Recap - Arizona State

Let me start by saying this...if you place any money on a UGA game this year (either to win or to lose), you're either much smarter than I am or you deserve to lose your money. Because I have given up trying to figure this team out.

What are we on offense? I have no idea. What are we on defense? No clue. Special teams? Great in some areas, mindblowingly awful in others.

Couple of things I do know about this team...

Number one: every single week, we are going to make costly mistakes by turning the ball over on our own side of the field, committing dumb penalties, etc. I have no faith that this is going to get better...there is too much evidence to the contrary.

Number two: there is no quit in this team. There have been UGA teams in the not too distant past that would currently be sitting at 0-4 if they had faced some of the (mostly self inflicted) adversity that this team has seen. Instead, we are 3-1, unbeaten in the conference, and all of our realistic preseason goals are still within our reach.

The weekly breakdown...

THE GREAT:

- A.J. Green, the receiver. Simply put, the greatest receiver we have ever had in the history of UGA football. Great routes, separation speed, fantastic hands, explosiveness after the catch, etc, etc...there is simply nothing about him as a receiver that is not superb.

And his best catch of the night didn't even count...in my opinion, the replays showed fairly convincingly that he dragged his right toe inbounds on the TD catch that was disallowed in the fourth quarter. To lay out and catch a ball that looked to be at least two yards out of bounds, and still have the presence of mind to drag the toe inbounds...just unbelievable.

- A.J. Green, the blocker. Watching him on downfield runs and plays around the corner, I think he may be the best blocking WR we've had since Hines. And he obviously enjoys it, which makes it even more awesome.

Really, all of our WR do a pretty good job of downfield blocking, but this is yet another instance where A.J. is leading by example.

- A.J. Green, the special teams player. May have saved the game with his Boss Bailey impersonation on the Devils last FG attempt.



My favorite part was his quote afterwards: "That's got to be my best play ever...that tops all the catches."

That is a team player, and a leader.

Thank God we have him for one more season.

- Blair Walsh and Drew Butler. I almost forgot the play of Drew, but he continues to be a huge asset, and has probably won a game or so for us already.

As for Blair, it looks like the late season struggles of last year are behind him...he's still perfect this year, and I have absolute confidence in him to go out and make kicks with the game on the line, just like last night.


THE GOOD:

- The defense. Maybe we are only going to show up against out of conference opponents (Lord, please don't let that be the case). But this looked a lot more like the defense we saw in the opener.

Even though we only got one sack, we were getting very consistent pressure all night, and made tons of plays in the backfield. Justin Houston and Geno Atkins, in particular, were making big plays all night, and Jeff Owens showed up a time or too, as well.

Bacarri Rambo responded to more playing time with a very good performance, including his first career INT...Bryan Evans has probably lost his starting job.

Take away the two turnovers that led to touchdowns (one of which the defense wasn't even on the field for), and the defense only gave up three points. The only thing that kept me from putting them in the "great"category was that we were gashed quite a bit by the "zone read" runs, especially early on, which kept the D on the field and the offense on the sideline for entirely too long.

But overall, a vast improvement...I guess we'll let Willie stick around another week?

- Caleb King. This guy should be our feature tailback. He's running hard, making people miss, and just generally looking like a big time running back.

That fumble, though...that can't happen.

- Rantavious Wootentheballcarrier. Not only was it nice to see him finally get some extended playing time, but he took advantage of it with two huge plays on third and long, including one on the game-winning drive. Not bad for a true freshman.

THE BAD:
- Joe Cox. You know I love The Assassin, but there were just way too many bad decisions in this game. The two interceptions were both horrible throws into coverage, and he was very lucky to not have a couple more...he seemed to be throwing into two or three white shirts all night.

I think this is what we are going to get from Joe all year, honestly...there will be games like last week where he makes all the right decisions and looks great, but there are also going to be nights like this one. He makes questionable decisions sometimes, and he doesn't have the cannon arm to overcome those decisions.

Speaking of which...

THE UGLY:

- TURNOVERS. How long do you think we can continue to be on the wrong end of the turnover margin by tons and still keep eking out wins? I guess we're going to find out, because this team continues to show absolutely zero desire to value the football. As bad as three turnovers are, it could have been much worse...Joe could have had a couple more INT's and we were extremely lucky on the punt that bounced off Prince Miller's chest.

