JEX

[spongepunk]

Jex how do I become a Georgia fan?

 

[Jexter]

Jex how do I become a Georgia fan?

Lol

Was texting a buddy who was at Neyland last night, I told him he was probably feeling as bad as I did after Auburn won that "miracle on the plains" game two years ago against Georgia. Real heart-breaker, I feel pretty bad for UT fans right now. Huge blown lead. What surprised me too was that the Tennessee defense played well, but it was actually the offense that sputtered mightily in the second half.

If it makes you feel any better, many people still believe Tennessee is a year away (I think you yourself mentioned that before). If they keep bringing in top 5 recruiting classes, something's gotta give eventually! Another part of me believes that Butch Jones may just be an elite recruiter, but I thought Tennessee just got completely out-coached in that Oklahoma game. But then again there are times I can make the same argument for Mark Richt.

The good news is that you have 0 conference losses - the East war hasn't really started yet. Georgia is looking far more one-dimensional than last year, and even Vanderbilt-who does have a legit defense, I'll admit-had great success against us loading the box. Greyson Lambert has not impressed me at all and he didn't even have a pass completion until the second half (starting 0-7 on passing will not get it done against good SEC teams). Our defensive front had a hay-day, this is one area I'm really liking on our team. One of our best edge rushers (Lorenzo Carter) was ejected in the 1st quarter for a laughable targeting call, and the defensive front still owned the game. 3 sacks and I think Jordan Jenkins alone had 2 of them with 5.5 tackles for loss. But our secondary, like Tennessee, has weaknesses. Jeremy Pruitt's philosophy of a secondary is that they should make interceptions a priority, but that also often means giving up a lot of passing yards in the process. We did get 3 interceptions against a very mediocre quarterback, but ended up giving 300-ish yards in passing. All this to say that both UT and Georgia have clear weaknesses and that really gives a wide-open outcome to the East race. One thing Saturday did prove is that Missouri and Florida don't look impressive at all, and they are the other teams thought to challenge for the division.

Also, just about everyone (including myself) was wrong about Auburn. Not sure what has got in to Jeremy Johnson but he does not look like an elite QB at all. Auburn may be headed for a 4-5 loss season at this rate. If they are struggling this badly against Louisville and Jacksonville State, imagine what the SEC gauntlet will be like for them. One pick I'm liking more and more is Ole Miss, who has looked like the most dominant team so far... but I'm not getting ahead of myself there, as they have been playing relatively inferior opposition. We'll see how their first few SEC games go.

 

[spongepunk]

After last year's Florida game and this past game, I'm starting to think Butch is only good at recruiting. Conservative play calling, not going for it on the 1/2 yard line when you have a 240 lb beast of a RB. Even if he wasn't calling the plays, Debord's offense looked really similar to Bajakian's...so good hire there, UT. Even if it's the OC's fault, Butch did nothing to make adjustments during the 3rd quarter, and that ended up screwing us. Oh, and our defense couldn't tackle Mayfield for whatever reason... I assume they were gassed with so many 3 and outs from the offense. I'd like to think we're a year off, but after that, I have little to no faith in this team. Great offense and bad defense vs BGSU. Vice versa for OU. The best word I can think of to describe this team is bipolar. Good enough offense the first half, second half...well you know. Our punter, Todd Kelly Jr. (2 INT's yesterday), Jalen Reeves Maybin (I believe he had upwards of 15 tackles and a sack), Hurd, and Kamara appear to be our only consistent players. Better than nothing I guess.

But it was fun seeing Auburn almost pull an '07 Michigan. Johnson is turrible and I got many laughs out of that game.

I'm not buying into Ole Miss yet, though next week's game against Bama will be interesting.

 

[Jexter]

Well Butch is an exceptional recruiter. But he does still need to prove himself on the big stage. He does have that signature victory against then-#6 South Carolina a season or two ago but that's about all I can remember. But he does need to decide what type of coach he wants to be... conservative can often work depending on the type of offense in particular that you run. Mark Richt often gets accused of the same thing (and he's as conservative a coach as they come), but it often works well for him because he runs the pro-style offense. Tennessee is more of that spread / read option offense so perhaps that philosophy doesn't work as well for them. The 1/2 yard line decision against Oklahoma was very puzzling at best. Even Richt would have gone for that with his 5'10", 220 pound bowling ball... so why UT wouldn't do it with a monster like Hurd is odd. To me that just shows an extreme lack of confidence in the offensive line, which may not be entirely unfounded.

Reeves Maybin, Barnett and Kelly Jr are beasts. I'd take them on my team any day. Btw is it weird to have a former Alabama running back playing back-up to Hurd?

