Bit by bit, little by little

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Given the Dawgs’ off week and JP’s family vacay, I thought it would be a good day to take stock in the Thousand Million Questions series I put out the week before the season started. As you will see, some of the Big Six questions appear to be answered, some have not been yet, and one will be in 6 days. Perhaps this is a little early, but it’s a fun discussion. (Links to each post precede the discussion and answers.)

QUESTION 1: HOW GOOD IS THE DEFENSIVE LINE? To date, this group has shown flashes but has been inconsistent. Miller is as good as advertised, Griffin is coming on strong, and Jordan Hall is doing fine. McLeod, JJA and Ogboko just haven’t done much. As I said in the original post, we need a lot out of this group to get to Miami. Answer so far: Decently good.

QUESTION 2: HOW MUCH HAS GUNNER IMPROVED? Apparently, we haven’t seen his ceiling and based on the Tennessee game, you could argue he’s on a Stetson-like trajectory. Look, the throwing motion ain’t gonna get fixed in one offseason, but his intelligence and moxie are clearly on a high level, and his confidence and ability to make more types of throws is improving. Good signs here. Let’s just hope the OL can get healthy and protect him. Answer so far: A good bit, likely with even better results to come.

QUESTION 3: CAN THE NEW OL GEL IN TIME FOR EARLY SEASON TESTS? Unfortunately, Earnest Greene’s back is a real problem and I worry he’s not going to play much for a while. Backs for linemen are kind of like hamstrings for wide receivers. Injuries to them tend to linger and keep them out of lineups. Losing Juan Gaston to his own injury so early in the season has created a mess on the right side of the OL, and Gaston himself is losing valuable reps. It’s such a shame that he hasn’t had the steady hands of Drew Bobo and Greene on either side of him. That would have been terrific for his development. On the other hand, the left side of the line is looking very good, particularly in run blocking and the screen game, and capable of even better play. I can’t wait to see how they match up against Bama this week. In sum, as we’ve said before about the OL, it’s a mixed bag so far. Answer so far: On one side, yes; on the other side, no.

QUESTION 4: CAN NATE FRAZIER BECOME GEORGIA’S NEXT GREAT BACK? The running game has been slightly better than last year, averaging 4.5 yards per carry, but so far it’s not lighting the world on fire. Nate Frazier has no negative yardage runs, which is obviously a good thing, but he hasn’t had many huge runs yet, with his longest being 21 yards. He’s still impatient, and I feel like if he could wait a half second he’d see more holes and take advantage of them. To the good, Dwight Phillips has shown a lot of promise and seems to be this close to breaking one every game. I’d like to see RBU at least at 5 yards per carry by the end of the year, and Frazier getting more than 13 carries per game, but I’m sure Kirby is trying to save him for the bigger games and (hopefully) the playoffs. Answer so far: TBD.

QUESTION 5: CAN THE GEORGIA DEFENSE BE ELITE? Georgia has only played one good offense and it played pretty well other than two terrible coverage busts. I believe those are fixable and the defensive roster is mostly elite. I still have concerns about the pass rush and defensive line, but I think there are plenty of great players there. Talent still needs to be developed, and those groups still have a ways to go to be called elite. Answer so far: Maybe.

CAN THE DAWGS AND KIRBY GET OFF THE BAMA SCHNEID? This one gets answered on Saturday. We all know the stats. I’ll add my commentary from the other day about the game: This feels a lot like a Spider-Man meme game. Both teams have older but newly starting QBs who have good football IQ and wheels, experienced and talented OLs with recent injuries and poor play on the right side, talented WRs, youth on the DL, and talented DBs (yes, I think Kirby will get last week’s debacles fixed). Difference is the RBs and LBs, where I believe the Dawgs have an advantage. And then there’s home field, which should be a cauldron by game time. These SHOULD carry the Dawgs to a win. But as I mentioned in the preseason posts, whether we can get off the Bama schneid is one of our biggest questions.