And I guess it just tells you where we are as a team that seven penalties is considered enough to keep penalties off the "ugly" list.

Bottom line:
3-1 is 3-1. Honestly, most of us probably had us at 3-1 at this point of the season in our preseason prognostications.

But our margin for error goes away this week. If we continue to play as stupid as we have so far...costly turnovers, dumb penalties, etc...we can NOT win against LSU, or in Neyland, or against Auburn, the Gators, the trade school, etc.

However...if this is the week that we get smart, and let the talent on this team shine without self inflicted wounds...and if that change takes root, and carries on through the remainder of the season...then I truly believe that this team can still succeed far beyond our expectations.

GO DAWGS!!!

The week that was...

Hello, interwebs! Have you missed me?

For my longtime readers (all 2 of you), you may remember that around this time last year my posting schedule became sporadic at best, nonexistent at worst. This is my busiest time of the year at my job, and by the time I get home I tend to collapse on the couch rather than share all my remarkable insight with all of you…for that, I apologize. I’m not sure how you survive without me.

(that was sarcasm, by the way)

So…what’s been going on?

- I guess I’ll be the last Dawg blogger to remark on the comments Coach Martinez made this week regarding the play of the defense so far (h/t to David Hale).

Here’s the thing…I don’t expect CWM to say, “OK, we’ve done this, this and this from a scheme standpoint, and now we are going to do that, that, and that instead.” I understand that his answers are going to be a bit vague, by necessity. However, what I DO expect is for him to say is something like, “This is my fault. Whether it’s scheme or execution, it doesn’t matter…the buck stops here.” Instead, he says that the players are in the right position, they just have to make the play, which is another way of saying, “My scheme is fine, these players are just screwing up.”

I’m not even saying that this is not a true statement…but ultimately, as the Defensive Coordinator, isn’t it his job to make sure these guys are executing the scheme properly? I know that he can’t make the plays himself, these are 18-22 year olds, etc, etc…but this is not a problem that has just cropped up in the last two ball games. Our opponents are AVERAGING over 30 points a game against us the last nine games. Those are inexcusable results, regardless of the competition or any extenuating circumstances like offensive turnovers, etc.

Good news is that the coaching staff is at least showing some sense of urgency this week. Looks like there will be a shakeup in the playing time among the secondary, especially at safety. Bryan Evans, God love him…he’s extremely fast and he can definitely bring a lick, but he is just not blessed with the skills to cover anybody one-on-one.

The talent is there on that defense…I still believe that. I keep thinking that this will be the week when that talent meets scheme meets execution and our defense puts together a performance worthy of their Junkyard Dawg reputation. I still think that this week as well.

- ASU prediction: Dawgs continue to gel on offense, seemingly working new playmakers in every week. This week, I say we get big contributions from Brown, Wootentheballcarrier, and Caleb. And, yeah, I’ll say it again in hopes that this week it will be true...the defense finally gets their act together, aided by big games from the emerging DE tandem of Houston and Washington.

Dawgs 38, Devils 13.


NON DAWG STUFF:

- DawgSports put it best about the Ole Miss – South Cackalacky game last night…it was the huge upset everybody saw coming from a mile away. I’ve been saying for months that Ole Miss was overrated…they got WAY too much hype based on a winning streak at the end of last season.

An excerpt from my SEC Media Days coverage:

It had been 727 days since they won a conference game when they beat Florida. That says a lot about what an impressive performance and huge upset it was, but also...this is the team that so many are picking top 5 and handing the SEC West to? A team that, as recently as last year, had a TWO YEAR conference losing streak going? Excuse me if I don't jump on that bandwagon just yet.

My opinion on teams like Ole Miss is that they are going to have to elevate themselves to elite status…I ain’t putting them there until they prove that they can do it. Add to the massive hype (and pressure that comes with it) the fact that they had played absolutely nobody so far, so their first real game was on the road, at night, in Columbia against a team that had already been through a couple of real games….and that was easy pickings last night.

Oh, and something else I agree with DawgSports about…I miss Erin Andrews’ hot librarian look from last week.

