Cocktail Thursday: South Carolina Edition

Are your Georgia Bulldogs preparing to open SEC play after a couple of less than overwhelming victories over nonconference opponents? Does that make you just a little nervous?

You could probably use a drink. I can help you with that.

It’s early still. But Georgia Bulldog fans as a whole have never been known to be late to the party when it comes to worrying. Instinctively, we as a fanbase follow the advice of noted academic and risk theorist Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who has noted that “if one is going to panic, it’a better to panic too early than too late.”

One thing about which the Bulldog faithful are a little panicky is the UGA running game. And it’s not like the numbers don’t back them up. The Red and Black are averaging 129.0 yards rushing per game, good for 9th in the SEC. No Georgia running back has gone for more than 53 yards in a game, and true freshman Roderick Robinson is leading the team in rushing while averaging a pretty pedestrian 44.0 yards per game on the ground. To paraphrase Matthew McConnaughey’s character from the Wolf of Wall Street in a wildly different context: “You gotta pump those numbers up! Those are rookie numbers in this racket.”

To be fair, there are legitimate reasons for the lack of production. For one, Daijun Edwards remains out and Kendall Milton hasn’t been 100%. It’s hard to have your best running game without your best running backs.

Also the playcalling has been squarely tilted toward getting the new starting quarterback and his largely new receiving corps on the same page. 56% of Georgia’s 131 offensive snaps have ended up in the air. It’s hard to gain a ton of ground on the ground when you only run the ball 29 times per outing. But still, the Dawgs are only averaging 4.45 yards per attempt, good for 7th in the SEC.

But I think I speak for a majority of fans when I say that it sure would be nice to see the Athenians come out and run the dang ball. Regrettably I think I know one reason we haven’t seen that as much, and which can’t be solved in the training room or up in the playcalling booth.

The fact is, there’s a Darnell Washington-shaped hole in our blocking schemes. Everyone’s favorite aircraft carrier sized tight end was not only a cheat code in the passing game, he was also effectively a third offensive tackle in the run game.

Brock Bowers and Oscar Delp are fine young men and I think both will have NFL careers. But neither is a 6’7, 275 pound mountain of a blocker. That’s an impediment that Mike Bobo’s going to have to work through as a play caller. He has to do the best he can with what he has.

But, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, we may have found the thing that Brock Bowers could do better. While he’s certainly a willing blocker, and I haven’t seen him appear to miss any assignments in the running game, he’s not a road grader. Unfortunately, there’s going to come a game this season where we need him to be. I don’t think it will happen this weekend against the South Carolina Gamecocks, but I’d love to see him do it anyway.

And what’s the cocktail for when you want Brock Bowers to find his inner blocker? A Block, Bowers! You’ll need:

* 1 oz of quality gin*

* ¹⁄₂ oz triple Sec liqueur

* 1 and 1/2oz orange juice

* a splash of lemon juice (about ¹⁄₂ an ounce)

* 2 oz club soda.

Add the gin, triple sec, orange juice, and lemon juice to a shaker with ice. Shake and pour into a rocks glass then top it with club soda. Enjoy!

Until later…

Go ‘Dawgs!!!

* I was not a big fan of gin cocktails for a long time. I think that’s because as a poor student I couldn’t afford good gin, which makes all the difference in this kind of drink. Please, find a crisp, aromatic gin that wasn’t made in someone’s shed for this recipe. You’ll thank me later.