Even though the season is only two weeks old, it feels like
Georgia fans have been through a lot. The nerves leading up to the game against
North Carolina were replaced by the total adulation of watching our guys come
back from 10 points down in the third quarter to win the game. The abject
apathy of the build up to last week’s game has been replaced by confusion,
disappointment, and worry over who this team actually is following the nail
biting, mind-numbing 26-24 victory over Nicholls.
Tonight, Georgia opens its 2016 SEC schedule against
Missouri, and, much like two weeks ago, there are more questions than answers.
In the Richt Era, it would sometimes take an entire season
to figure out who a team was. There would be great performances backed up by
games when it seemed the team didn’t even understand what a football was.
Take 2004 for example. The biggest game of that season was
LSU coming to Athens. LSU was the defending national champs who had beaten
Georgia in Baton Rouge during the previous season, and then beaten Georgia
again for the SEC title in Atlanta.
In what might have been the most impressive victory of the
Richt Era, Georgia smashed LSU 45-16 between the hedges. With an experienced team,
and a manageable schedule, the Dawgs were in position to challenge for a
National title. Except one week later, at home, Georgia lost 19-14 to
Tennessee. Georgia scored 45 points against a Nick Saban defense, only to come
the next week and put up two touchdowns on a good, but not great, Tennessee
team.
2007 is the best example. Georgia lost at home to South
Carolina in a game where they didn’t score a touchdown. A few weeks later,
Georgia traveled to Knoxville and lost to the Vols 35-7. By the end of the
season, Georgia was heading to the Sugar Bowl as the #3 ranked team in the
country and perhaps the hottest team in the country. Georgia would have won a
national title in 2007 if they would have won either the South Carolina or
Tennessee games.
2016 will have to play itself out, but I think we should
focus on what we do know.
We know we have a great running back in Nick Chubb and Sony
Michel is coming back this week, fully healthy.
We know we have a solid defense that seems to be picking up
right where they left off last year. Georgia is rotating players just like
Alabama has done in the past, which means that the defense should actually get
better throughout the season as young guys get more playing time.
We know that Georgia has talent on offense, even if we haven’t
seen it yet.
We know that both Lambert and Eason are going to play,
because Kirby has said they will both play moving forward.
We know that if this game, or any game at this point, comes
down to us needing to make a field goal I would be more comfortable taking a
guy or girl out of the stands than thinking that our kicker will actually make
a field goal.
Last year, Georgia beat Missouri 9-6 in what could have been
the ugliest game I have ever watched. Even if Georgia gets dominated by their
opponent, like the Alabama game last season, at least one team plays well.
Georgia and Missouri made me not like football for 3.5 hours last season, but I
don’t expect that to happen again tonight.
Missouri comes into this game 1-1, having already lost to
West Virginia in week one. Missouri has a new coach, Barry Odum, who was the
defensive coordinator for the past few seasons. They have a talented
quarterback who can throw the ball all over the field, but their defense isn’t
quite as good as it has been in the past, especially on the defensive line.
Missouri is going to run a lot of “RPO’s” or Run/Pass
Options. This is where the quarterback is in the shot-gun, with a running back
beside him. When the ball is snapped, the quarterback will read one defender,
typically a defensive end, and either hand the ball off, or throw it quickly to
one of his receivers. The reason the quarterback will have to throw it quickly
is that the offensive line doesn’t know if the quarterback is going to run or
pass, so they are always run blocking. So, if the quarterback were to sit in
the pocket looking for a receiver downfield, he would get demolished by
blitzing linebackers.
The system works for two reasons. One, your quarterback
doesn’t have to do much. You answer one question, then run the play. In a
pro-style offense like Georgia runs, the quarterback has a lot more to do,
before and after the ball is snapped. The other reason this offense works is
because it can take advantage of the defense’s over aggressiveness. It is
almost impossible to get pressure on the quarterback because the offense is
based on primarily short passes. So your linebackers who love to get sacks (Lorenzo
Carter) have to accept that they aren’t going to get to the quarterback, because
rushing hard up-field at the quarterback will only open more holes for either
the running back or a receiver who is catching a ball yards from the line of scrimmage.
The second reason the system works is because your
cornerbacks can’t go straight into their drop each play because they have to
worry about a quick pass being thrown in their direction. If a cornerback gets
too aggressive, you will see the quarterback make a quick throw that ends up
with the receiver streaking down the sideline for a score because the one
cornerback on that side of the field played the run rather than the pass, and
there was no safety helping.
The key for Georgia defensively tonight will be one very
simple concept: discipline. Against North Carolina, Georgia was excellent at
being disciplined, but in the third quarter, they lost contain on two running
plays in a row, and it cost them a touchdown. Georgia will have to do a great
job of playing assignment football, which requires guys like Carter and Sanders
to be more disciplined and less focused on making plays.
Offensively, nothing really changes. All I have heard this
week is that Georgia’s offensive line is a big problem, because they didn’t
play well against Nicholls. I am going to chose not to worry about the
offensive line, and I’ll tell you why. If the line is truly as bad as it looked
last week, then Georgia is going to lose 4 or 5 games this season. The reality
is that the line might not be the best in the nation, but they are far better
than they showed last week, and I’m sure they have heard a lot about what they
need to do better in practice this week.
I think Eason will start, and I hope Lambert doesn’t play.
Nothing against Lambert, but I think the longer Eason is on the sideline at
crunch time, the more it’s going to be in his head that the coaches don’t trust
him with the game on the line. Eason needs to be our quarterback, and we have
to take the good with the bad. The only way he gets better at the end of the
game, is by, you know, playing at the end of the game.
Look for Georgia to have more success passing the ball the
next two weeks than they have for the first two weeks of the season. I would expect
Georgia to get more receivers involved, especially the tight ends because
Missouri’s secondary is average at best.
This will be the third time Georgia has traveled to Missouri
since the Tigers joined the SEC in 2012. In 2012, Georgia won by three
touchdowns on a night where Jarvis Jones simply took over the game and became a
star. In 2014, with Todd Gurley suspended, Nick Chubb ran the ball over 30
times for nearly 200 yards in his coming out party as Georgia defeated the
Tigers 30-0.
Georgia has never lost in Columbia. The two previous games
have been breakout performances by great players. Tonight, I’m predicting
another breakout performance from the one player who the entire Bulldog Nation
has been wanting to see a breakout performance.
Georgia is going to blow Missouri out of the water tonight,
and while Chubb will get his (150 yards and two touchdowns) and Sony will get
his (100 yards from scrimmage and a touchdown) the story will be Jacob Eason
who will finally get his (over 300 yards passing, 2 touchdowns, 1
interception).
Coming off that pathetic performance last week, we are going
to get the best Georgia team we have tonight. This team is going to look a little
Jekyll and Hyde this season, tonight we get to good one.
Georgia 42 Missouri
16
Go Dawgs
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