- Big game coming up for the Falcons, on the road against the Patriots. This is a chance to see if we have really stepped up to an elite status. I know, the Pats haven’t exactly looked like themselves so far, but I think that makes them even more dangerous.

I think this game may look very familiar to Dawgs fans…I don’t see us shutting down the Pats offense, so we are going to have to outscore them. I say we do…Falcons win 38-34.

On a related note, how much of an upgrade is Mike Peterson over Keith Brooking? He makes more plays in one quarter than the overrated Brooking made in the last five years…interceptions, forced fumbles, recovering blocked kicks, big hits BEHIND the line of scrimmage (not seven or eight yards downfield, where Brooking made his living). Another coup by Demitrof, this one with an assist to Mike Smith and the seriously-missed-in-Athens Brian VanGorder, who coached Peterson in Jacksonville and convinced the GM to go get him.

- Looks like next year will be the end of an era, as Bobby Cox has announced that he will step down following the 2010 season. Bobby is a very polarizing figure among Atlanta sports fans…you get people saying that he couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag, and you get people saying that he was the key to the extended run of success that the team had in the nineties and early aughts.

I think the truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle. I think that for a 162 game schedule, you would be hard pressed to find a manager better suited to be successful. However, as so often is the case, what makes you awesome is also what makes you suck…his even-keel, never-too-high-never-too-low, “that’s just baseball, we’ll get ‘em tomorrow night” attitude always seemed to carry over into the more pressurized atmosphere of the playoffs. After the first couple of playoff runs, I just never really sensed the intensity out of the Braves dugout the way I did from the opposition…not sure how to quantify that, but if you’re a longtime Braves fan you probably know what I mean.

I do, however, take issue with people who say that he had the best team in the playoffs every year and only managed to win one ring. We may have had the best pitching staff every year, but our top-to-bottom roster was usually not the best in baseball. Now, that being said, we definitely lost to teams (Padres, Cubs, Astros, etc) who I thought we were better than, but I don’t know that we were the best team in baseball any of those years.

The one World Series I thought we “should” have won but didn’t was in ’96. Braves got down 3-1 against the Cardinals in the NLCS, and it looked like it was all over. But they swept the next three against the Cards (winning 14-0, 3-1, and 15-0) and then the first two in Yankee Stadium (winning 12-1 and 4-0). For those five games, that was the greatest baseball team I have ever seen.

You all know what happened next, so I’m not going to rip the scab off that old wound.

Bottom line…Bobby Cox is a Hall of Famer and whether we know it or not, we’ve been lucky to have him for the last two decades.

Wow…I’m starting to think I should have broken this up into several posts. To those still reading, thanks for hanging with me, and I’ll be back on Sunday to recap the Dawgs win over ASU!

GO DAWGS!!!

Recap - Arkansas

Good grief...this team is taking years off my life.

Sorry about the lateness of this post...combo of some weekend traveling and being a bit under the weather today. And also keeping an eye out the window to make sure my truck doesn't float away.

Let's get to it, shall we? This game really didn't have a lot of "in-between"...the good parts were really really good, and the bad parts were putri-riffic.

THE GREAT:
- Joe Freakin' Cox. If not for The Ginger Assassin, we would be looking at disaster right now. Yeah, he's for real. Just huge throw after huge throw. Every one of the touchdown throws were perfect, and they all called for something different...on the Aron White TD, he made the throw to the outside shoulder, a little behind him on purpose, so that only Aron could get the ball in one-on-one coverage. The throw to Tavarres King was a rainmaker, a high arching 50 yard bomb. The 2nd TD to AJ was a laser, thrown high enough to allow his playmaker to go up and make the play. Etc, etc...

I'm just really happy for the guy, you know? He has waited patiently for his turn, even risking the possibility of never playing a down at QB while at UGA, consistently talks about his love for Georgia, is by all accounts a fantastic teammate and leader. Then, after ONE game as the starter, so many fans were ready to throw him on the trash heap and move on to someone else. So to see him accomplish what he has the last couple of games (including being named the Walter Camp Player of the week and SEC Offensive Player of the Week), well...it couldn't happen to a better guy, and it makes me proud to be a Dawg.