19 thoughts on “Bit by bit, little by little”

  1. There were a couple of plays last Saturday where I saw Frazier show patience and wait for his blocks to develop. I think he’s getting there.

    • Yeah, there’s a fine line between patience and being indecisive. I don’t know where that line is. I think Frazier will be fine. Luckily, the RB room is pretty crowded because we will need all of them to get thru Miami.

      • The bammer thing is what it is, to even get away from the schneid thing, UGA football needs to reverse the numbers as they are, win like, 18 in a row, thusly improving the schneid record to 19-6, shit, don’t even know if that’s enough, that big number 1 win (33-18) is good enough for mine Red n Black soul…RB room do miss them some Coach Dell McGee, with success, comes staff changes, CKS seems to navigate those waters o.k…..GO DAWGS!!….Saturdays event isn’t a must win situation, at this time of the schedule, teams are finding who they are, laying a 1 point “W” vs the bammers at Sanford Stadium will be good, putting the college football world on notice with a decisive “W” will go a long way for UGA football’s confidence…Fuck all those, that think they know, what the Fuck they think they know, but don’t know squat…GO DAWGS!!

  3. What little we’ve seen of Gunner throwing the long ball sure has been an improvement. That first pass and TD pass looked almost perfectly dropped into the bucket. Hope we see a lot more of that.

  4. I am of a mind that there are times when a RB is hot and you leave them in and let them pound the rock. Frasier, to me, is a back that will run better when given the ball over and over. Two tries and pull for a sub just does not seem like the right formula. Let the hot back Eat.

    • That’s been a common critique, the frequent subbing at RB. Tough to balance the need for reps and rhythm vs keeping people fresh. And now we have 15 game seasons. Hope he kills it on Saturday and holds on to the ball. He’s got quite the stage to reintroduce himself to the country.

      • This talk about RB rhythm always reminds me of that old Eddie George NFL commercial where after a long game he is in his stance, looks up, sees the defense is getting tired… and he smiles. It’s a real thing IMO. You gotta feed a good RB, because they get stronger as the game goes on.

      • If I were a decent running back, I’d want to come to UGA. I’d be featured, enough, while also being spared killing my legs before I got to the pros. It’s a win/win.

        • Because you’re a reasonable person with life experience, not a high school kid who seeks as much attention and fame as possible!

  5. I watched several of the high-profile games yesterday, and 2 things seemed to be a common thread. One was that the winning team was able to get consistent pressure on the QB. We need to find a pass rush somewhere, somehow. It’s amazing how good the rest of the defense looks when the QB is constantly running for his life or expecting to be blasted at any moment. The second thing was that the losing teams almost all displayed atrocious tackling. I’m not talking about a missed tackle here and a missed tackle there, I’m talking about total lack of even a semblance of fundamentals. Fortunately, we don’t seem to have that problem this year. Pretty much if we get to them, they are going down.

  6. Regarding the lack of pass rush, I was losing it as Aguilar picked us apart. Monday morning rationality tried to convince me that our coaches decided to beat him with good coverage and save the qb pressure for another day.

    • Kirby talked about dropping guys into coverage vs pass rush and they seemed to mix and match. For every extra pass rusher you lose a nickel or dime DB. I just wish our front 7 could get home without the extra guy, but Tennessee has a decent OL too.

    • That may be right, but what I think is that they were more worried about containing a slippery rascal like Aguilar than a sack. That was a decision that put a lot of heat on the DBs, and that’s especially true because there are some young guys back there. Talented guys, no doubt, but young. Maybe at the end of the year we’ll think it was a learning session that has paid off.

    • Yeah, it’s been interesting to read about it on message boards. Definite delineation based on age. The youngsters think it’s a great idea to juice them up and the old folks like us think it’s terrible ju-ju. I’m sure JP will get into it this week. I’d love to but I’m traveling and have no time.

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