 1 reception and 2 drops by AD. He targeted 10 other UGA WR’s on the day, and on those throws his line was 13/14, 246 YDS, 17.6 YPA, 4 TD’s… That’s lethal production. Good luck game planning around that as an opposing D Coordinator.

A healthy Pickens may take some reps from Mitchell this week, but AD has been key at moving the ball in 8-15 yard chunks this year and getting big first downs on levels concepts and comeback routes.

I expect UGA to take advantage of Harris and Too’too early and often. Harris has been targeted 46 times this season and given up 36 receptions for 435 YDS and 5 TD’s. Against UF/A&M/ARK he gave up 13 catches on 15 targets for 170 YDS and 2 TD’s. Too’too has been targeted 34 times this year and has given up catches on 27 of those targets. Arkansas hit him for 4 catches on 4 targets for 58 YDs and a TD. UGA has more weapons to take advantage of the Bama ILB’s than anyone they’ve faced all year, and Monken is superb at getting Bowers and his HB’s into those man-to-man matchups.

Alabama Offense and UGA’s Defense

Young struggled against Alabama because he had to throw the ball outside the numbers downfield and wasn’t left with big windows on intermediate routes for his guys to do damage after the catch off of.

Young’s not that accurate outside the numbers on throws of 20+ yards. He’s 3/11 for 89 YDS on the season to the outside left and 9/23 for 225 YDS on the outside right. The key for Georgia in this game is to force everything to the boundary with your two-high safeties and make Bryce Young hit perfect throws over and over. If you clog the middle and make him see small windows or confuse him by dropping athletic LB’s and lineman like Travon Walker into coverage he will eat the ball into the rush. The only thing that scares me is that Ringo will panic from time to time and not look for the ball if he gets beat deep. You don’t want to be keeping Bama on the field with penalties.

Georgia needs a healthy Christopher Smith, and if they don’t have one it’s going to hurt. Bama is gonna line up Metchie and Williams in the slot and dare UGA to play them in man with Brini. That’s a matchup they could pick on a lot and it could be the thing that works for them on Saturday.

There’s also the contain to worry about for UGA. Adam Anderson isn’t there, and Robert Beal Jr was struggling to keep contain on Hendon Hooker when we last saw him in a big game situation.