The Junkyard Blawg has moved!
Along with the other ajc.com blogs, the Junkyard Blawg has moved over to WordPress, where the blogging and commenting experience promises to be better. Join us over at the new WordPress version of the Junkyard Blawg by clicking on the link below.
AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2007 > October > 03
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Getting a leg up …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Asked the other day what was the common denominator in Georgia’s recent wins in Knoxville, Phil Fulmer said, “special teams.”
There’s a good chance that might apply to this year’s game, too, but not necessarily in our favor.
To date, the Dawgs’ coverage of kickoffs has been spotty at best and often just plain bad, resulting in some long returns (though, thankfully, none have gone all the way … so far). Last week against Ole Miss it didn’t take a particularly astute eye to spot the seams in Georgia’s coverage, and the Rebels took advantage of that. Giving the other team the ball at midfield or, worse, in your own territory is courting disaster.
Obviously, the Dawgs need to work on not just getting downfield in a hurry, but making a tackle that sticks. I know special teams are frequently a venue for walk-ons and subs to get some game time and Coach Richt has concerns about players getting hurt on kickoffs, but perhaps an upgrading of our personnel on kickoffs would be helpful.
Former UGA kicking great Kevin Butler raised another point on the radio Saturday night. He doesn’t think Georgia should be using Brandon Coutu for kickoffs. One big reason Butler cited: The danger of Coutu getting hurt helping make a tackle (we learned last year, unfortunately, where we’d be without him). He also disagreed with Georgia’s penchant for directional kickoffs as opposed to just sticking it deep in the end zone, precluding a return. There’s some question whether Coutu can do that consistently, but Butler said there are folks on the team (he mentioned Andy Bailey) who he thought could be coached up to kick it deep on a regular basis. (Butler wasn’t lobbying for son Drew to get the job; he said he thinks Drew is pretty likely to redshirt this year.)
I think Butler has a point. Why take the chance of a long return (something we seem vulnerable to) if you can prevent it?
If we can’t find someone to put it in the end zone, we’d probably be better off just kicking it out of bounds and taking the penalty. I’m being facetious, but the resulting field position would be about what we get most of the time now on kicks and considerably better than we’ve gotten on some kicks.
THREE INTO TWO: This has been debated in the beat blog, but I’ll put in my two cents’ worth. I would hope the coaching staff won’t be in a hurry to take the current successful two-man tailback rotation and turn it into a three-man rotation again. Kregg Lumpkin is a very good back, but he can’t help but be behind Thomas Brown and Knowshon Moreno in terms of sharpness and game-readiness. And trying to run a fairly equal three-man rotation (which hasn’t been particularly successful for us in the past) would mean reducing the number of touches for Brown and Moreno. At the same time, Lumpkin is a senior and a talented runner. And he has a different running style from the more similar Brown and Moreno. So we don’t want him just sitting on the bench waiting for someone to get hurt. I like what one of the guys on the “Fifth Quarter Show” had to say about this last weekend: Use him as a situational back and throw to him as an H-back. Get him the ball out in the open, where he’ll be extremely dangerous. But a true three-man rotation at tailback? Doesn’t sound like a good idea.
