UGA Season Preview: Offense

Four weeks from today we will be waking up after a Georgia win over Austin Peay, and anticipating the Dawgs heading to South Carolina for the first big game of the year. The Dawg Days of summer are ready to give way to fall, it is the best time of the year!

My first season preview is going to focus on the Georgia offense, and any discussion about the offense has to start in the obvious place: quarterback.

It is amazing that this is even a discussion after last season. Jake Fromm had, in my opinion, the greatest freshman season since Herschel in 1980. Early in the season he was a game manager and by the end of the season, he was driving his team down the field in the Rose Bowl against the Heisman trophy winner to send the Dawgs to overtime. Not too bad for a guy that I predicted would take a redshirt last year. (Please keep reading even though I obviously don't know anything).

So why is there a conversation about Georgia's quarterbacks this season? Because of Justin Fields. He was ESPN's number one player in the nation last year. He is a five-star, duel-threat quarterback who has come in and impressed his coaches and teammates since he got on campus back in January.

So here is the good news. Georgia has a quarterback that won the SEC last year, and he may miss some snaps this season because the guy behind him is special. There is nothing bad about Georgia's quarterback situation, and I trust Kirby Smart to make sure that there isn't any internal issues surrounding which quarterback is playing. He managed the QB situation perfectly last season, so why would we expect anything different this season?

I think both quarterbacks will play. I think Fields is going to add another level to the offense and to the team. I think this is going to be fun.

As stacked as Georgia is at quarterback, they are even more stacked at running back. D'Andre Swift returns after an impressive freshman year to head up a five-headed attack at running back. If you need to know just how good Swift is, think about this: last year, he got carries on a team that featured two of the top three running backs in Georgia's history. Brian Herrian is back for what seems like his 10th season in Athens. And Elijah Holyfield is also back for his junior season.

Georgia also brought in a five-star running back, James Cook, whose brother you might have heard of, Dalvin Cook. That is right, Georgia managed to recruit the brother of an NFL running back to Athens instead of going to his brother's alma  mater. James is supposed to be electric, think Keith Marshall before the knee injury at Tennessee.

But of course, I have saved the best for last. By the end of this season, the number one running back on the team is going to be Zamir "Zeus" White. Just put Zamir  White in your Google Machine and click on the YouTube video of his senior highlights. The video is less than 3 minutes long, so take the time.

If you are like my, you have a grinch-like small growing on your face. Want to smile some more? Just this week, Kirby said that Zeus is fully cleared for fall practice following an ACL injury last year. Zeus is going to be special in Athens. Enjoy every minute, because he will be gone in three short years, and I wouldn't be shocked if he left town with a Heisman. He is going to be that good.

The receiving group is solid, but easily the weakest part of Georgia's offense. Terry Godwin and Mecole Hardman both return and are the presumptive starters, but Georgia could get a huge boost if the NCAA says that transfer WR Demetrius Robinson is declared eligible for the 2018 season. Georgia has a lot of young wide receivers that haven't played a lot, so it will be interesting to see who earns playing time early in the season. I would imagine, much like last year, Georgia will settle in on four or five guys that will see the most playing time.

For me, the wild card at receiver is Riley Ridley. As a freshman he was the guy who caught the should-have-been game winning touchdown against Tennessee. He didn't show up as a sophomore until the National title game where he looked like the best receiver on the field. If Ridley can get his head on straight and show some consistency, he could be a difference maker for Georgia.

I know we have tight ends. I know that they are good. But in two years under Kirby Smart, they haven't featured in the offense, so I'm going to move on.

It is not an insult to the offensive line that I have saved them for last. They are, without a doubt, the most important unit on the entire team. Spoiler Alert, I think the ceiling for Georgia in 2018 will be decided on how good the offensive line can be. The defense, who I will preview later, is going to be good, but not great. So the offense has to be great this year for Georgia to get back to the playoff. Georgia has all the pieces to be great, but they need the line to be great.

Andrew Thomas will move from right tackle to left tackle to replace Isaiah Wynn. Isaiah Wilson, the five-star giant who red-shirted last year will most likely be the right tackle. The line took a huge step forward last year when Ben Cleveland started at guard, so I would assume he would keep that job. Kendall Baker should stay at center where he was very good last year. After that, it's a guessing game. If you look at Georgia's roster, there are 9 guys who are either freshman or sophomores who are highly recruited who can play offensive line. They are young, but they are talented. Sam Pittman, Georgia's offensive line coach has done a great job of getting these guys on campus, if he can coach them up, then Georgia can have one of the best offensive lines in the country.

