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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2007 > September > 09
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Bad old habits resurface
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you consider Mike Bobo the equivalent of a freshman as an offensive coordinator, then Saturday night against the Gamecocks was his game where he looked like a freshman: awkward, making bad choices, his inexperience glaringly apparent.
Saturday night saw Bobo offering up trick plays at the wrong time (poorly executed) and some inexplicable calls on third down (an end-around with third-and one??!!) or fourth-and-short. And who calls a fade when you’re in the middle of the field? The Dawgs were fine between the 30s but then would go away from what got them that far. Hey, if you’ve got a hot running back in the game, why pull him out? Why go away from the running game when it’s working? And in the passing game, what’s with calling all those low-percentage, hard-to-complete sideline and corner routes?
Still, you certainly can’t pin the whole loss on Bobo’s play calling. Or on sophomore QB Matt Stafford’s fairly lousy play. Though those were two of the biggest reasons Georgia lost.
No, this one gets pinned on the offense as a whole. OK, we knew the line wasn’t going to be very good (and they weren’t, though they got better in the second half), and while you might give them part of the blame for Stafford’s happy feet and poorly thrown passes, they weren’t responsible for his apparent inability to see anybody except his primary receiver (including others who were wide open), and the linemen weren’t the ones dropping entirely catchable (and important) passes when they were on target. Of course, they were the ones committing the false starts, but again, part of that goes on Stafford, who didn’t do a good job managing the game. When you’re behind, you don’t need to be eating up all of the play clock and barely getting the snap off in time, making the linemen even jumpier. And that first time out of the second half, with 20 seconds still left on the play clock, was inexcusable.
Speaking of which, poor clock management continues to be a hallmark of Richt teams. Maybe it was because we’d already unnecessarily burned a time out and wanted to conserve what we had that Georgia let the clock continue to run when the Cocks were milking it before their last punt. Whatever it was, we ended up getting the ball back with a 1:20 instead of about a minute longer than that. Putting more pressure on Bobo and Stafford.
Another problem was Georgia’s very spotty special teams play, with only our return men having good nights. Kickoff coverage didn’t get decent until the second half. And an illegal shift by Michael Moore (who also dropped a couple of passes) on a punt resulted in a possibly game-costing penalty that negated a fumble recovery.
Certainly, the defense had its troubles, particularly against the run (a common refrain from the past couple of seasons) and in making the first hit stick, but the D played well enough to win. Any time you hold an SEC offense to 16 points, YOUR TEAM SHOULD WIN.
GOOD STUFF: Knowshon Moreno. Fans already love this kid, who not only plays with a spark but jumps up and runs back to the huddle! He’s like an offensive version of David Pollock, with his motor always running. I realize team politics may play a part in all this, but if he isn’t the starting back by mid-season, someone’s asleep at the wheel. … Except for the interception on that desperation pass late in the game, the Dogs haven’t had a problem with turnovers so far this season.
MORE BAD STUFF: What do Bobo/Stafford have against throwing the ball to Mohamed Massaquoi? Why are we throwing to unproven guys like Tony Wilson (two key drops in two games) or Michael Moore when MoMass is still making unbelievably athletic catches in the all too few instances when the ball comes his way? Even when he’s double-covered. He’s a major weapon; use him! … Will someone tell cornerback Bryan Evans that he needs to look back and see where the ball is? He got one interference call because he went for the man without ever looking at the ball, and on two other plays he missed possible picks because he never looked up. … Too much of Georgia’s offense in the first half was behind the line of scrimmage. If we want to take pressure off the line, we should just dump it out to Moreno or Mikey Henderson in the flat. That’s going to have a much higher percentage of positive yardage than screen passes behind the line. … The first quarter of the game seemed to be dominated by yellow flags and TV time outs. … Unless Georgia can get the NCAA and NFL to let David Greene come back to run it, the Dogs should take Steve Spurrier’s advice and can that sleeper play. Of course, it’s not really designed to be a fourth-down play. … Toward the end, Bobo got impatient in his play calls, going for the end zone (again, with low-percentage passes) when what we needed was a first down.
OTHER STUFF: The Redcoats repeated last week’s James Brown tribute. Speaking of which, word is coming out of the Redcoat Band that, as was posted in a comment here last week, the seemingly inexplicable absense of “Dooley’s Junkyard Dogs” from the Brown tribute is a result of Damon Evans or Mike Adams (is there really a difference?) ordering that the song not be played, even though the band had rehearsed it and planned to use it as part of the show. The logical conclusion is that the objection is to the fact that Vince Dooley’s name is in the song’s title. If so, that’s pathetic. … South Carolina legend George Rogers hosted a tailgate near Georgia’s practice fields on Lumpkin on behalf of his foundation and had his Heisman trophy sitting on a table and his framed jersey nearby. … It was amusing to hear a Gamecocks fan calling in to the “Fifth Quarter Show” and painting this wholly false picture of his team having beaten the Dawgs up and down the field. Hey, you won the game but your team didn’t look that good. Just slightly better than the Dogs, who looked terrible. I mean, only 16 points and having to punt seven times (two more than Georgia) in a game in which possession was pretty evenly split is hardly making an offensive statement. The Cocks’ defense was more impressive, though the Dawgs’ lack of execution was a big part of it. As Spurrier himself said after the game, “We are two evenly matched teams.” Which neither team should take as a compliment.
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