Yeah, I was pulling for Jacksonville State in that Auburn game... which is odd, I usually go for the SEC teams but something about an underdog FCS foe beating a top-10 FBS school is very satisfying. I guess UTC is pretty decent then because they barely lost to Jack State the previous week! I think the year Appalachian State knocked off Michigan was the same year App State went on to win one of their many FCS championships. FCS schools better watch out for Jacksonville State this year.

 

[spongepunk]

Ole Miss is life.

 

[Jexter]

Ole Miss is life.

Now you know Ole Miss is the real deal! Impressive win over Alabama. And it wasn't even as close as the final score indicated.

LSU looked good in their win as well (Fournette had a Herschel Walker-liked performance) but then again, they were playing Auburn. I'm not sure if LSU will be serious contenders yet as they are probably the most one-dimensional team in the SEC, so we'll see how they do against a legit defense.

Seems as though USC was once against a product of media bandwagoners, although I can't say I'm surprised they lost to a mediocre team either. Consistently great recruiting classes but never meeting expectations on the field. I'll have to admit that one of the biggest surprises of week 3 was Notre Dame topping Georgia Tech. I thought Georgia Tech had a poorer defense than their first 2 opponents indicated, but it certainly was exposed for what it really is against ND. Even more surprising is that Notre Dame probably has more major injuries on the roster than any other FBS school right now. So good win for them. Over all though, the ACC has not looked good so far. Neither Clemson or Florida State looked impressive in their wins.

As much as I dislike the consistency of Greyson Lambert, how about him knocking off Tee Martin's old NCAA record for completion percentage? I couldn't believe he finished 24/25. Georgia looked scary against South Carolina but I'm not getting my hopes up just yet... because I know SC has had a down defense lately. But I was very happy with how the dawgs played. I am hoping they are getting it together just in time for Alabama coming to Athens in week 5... we'll see. Somebody needs to hang another loss on Saban this year.

 

[spongepunk]

Jex, we have Dooley Jr. Butchy can't finish games and is so damn conservative. I don't care anymore, I want him and his staff gone. Jancek was decent until that 4TH AND 15 63 YARD TD PASS. I feel really sorry for Medley though, the poor guy will probably get so much crap from his peers for a situation the coaches put him in.

What happened to LSU today vs Syracuse? I didn't get to watch it but they only won by 10.

Notre Dame is better than I expected and GT has really fallen off.

Anyway, tomato face needs to get canned. Good job on firing Fulmer, Hamilton, you useless sack of garbage.

 

[Jexter]

Tennessee literally lost that game by a couple of inches. I really thought that field goal was going in at the end as time expired. Wow.

But I will say that was the biggest, most entertaining circus of a game I've watched all year. Just really sucks that Tennessee came up on the losing end again. I feel bad for their fans, I think they are cursed by Florida. Think they've beaten you 11 years in a row now?

And yeah, that game's outcome was not Medley's fault. I thought the coaching and clock management particularly in the 4th quarter was poor on Tennessee's part.

One think I always remind my fellow Georgia fans who want Mark Richt fired every time he loses one or two games each year... is look at what happened to Tennessee once they let Fulmer go. Tennessee has never been the same since that poor decision and have spent the last decade trying to become the same competitive team each year that Fulmer had them playing as. Not saying Butch is a bad coach just yet, he might turn things around eventually. But I will say right now I find him to be a better recruiter than an on-the-field coach in big games.

LSU didn't look bad today, but bear in mind Syracuse does have a pretty good defense. Fournette has been so effective that LSU stubbornly refuses to try to put up much of a passing game, and that may hurt them in SEC play eventually. Running the ball like LSU does burns the game clock faster, thus resulting in overall less points in a game. Fournette still looked like the best player in football today and is definitely the Heisman favorite.

Maybe neither Notre Dame or Georgia Tech is particularly good. Notre Dame did almost (and should have) lost to Virginia, who is not good at all. Still a difficult team to read this early in the season.

But hey, the East is still wide open. You have one SEC loss now, but Georgia still has to play Alabama and we are also prone to dropping a game or two every year against teams we're supposed to beat. Even if we beat Alabama next week, Tennessee and Florida are still two teams that give us fits every season. Never know what can happen!

 

[spongepunk]

I have no hope. Today killed any and all hope I had for this season

 

[spongepunk]

Sooooo...

Dormady should get a shot, imo. Dobbs was bad against a bad Arkansas secondary. And do we have a random freshman kicker or something? Because they can't be worse than Medley. This team is just plain bad. The hype train has derailed and it's heading for the freaking Grand Canyon, Jex.

Before the season:

Now:

Swiggity swooty, Richt is comin' for that orange booty.

 

[Jexter]

Lol. Your skill in gifs never ceases to amaze me, great sponge.