But besides all that sentimental stuff...we have ourselves a quarterback, Dawg fans.

- The WR/TE corps. I could give each of them their own bullet point, but AJ Green, Michael Moore, Tavarres King, Orson Charles, Aron White...we saw examples of every one of them being playmakers like we haven't had in this abundance since....well, ever, I guess. And that's BEFORE we work Marlon Brown and Rantavious Wootentheballcarrier into the mix.

AJ Green is a friggin beast...I'll take him over any other WR in the country right now, bar none. I love his aggression this year...he is playing with a bit of an attitude, but the right kind of attitude.

And Michael Moore is an extremely reliable #2 WR, the kind of guy you have to have on your roster to be consistently successful on 3rd and 7.

- Brandon Boykin on kick return. Better enjoy these plays while we can...I can't see opposing teams continuing to kick to him for very long. Even when it's not blocked well, he is consistently making guys miss and setting us off in great field position.

- Our kickers. Drew Butler bailed us out again with a huge kick with under 5 minutes to go, and Blair remains perfect. These guys are going to end up winning some games for us this year, if they haven't already.

THE GOOD:
- The running backs. Finally, we got to see what Richard Samuel can do when he breaks loose, and the results were no doubt impressive. However, outside of that big play, he wasn't all that productive, and the fumbled pitch was atrocious. On top of that, the fumble that he recovered could have been a game-changer.

It was great to see Caleb, and overall I think he was the more impressive back Saturday night. As he gets back into the groove, I get the feeling we are going to see why he was the number one back in camp before the hamstring injury held him back. If he can get back to that level, I think the offense is better off with him as the every-down guy and Samuel and Thomas as the change(s) of pace.

- The O-line. Good enough to roll up 50+ points and 500 yards of offense, but too many penalties to be considered "great".

THE UGLY:
Yeah, we skipped the bad...all of the bad in this game was UGLY.

- PENALTIES. FOURTEEN PENALTIES. FOUR. TEEN. PENALTIES. And I don't want to hear any more "penalties of aggression" crap. False starts, offsides, and holding calls are NOT penalties of aggression. They are penalties of laziness and poor focus, and they are not indicative of a championship team.

- TURNOVERS. We can't continue to be on the wrong end of the turnover margin in every single game and expect to keep gutting out wins. The Joe C interception didn't hurt too bad, as it was as good as a punt, and it was not as much a poor decision as it was a good play by the safety. But the Samuel fumble was inexcusable, and Boykin has to do a better job of knowing where he is on the field so as not to run into his own man trying to field a punt.

The Samuel fumble(s) are even more distressing, as they are a continuation of the problems he had last year. Maybe somebody needs to ask him how many feet are in a mile.

- The kickoff "coverage". Fine, Mssrs. Fabris and Richt. I give up. Kick it out of bounds. Refuse to field a unit that can consistently stop a returner before they reach the 40. Heck, even pooch kick to the 40 when the clock is our friend and we need the opponents to have to drive the length of the field. I just can't talk about it anymore.

- THE DEFENSE. Oh, Willie. Why do you despise me so? Why must you continue to destroy my heart a piece at a time?

OK, some credit first...I went back and watched it again, and honestly the first half performance by the defense was not that bad. They did get put in bad situations due to the aforementioned turnovers and piss-poor kick coverage. Two of the first three touchdowns (the first one and the third one) were actually covered very well...Mallett just made NFL-caliber throws, and his WR made a fantastic catch on the third one. We were even getting good pressure with a nice mix of blitzes and work from the D-line.

But that second half...that was an embarrassment. Opposing receivers running WIDE OPEN, over and over and over again...that can only be the result of either poor schemes or blown coverage. Just a pathetic display of pass "defense". (Just want to make mention of one exception...Reshad Jones is having a very good season, and really seems to have made an effort to improve his fundamentals and tackling).

Similar to what I said last week....regardless of any extenuating circumstances, 40+ points and over 400 yards of passing offense can not be considered anything but horrible.

But here's what REALLY makes it worse...nobody, not Coach Richt, not Coach Martinez, nobody...will come out and say, "This is NOT ACCEPTABLE. This WILL NOT STAND. We are EMBARRASSED by these performances and will not rest until the problems are FIXED." Instead we get excuses and condescension.

