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 > 07
Sunday, October 7, 2007
They just stepped on our face …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Usually, when Georgia has had a bad first half on the road and I’m watching on TV, I call my middle brother, Jonathan. He’s so gung-ho and positive that he always makes me feel better about our prospects, and quite often he’s proved right with the Dawgs making a dramatic second-half comeback.
Saturday, after that 28-0 first-half debacle in Knoxville, I called Jonathan and asked what he thought. He said he wasn’t sure if he was even going to watch the second half.
It was that kind of day in the Bulldog Nation.
Anyone who had paid attention to Georgia’s defensive lapses in allowing long scoring drives over the previous couple of weeks kind of expected that Tennessee’s ailing offense would get well against us and be able to move the ball on Georgia.
But many fans, me included, expected the Dawgs’ offense to take up the slack. I figured it would be close but Georgia had a pretty good chance to win a scoring battle against a Vols defense that ranked near the bottom of the SEC.
Unfortunately, Tennessee played with fire and desire, like a team battling to save its coach’s job, while Georgia played like a team that figured all it had to do was show up because, after all, this was a ROAD game and we all know how terrific MARK RICHT teams do on the road. (That is, if you don’t count Jacksonville as being on the road.)
At the start of the game, UT picked up right where they left off in the second half in Athens last year. Unfortunately, so did UGA, which didn’t even cross midfield in the first half, our deepest penetration being our own 48-yard-line.
It was a whipping of Goff-ian proportions and, unfortunately, a complete team effort.
VOX POPULI: The murmurs about Matthew Stafford’s progress (or the lack thereof) that had been dampened by the OT win in Tuscaloosa resurfaced into full-fledged grumbles after Saturday’s game. He’s not getting better, he’s regressing, quite a few fans were saying. I’m not ready yet to write off Stafford, but I can see where those folks are coming from. He’s still throwing off his back foot. He hurries even short passes. And Georgia essentially doesn’t have a downfield passing threat because he so badly overthrows or underthrows those routes. The fact that he’s playing behind a young and, frankly, abysmal offensive line probably has more to do with Stafford’s erratic play than any deficiency in talent or refusal on his part to learn. But it’s clear he isn’t yet thriving at QB. … Likewise, grumblings about Mike Bobo’s performance as Georgia’s play-caller grew after Saturday’s offensive implosion. A lot of fans wanted Richt to give up the signal-calling, but some wonder whether Bobo was experienced enough. I’ve actually liked the way he’s called a much more balanced offense than his boss did, showing more patience with the running game. But I concede the point Bobo’s critics make that his offense tends to be predictable. Again, though, the weakness of the offensive line has to be a major factor. Frankly, I think most of Georgia’s current woes are a result of poor recruiting on both the offensive and defensive lines over the past several years. A mediocre QB can handle a game fine behind a great offensive line, but the opposite isn’t true.
MORE BAD STUFF: In the restaurant biz, it’s location, location, location. In football, it’s fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals, and on Saturday Georgia gave probably the worst exhibition of tackling seen by a Georgia team since at least the Goff years, maybe ever. Two or three missed tackles on a single run were commonplace. … You think any of the teams we’ll face the rest of the year noticed the Georgia defense’s penchant for overpursuing, leaving half the field wide open for a long play? … Even with eight men in the box this defense doesn’t seem capable of stopping a team from running right up the middle. … After the game, Kelin Johnson said that the Bulldogs aren’t looking at the big picture. “Taking control of the East, that’s the last thing on our mind right now.” Unfortunately, it also appeared to be the last thing on their minds Saturday when they had the chance to do exactly that. … I know I’m not the only one tired of hearing defensive coordinator Willie Martinez say, “We couldn’t get off the field.” Maybe if he adjusted his schemes DURING a drive, that might not be such a problem. … Some of the miscues by offensive lineman Trinton Sturdivant were understandable in a noisy, hostile environment like Neyland Stadium (though the chop block was just stupid). But there’s no excuse for the Georgia defensive line picking up four offsides penalties. Do they not look where the ball is before they line up? … Quote of the day from road-game play-by-play man Scott Howard: “This is just baffling.”
WAS THERE ANYTHING GOOD? Yeah, Kris Durham had a really nice catch on the Dawgs’ first drive of the second half before getting hurt, and Demiko Goodman showed Georgia’s other receivers how it’s done by going up over the defender to snag that touchdown pass. Kenneth Harris, who bobbled what should have been a TD pass, should pay attention. And Kregg Lumpkin looked pretty good on a couple of the few runs he got in the fourth quarter, though by then it’s hard to tell whether the Vols defense was really trying. Tripp Chandler had some key catches, including one TD, but he also whiffed some blocks.
