Too little, too late for the Dawgs in one of the worst first-halfs of football I’ve ever seen a Georgia team play.Like a big Crimson steam roller, the St. Sabin’s Tide rolled into Sanford Stadium, dominated both lines of scrimmage made a statement to the national ESPN audience – we’re back.
Having grown up listening to the humble doomsday prophesies of Munson and Coach Dooley this game took those fears, bundled them up and served them up in a nice steaming pile. Here’s a few of those choice nuggets that will need to be addressed if we hope to get a chance to play in Atlanta come December.
1. Special teams: I want to scream every time I hear about the wonderful job our special teams are doing. I heard it again Saturday night. Sorry but one TD and a blocked punt didn’t out weigh the two busted punts and awful kickoffs and kick coverage in the game I was watching.
2. Get some discipline: I was troubled to read CMR’s comments last week where he said he felt it was more of guys just playing aggressively. Here’s a suggestion, let them work out that little bit of extra aggression on Sunday afternoon with mat drills for players who commit the penalties. The number of drills could be commensurate with the number of yards penalized. For example, Prince Miller could crank out 25 mat drills for the 25 yards he cost UGA in the first half with his two infractions. I’m not even going to address the time spent with Athens-Clarke County’s finest by some of the other student-athletes.
3. Enough with the gimmicks and pre-game nonsense: Put on the Red, retire the black and play ball. If Georgia needed black jerseys to get fired up for Bama we have some much deeper issues than hands to the face, dropped balls, weak cover two defensive schemes. Saturday I thought I was watching Jerry Glanville’s Falcons. And, if I have to watch another team dancing contest during pre-game, I may just gouge out my eyes. Get mad, get focused and GATAs – enough with the nonsense.
4. Cohesive offensive line play: We need to find that same switch that was seemingly flipped after Vandy last year. Not sure if he has his notebook from last year, but hopefully Coach Searels can work his magic again.
With that, all is not lost. They did play Georgia football for most of the second half. Georgia demonstrated the fight and desire they will need for a full four quarters for every game that’s left – including Vandy and Kentucky.
I know Georgia wants to be number one, but they have to earn it. As my favorite Bulldog Lewis Grizzard put it, “. . . it’s like a dogsled team. If you ain’t the lead dog, the view is always the same.” So enough with the should’ve, could’ve, would’ves. Button your chinstraps and GATA.
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