I do not call for people's jobs, at least not in a public forum, and I'm not gonna start now. But I can't believe that this poor level of play will be allowed to continue into next year. Something has to change.

So, to sum up...tremendous display by the offense, almost completely overshadowed by stupid penalties and turnovers, along with embarrassingly bad defensive play. For all the offseason talk about how last year's problems would not be this year's, that sure does seem a lot like 2008 to me.

That being said, it's still early in the season...we have a good opportunity to get better this week against ASU, and then we welcome an LSU team into Athens who we hung 50+ on last year. Hopefully, we won't need that many to pull out a win this year.

GO DAWGS!!!

New name for the Logan Gray Experiment

My friend Brent (you can find his blog on the blogroll to the right, or here - but if you've checked it in the last month or so, don't bother...I can assure you it hasn't been updated) has been bugging me for days to post his idea for a name for the Logan Gray "Wildcat" offense, assuming of course that this particular scheme ever evolves into something other than one play a game. Obviously, we can't call it the Wildcat, what with us being Dawgs and all.

His suggestion? The Dingo Formation.

Get it?

Cause a dingo is a wild dog.

He even has the perfect sign ready for gameday: "Logan Gray is Gonna Eat Your Baby!!"

Yeah, I have weird friends.

To be fair, he also sent me this video of Brandon Boykin's kickoff return as seen from the UGA student section...I like it when it goes all "Cloverfield" when Brandon breaks loose:



GO DAWGS!!!

Upon further review....

Some leftover thoughts from the weekend....

- Another game, another season-ending injury. Rod Battle tore his ACL and is out for the year. I hate it for him...he's a senior and just never seemed to be healthy the entire time he was here.

As far as the impact on the team goes, we may still be in pretty good shape. Luckily, Justin Houston returns from his two game suspension, looking to build on reportedly dominating performances in spring and fall camp. And Cornelius Washington, the redshirt freshman that I have been predicting big things for since spring camp, got his first extended playing time on Saturday and responded with 1.5 sacks from the D-End position.

All that being said...we are rapidly approaching the point in both the DE and offensive tackle positions where we can not withstand any more major injuries...fingers crossed, everybody!

- OK...I'm seeing several blog posts and hearing a lot of conversation trying to take some of the heat off of the defense after Saturday night's performance. The general opinion of these pieces is that A) the defense was on the field for a ridiculously long time; B) At least Willie brought the heat, which we have been begging for him to do...it's just that Garcia escaped the pressure very well; C) Hey, the scheme worked...we made him make short throws under pressure and took away all big plays; and, D) the red zone defense saved the game.

Well, allow me to retort:

A) It's true that the defense was on the field entirely too long, in large part due to offensive and special teams miscues in the first half...but some of the blame for that goes to the defense itself. The defense didn't force a single 3-and-out all night. Make a play somewhere along the way and maybe you get some more rest.

B) This point is true. This was the most aggressive I've seen us play on defense in quite some time.

C) OK, fine...but when he completely lit us up the entire first half, shouldn't we have adjusted at some point to at least take away the tight end? Obviously, the TE was his security blanket...if you take that away and make him move his eyes somewhere else, maybe he gets a little rattled?

I don't like this argument, anyway...what's the difference between 10 7-yard passes or one 70-yarder, other than that it makes your defense work harder?

D) This point is true, as well...when the field was shortened, our secondary was playing closer to the line of scrimmage, which took away those short passes, and we pretty consistently stopped the run all night.

Bottom line...we let Steven Freaking Garcia throw for 300 yards, and the defense gave up 25 points to a team who only scored one touchdown against NC State (I'm not counting the pick-6, the safety, or the field goal after the Smith fumble)...sorry, that can't be classifed as a good performance, no matter what the extenuating circumstances.

And if we perform the same way against Arkansas, Bobby Petrino will design 75 different pass plays to the tight end over the middle.