A lot of Tennessee fans are wanting to see Dormady get some playing time, because everything about him looks good. I think he'll be a great quarterback, I really like his arm from what little film I've seen on him. But, the smart thing to do right now is to give him another year in the system and let him hang on to that redshirt. This time next year, he'll be that much wiser, understand defenses much better and have saved a year of eligibility. The thing is, Dobbs isn't exactly UT's problem either. In fact I'd argue he might be your most valuable player right now - he really keeps defenses honest and his ability to run the ball shouldn't be overlooked.

That said, the Arkansas game was a bit disappointing. Tennessee has seemed to get out-coached lately and be unable to finish games. Also remember that was kinda a do-or-die game for Bret Bielema - Arkansas had their backs against the wall and played a ferocious game... they're offensive line in particular was fired up for that game.

The honest UT fans said before the season that Tennessee was still a year out. So appears they were right. I would say that if Tennessee doesn't break out next year after all these top 5 recruiting classes, then everyone will know for sure it's not a talent problem in Knoxville. It's a coaching problem.

Looking forward to the game in Neyland this Saturday! Georgia got rightly humbled by Alabama and they will either not show up for this game, or play very angry... I'm not sure which yet. I think Chubb will get his yards, but also think Dobbs will give our defense trouble (our secondary is looking very young as of late and is often fooled by read option plays). Should be a great game!

 

[spongepunk]

I do agree Dobbs isn't the problem, it's overly conservative play calling by our red faced overlord, but he really seems to have regressed since last year...albeit the best team we beat was Iowa or SC...

This year I assumed we'd go 8-4, MAYBE 9-4 after a bowl...maybe.

Oh and Mike DeBord could be outcoached by a 12 year old on Madden.

Anyway, how do you think UGA's season will turn out? I picked them to barely beat Bama...didn't happen so I'm not sure where you guys will end up.

 

[Jexter]

Right. I'd agree about the conservative play calling. Georgia is in a similar boat with Schottenheimer calling the offense, but I don't hate him for it because Georgia is supposed to be a pro-style offense. Playing conservative with a read option offense like Tennessee makes no sense at all. And what is it with Butch? Does he always look like a tomato? lol

8-4 would have been a realistic expectation pre-season. Right now I'm having a hard time seeing seven wins with what remains on UT's schedule. But hey, if you guys repeat a bowl game for the 2nd straight year, that's still an improvement over where UT has been as of late.

How will UGA's season turn out? Really hard to say. I didn't really expect to beat Alabama because our defensive front is very young (although talented), and I did think Lambert's bad side would show up eventually. Additionally our offensive line could not physically compete with the big boys on Bama's D-line. Both UGA and AL build their teams around the pro-style, but Bama is more bowl the other team over, while UGA is slimmer, but more athletic. That really played into AL's hands and they man-handled the trenches physically. I'm not even going to say we are a lock to win the East either, because Florida is proving to be far beyond a rebuilding year with their stomping of Ole Miss. That one was really a head-scratcher. It could be a fluke and Georgia gets to 10 wins again (and wins the East), but it's not going to be handed to them. I think Florida is now a realistic contender for that East title because regardless of what their record is, they show up and play Georgia tough every year. I would say I'd only be disappointed with our season if we don't do better than 8 wins (9-10 is realistic), and I'd be very satisfied if we won the East and got to Atlanta for the championship - though I think we'd get outmatched by whoever represents the West.

 

[spongepunk]

Dobbs finally showed up today. He was still kind of inconsistent, but he showed bits of last year (running, running, and running) Josh Smith is also apparently quite good. When Hall and Jones came in on the line I figured it'd be game over, but they played really well for true freshmen. To quote Butch's cliche: UT was really resilient.

Chubb's injury was God awful, the second I saw it I yelled OH MY GOD. It was absolutely brutal and man I hope he can still have a good pro run. Lambert was not too good, but his occasional long throw really worked. Mosley and and I believe Foreman are not good corners, but it still doesn't take away from Lambert's good throws. Michel also looked good. He ran for 145 yards right? Mitchell and Davis were very impressive. Now go beat the crap out of Florida and Missouri for us.

 

[Jexter]

Good win for Tennessee! This was a game I had been concerned about, particularly after the smashing by Alabama. UT was due to finally end the streak UGA had and, one could argue, Tennessee needed this win much more than Georgia did. Most of the over-zealous Georgia fans are going to ask for Mark Richt's head on a platter now, but that's stupid... because we've dominated the series for so long and it can never last forever. This is why teams should never invest too much into the pre-season media hype, because the teams picked to win often feel entitled to win and are not prepared to respond when hit in the mouth.