The old adage would tell you that defense wins championships, but in 2018, I believe the offense is the key to Georgia's success. Georgia is blessed to play in the SEC least, where there are more question marks than viable quarterbacks. Georgia's defense doesn't have to be elite to keep most of these teams under 20 points, so as long as the offense can score, the Dawgs should be dancing towards Mercedes-Benz for the second straight year.

Have a great Sunday and Go Dawgs!

193 Days

193 Days.

4,632 Hours.

277,920 Minutes.

16,675,200 Seconds.

You can put many different numbers on it, but what happened to Georgia on January 8, 2018 will never go away. Since the 8th is my birthday, in my mind I will always remember that the National Title game ended on the 9th, but when the game ended is far less important than how the game ended.

Georgia fans had been waiting a very long time for our team to be back on that stage. I had waited my entire life. I can't say I was devastated, but the fact that I haven't written this blog in 193 days is pretty telling.

I thought, like most people, the game was going to end on the field goal attempt at the end of regulation. I had given up. You had too. Then the kick was missed.

I thought the game was over when we had to settle for a long field goal in overtime. But Blakenship made the kick.

When Georgia got a sack on first down, it was the first time in an hour or so when I actually thought we could win the game. Then second down happened. At my house, there was just quiet. No tears. No anger. No despair. No words.

And there haven't been any words, not on this blog at least, in 193 days.

I'm not writing today because I am over it. I'll never be over it. We could win the next 3 national titles, and I will always believe it should have been 4 straight. In truth, I am writing today because I had a little time. I sat down tonight and watched the title game for the first time since January 8th. It has been sitting there, on my DVR, for 193 days.

Ok, I'm lying just a little bit. I didn't watch the entire game. I just cut the game off early in the third quarter. By the way, Tyler Simmons was on side. I didn't delete the game. I might watch the end, but I might not. Georgia is winning 13-0, that is the way I liked it. Maybe I can just stay here for a while.

193 days.

43 days.

43 days until we take the field again.

43 days until we try to show the entire country that last year was not a flash in the pan or the peak for this program.

43 days until we get back on the field to start a new journey towards the same goal.

There will never be another season like 2017. You didn't expect it. I didn't expect it. It was an incredible ride from South Bend, through Knoxville and Jacksonville, to Atlanta, on to Pasadena, and finally ending back in Atlanta. There were a ton of ups, but in the end, the season will be remembered for the final down. It was second down...

The reason no season can match 2017 is because now we expect it. Make no mistake, there are pieces to replace. Big pieces. But things are different now. Hope is gone. Expectations have arrived. Georgia's goals haven't changed since Mark Richt was head coach, but the realistic expectations for this program have changed for the foreseeable future. Win the East. Win the SEC. Make the playoff. Win it all.

Those are the expectations for 2018. There is not an acceptable loss on our regular season schedule. The assumption is Bama will be waiting in Atlanta. We can't get where we want to go unless we get by the Tide.

I love wrestling and I have stopped caring who knows that. The great Ric Flair said it best. "To be the man, you have to beat the man." I want Bama, and I bet everything I have that so does Kirby Smart.

There will be a lot more coming as the season approaches. This is going to be an exciting season and a very exciting team. There are new faces, new names, and a new attitude. We are no longer the hunter, we are the hunted. We are the prohibitive favorite in our division. We are the team that others will measure themselves by. Do we have to rebuild or have we reloaded?

The sun is setting tonight, and it will rise again tomorrow here in Athens, Georgia.

194 days.

Glory, Glory

It's Our Night

 January 1, 1981 was a Thursday. It was 19 days before Ronald Reagan would be sworn in as president of the United States. The number one song in America was "(Just Like) Starting Over" by John Lennon. The number one movie in America was 9 to 5, staring Dolly Parton.  It would be two years before return of the Jedi was released. Kirby Smart was five years old, and my parents hadn't even started dating. It has been a long, long time since Georgia won the National Championship.

 There are a lot of storylines heading into Monday night's game;  37 years since Georgia has won the title, the student versus the teacher, Alabama with a chance to win another national championship, Saban looking to tie Bear Bryant with his 6th National title.

To me, the student versus the teacher storyline is the one that I just can't buy into. In a way, it feels like Kirby Smart can't get credit for what he has done at Georgia in just two years because he learned everything he knows from Saban. You hear all the time that he has brought the "Alabama Formula" to Athens.

You know what the Alabama Formula is? Have better players than the other team. It's not that hard to figure out. Of course Saban is a great coach, and given a month to prepare he can probably get his team ready to beat any team in the country, but there is nothing easy about whatKirby has done at Georgia.