FALCONS THOUGHTS:
- What a great start by the defense, which I was seriously worried about coming into this season. They played like they were PISSED, which is a great sign...the linebackers were playmaking machines, especially Mike Peterson. He made more plays in one game than Keith Brooking has made in the last five seasons, and the hit he made that caused the fumble was BRUTAL. It's at the 1:29 mark of this highlight clip....




- John Abraham. He deserves his own bullet point. This guy is completely unblockable one-on-one, and he absolutely DESTROYED Pro Bowler Jake Long on this play (which I have watched about a dozen times, by the way)..



- Matt Ryan was not sharp, looked a lot like the season opener. Some of those passes he missed will be touchdowns once they get the timing down a little better.

- Tony Gonzalez...believe the hype.

- The Dolphins obviously decided to take Turner away and make Matt Ryan beat them...even on an off day, Ryan managed to do that. This offense is going to be nightmares for opposing defenses.

If only Clemson could have completed the comeback against the gnats Thursday night, it would have been a perfect football weekend. Next chance starts on Thursday night (of course)....at my house, at least for one night, it will be all about THAT U!!!

Recap - South Carolina

Wow. That game was exhausting as a FAN. I can't imagine what it must have been like on the field. I don't remember a game with such WIDE swings of momentum and emotion. The Dawgs and Gamecocks always seem to play nail biters...this one was only an exception in that both teams put points up at a Big 12 level.

By the way...there is a reason why there are all of those big beautiful buildings in Las Vegas. Before the game I would have told you there was no safer bet on the board than the under on this game...it was at 39. We surpassed that about halfway through the second quarter.

THE GREAT:
- Rennie Curran. As if his on-the-field exploits were not enough, David Hale reports that Rennie gave his own version of "The Promise" in a pregame speech to his teammates, promising to give every ounce of energy and heart that he has. And, as usual, he delivered...15 tackles, flying around the field, and for the second year in a row he makes the game saving play at the goal line to beat the Gamecocks. This guy is rapidly moving into my Top 5 Favorite Dawgs of All Time list.

- A.J. Green. Wow. Thank God we played this guy as a true freshman last year, because that's the only reason we're getting three years out of him...he's ready for the Show right now. Last night he made at least three plays that just set him apart: the hang-in-the-air-5-feet-off-the-ground catch he made off the pass that Cox threw into double coverage early, the touchdown catch where he elevated over two guys, made a great catch and was able to tap the left foot before falling out of bounds, and the utter physicality of the play where he broke one tackle, stiff-armed another guy all the way to Winder, and almost took it to the house (and should have had more yards...how was THAT play not a penalty, but when Reshad does the exact same thing at the other end it gets called?). As a matter of fact, don't just take my word for it...



Awesome.

- Speed, speed, speed. I mentioned in my post the week of the opener that one of the things I liked about this team was that it may be the fastest we have ever had. Well, we got a couple of examples of that last night. Brandon Boykin and Branden Smith can FLY, and they are game changers. We are adding more playmakers every year, and it is incumbent on the coaching staff to find ways to take advantage of them.

- Special teams. I struggled with how to rank the special teams in this game...so I'm going to cheat a little and mention them a couple of times. But there is no doubt that the special teams made some huge plays in this game. The kickoff return team was so dominant that Spurrier eventually stopped kicking to them. Team records in total return yards, and the longest KO return in school history by Boykin, at a time when the team DESPERATELY needed something good to happen. Blair Walsh continues to put last year behind him and drilled yet another field goal of 50+. And, of course, DeAngelo Tyson made what may have been the most important play of the game by blocking the PAT after the pick-6....without that play, the Cocks only need a FG to tie on that last drive rather than having to go for the TD.

And FINALLY...we started kicking the ball deep on kickoffs, with mostly great results. The Cocks returned one for a long return, which means of course that Coach Richt had to mention after the game as an example of why kicking it deep is so dangerous. WHATEVER. I would buy that argument a lot more if the other strategy was actually working, but the numbers tell me that we are actually MORE likely to give up a big return on the short directional kick.

THE GOOD:
- Joe Cox. Joe was tons more effective this week, so maybe the flu was the problem after all...that or the fact that he was starting his first game in three years on the road against a quality opponent (well...sort of quality). But whatever the difference, I feel a lot more confident in Joe now than I did this time last week. Only the pick-6 (which was horrendous) and a costly fumble kept him from being qualified as "great" this week.