Sucks for my bulldawgs, but in the long-run I think the team needed it. I've been tired of the lack of humility on this current team (aside from Chubb and Ganus) and hopefully the lesson learned over the last 2 weeks is that if you really want to win, you have to respect every opponent equally. Steep learning curve for a team with so many freshmen and sophomores!

Lambert was okay... He is very similar to Mason last year, only he's even less confident. He has a stronger arm than Mason did but he tends to be very streaky. He threw the long ball much better today than he usually does, just a shame that the one that really counted went right through the hands of Reggie Davis. I was rather surprised we used Michel as much as we did today because he is not to Chubb's level at running between the tackles, in fact Keith Marshall would have been better for that role. Michel could have opened up the offense a lot more if we had used him in his normal role, where he is very dangerous in the passing game (often lines up at wideout or is part of a two tailback set).

I do hate it for Chubb. Pretty crazy. He's probably the most humble athlete I've ever seen and the bad injuries always seem to happen to those types of players. But knowing the kind of work ethic the kid has, I think he'll rebound just fine. I would be very surprised if his ACL isn't torn after seeing the replays... best case scenario is its a bad knee sprain the keeps him out for the rest of the season.

I have my doubts about beating Florida, I'd say we have an even chance against Mizzou. It'd be really crazy if Florida and Kentucky finish 1st and 2nd in the East, but it's possible!

 

[spongepunk]

If you wanna see UGA fans freaking out over Richt, go on /r/cfb...it's hilarious. Imagine if Kentucky won the East though. I wouldn't even be mad.

LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL PUNT

But I still don't know what to think of this team. We screw ourselves against OU and UF and don't play well against Arkansas, yet we come back from 21 to beat y'all. I personally believe there is some Dooley Pants voodoo hanging over Neyland...

 

[Jexter]

It's been pretty entertaining reading the comments about the game. You'd think some disaster had just struck Athens and the sky is falling. I've already seen plenty of the "Richt can never win the big games", but the funny thing is that this technically wasn't even a big game. One common complaint I do agree with is the the Bulldogs under Richt tend to be undisciplined and lack mental toughness, and don't have that hunter's mentality to finish opponents off. I did state before this game was played that I was concerned Georgia wouldn't show up for this game after the Alabama beat-down, and that certainly proved true. They played a decent game, but it was highly unmotivated compared to other games they've played this year.

Dat punt... was one in a million. Talk about clutch! As soon as I saw it bounce out of bounds at the 1 yard line I told a buddy "God is on Tennessee's side tonight". lolz

True, if you look at Jones and Dooley's records, they are virtually identical. But what is different is that during this point in Dooley's tenure, everyone was calling for his job. You don't hear that as much with Jones because his teams are always competitive in every game and he knows how to coach inspired football. Plus Dooley couldn't recruit like Jones can.

Btw, you should check out this video. I was quite literally on the floor laughing when I first saw it about a week ago, because it's incredibly true. It's even more entertaining now after the result of the UT / UGA game.

 

[spongepunk]

That video was perfect, absolutely perfect.

You might find this funny. Back in the summer I told my parents tickets to this game would've been a good birthday gift. A week before the game my dad calls me and asks me if I still wanted to go...I turned him down. God do I regret my decision.

 

[spongepunk]

I didn't get a chance to watch the UGA game this past weekend, but 9-6? What happened?

 

[Jexter]

Hah! I'd be kicking myself too if I had turned down tickets to that game. That's why we play the game - we never know how it'll turn out. If the media were always right on the picks and rankings, it'd be pointless to play the game in the first place. So surprises are always good for sports.

The Mizzou / UGA game was miserable, frankly. I enjoyed watching the LSU / Florida game more than the Georgia game that was going on at the same time. Missouri has a very legit defense (it's number 1 in the SEC believe it or not), but the low score was also just as much about Georgia struggling with its offensive identity post-Chubb. Michel couldn't run the ball at all between the tackles and Lambert was being himself... having a hard time making completions through the air. The play calling was also rather poor. Georgia constantly tried to run the bubble screen and it always had the same result (usually negative plays) because Missouri's corners are vicious. Schottenheimer seems similar to Bobo in his play calling, but he's a bit too stubborn. If a play hasn't worked 7 or 8 times in a row, it's probably time to stop calling it. Numerous drives ended just outside of the red zone because of bubble screens getting blown up in 3rd and short situations.

Our defense holding Missouri to 6 points wasn't as impressive as a stat sheet would indicate either. Missouri's offense is just absolutely terrible. As bad as Georgia's is, Missouri's is far worse. If they could move the ball efficiently they could easily contend for the East title because of how impressive their defense is. In this regard they are much like Vanderbilt. Solid defense but nothing impressive on the offensive side of the ball.