Just look around to the other coaches that come off the Saban tree. They aren't in the title game Monday night. McElwain just got fired at Florida, Lane Kiffin is at some C level school in Boca Raton, Florida. If copying Alabama were easy, then everyone would have done it 10 years ago. Georgia is not Alabama, and Kirby Smart is not Nick Saban. To steal an idea from Harry Potter, it is not how they are alike that matters, it is how they are different. Kirby works as hard as anyone, but when the game is over, he enjoys winning and shows it. When Georgia went into the Victory Formation against Tennessee the cameras caught Kirby giving the V signal while sticking out his tounge. When Georgia won the SEC, a Gatorade soaked Kirby was jumping around on the sideline like a 10 year old. When the Rose Bowl ended last Monday, Kirby gave a fist pump that would have made Tiger Woods jealous.

Conversely, Saban is a robot who believes winning titles gets in the way of recruiting. When Bama won its first title in 2009 over Texas at the Rose Bowl, he got angry at the players who poured the Gatorade on him because there was still time left on the clock. In 2012, after beating Notre Dame, he complained about how it was a real disadvantage in recruiting to play for the National title. Saban's inability to show the basic human emotion of happiness makes him less likable, in my opinion.

The reality of this game is that even though these teams don't play that often, when they do, the games are typically very good, and have long-lasting ramifications.

Going all the way back to 2002, Georgia got a huge road win against the Tide on a Billy Bennett field goal late to win by 2. That was the week when Pat Dye, the former Auburn coach, said that Georgia wasn't "man enough" to beat Alabama. The Dawgs went on to win the SEC and the Sugar Bowl.

In 2007, Georgia won on the road at Alabama again, this time in overtime. The Dawgs carried that momentum to a number two national ranking in 2007 and another Sugar Bowl victory.

In 2008, the Alabama Dynasty was born on a Saturday night in Sanford Stadium. Georgia was ranked third in the nation and hosted the ninth ranked Tide. Georgia pulled out the black uniforms that had worked so well in 2007, but the magic was gone. Alabama crushed Georgia. The Dawgs never won the SEC again under Richt. Meanwhile, Alabama would win 3 out of 4 national titles from 2009-2012.

In 2012, Georgia faced Alabama in the SEC title game and was completely out-matched talent wise. This was a time period when Georgia's top 22 (the starting 11 on both sides of the ball) was as good as anyone, but the Dawgs didn't have the depth that Alabama was known for. Of course, Georgia came up just short of winning that game, while the Tide went on to crush Notre Dame and keep the Dynasty alive.

2015 was the last time Georgia and Alabama played. Georgia was undefeated while Alabama had already lost at home to Ole Miss. It was the first time in 72 games that Alabama was not favored. There was a lot of talk leading into the game that the Dynasty was over. Alabama killed Georgia, proved that the Dynasty was still going strong, and eventually won the National Title again. Georgia would go on to fire Mark Richt and hire Kirby Smart that December.

This game is the most evenly matched game between these two teams since that game in 2002. Georgia has almost as much talent as Alabama, and with the senior leadership of the Dawgs, there is not a huge gap between the teams like there has been in the past.

The breakdown of this game is pretty simple. The team that runs the ball will win the game. Hurts will make a few plays, but if Georgia can make him throw, they can slow down the Alabama offense. If the Georgia offensive line can hold up, then the Dawgs will have their day.

Wrestling great Ric Flair always said, "To be the man, you have to beat the man." Tonight, Georgia has the chance, not only to win their first national title in 37 years, but to do it beating the only dynasty of the modern era. Alabama has been the King of College Football for the past decade. A win tonight doesn't mean that Georgia is the new King, but it will mean that there is at least a contest for the crown moving forward. Beating the best means more, so I'm glad we get the Tide tonight, because if Georgia wins, there will be no doubt that the Dawgs earned every single bit of this title.

I want this so bad.

I want this for the players, especially those seniors who came back this season and might have changed this program for the foreseeable future.

I want this for Kirby Smart, who was patient and waited for his dream job. I was skeptical about Kirby because I wanted a head coach with head coaching experience, but I could not have been more wrong. Kirby has done almost everything right since he got the job.

I want this for the fan base who has had to suffer through an amazingly long list of incredible disappointments. So many close calls, so many what if's throughout the years. Still, each and every September, the Dawg Nation fills Sanford with renewed hope and expectation.

I also want this for me. Today is my 33rd birthday, and I can't think of anything more perfect than celebrating with a national title. Most people who know me know that I love sports. I am a Falcons fan. I am a Braves fan. I am an Atlanta United fan. I was a Thrashers fan. But no offense to any of those team that I do love, I am a Dawg. Understand, I am not a Dawg fan, I am a Dawg. This is my team. I know there are a lot of you out there that feel the exact same way.

Tonight is our night. All the suffering ends, and for one night, we will be champions. For one night we will sit atop the college football world. I just wish the Mighty Munson was here to see it!

Georgia 17   Alabama 13

Glory, Glory

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