And the fumble was his fault...he has to recognize that blitz at the line of scrimmage (since we didn't have enough protection on that side to account for it), or at least do a better job of ball security.

- Richard Samuel. He showed just as much improvement over last week as Joe, in my opinion. He ran HARD, breaking tackles and running through guys. Still needs to show the ability to break the long run, and I think that's coming...hopefully soon.

As a side note, where was he in the second quarter? After running so effectively on the drive where he scored the touchdown, he basically disappeared until late in the half. Anybody hear any reason for that, or was that just another weird personnel decision by our coaching staff?

- The O-line. For most of the night, this group gave Cox plenty of time to throw and did a nice job opening running lanes against a very good defensive front 7. They did give up a couple of sacks, and they had WAY too many penalties (more on that later).

THE BAD:
- The Defense. Ugh...felt like late 2008 all over again. First of all, there were WAY too many missed tackles. I'm willing to cut them a LITTLE slack on that, since the problem seemed especially egregious late in both halves, when the D had been on the field for what seemed like hours. But...at least part of the blame for that goes on them, because if they could have made some stops they wouldn't have been out there so long.

We also struggled (again) getting to the quarterback. In this game, though, we actually got pretty consistent pressure...Garcia did a nice job escaping pressure, and there were a couple of times that guys just spun the wrong way and ended up missing him.

The biggest problem I had with the defense was this: the problems we had in the first half (middle of the field was WIDE OPEN all night, allowing Wesley Saunders to turn into Tony Gonzalez for a night) were the EXACT SAME problems we had in the second half. Now, I'm not enough of a football expert to tell you exactly what caused those problems...I can only tell you that we apparently did not make any adjustments at halftime to take away what was killing us in the first half.

My friends and I used to always say when VanGorder was here...whatever is working for the other team in the first half, they will need to find something else in the second half because VanGorder is going to shut that down. I have no such faith in this coaching staff.

- The Logan Gray experiment. If you're only going to bring him in for one random snap a game for him to run the QB zone read, don't bother. The only reason it makes sense is to give the opposing team something else to plan for. Right now, I don't think opposing defensive coaches are staying up late wondering how they are going to shut down Logan Gray for one snap a game.

Along the same lines...Marlon Brown and Rantavious Wooten made it on the field for a combined three snaps last night. Now that we have burned their redshirt years, we better find a way to get production out of them or those years are just wasted.

- Special Teams. Told you I was cheating with this one. For all the good that these units did, there was also this: fumbled kickoff return that led to a SC field goal, a botched snap over the punter's head for a safety, and a fake field goal by USC that brought back nightmares of the Sugar Bowl against West Virginia. So, yes, the special teams might very well be the reason we won this game...but they were also largely responsible for keeping the Cocks in the game at all.

By the way, I've decided Branden Smith is our own version of Forrest Gump...he's now returned THREE kicks from over 5 yards deep in the end zone, which suggests a possible mental deficiency...but, boy, when he does get to run he is FAST. Maybe we need one of those big STOP signs like they used for Forrest to use whenever he fields one deep in the end zone.

THE UGLY:
- PENALTIES. Speaking of 2008 flashbacks...13 penalties for 108 yards is absolutely unacceptable. This was a problem last year that manifested itself early on and just never got fixed. After all the talk in the offseason about how much more disciplined we were going to be, this was disheartening. Especially since so many of them were just penalties of stupidity...false starts, offsides, blatant holding. This has to stop NOW.

Bottom line:
This was one of the most exciting games I have ever seen, but it wasn't particularly well played by either side. But one of the aspects of this season that I was looking forward to the most was this...NO STYLE POINTS. I will enjoy every win this year, no matter the opponent or the margin of victory. We still have a long way to go, but if we can somehow combine last week's defense with this week's offense and cut out some of the stupidity, this could still be a surprisingly good year.

1-0 in the SEC...I'll take it.

GO DAWGS!!!

WHEW!!!

I'll be later (hopefully today) with the full recap, but for now, this will do (and be sure to pay attention to the police officers in the background)...



Oh, and Rennie Curran? Still my biggest man crush.