Observations from the armchair, Aunt Avis edition.

Posted on by

In honor of Widespread Pete’s tragic theft of Georgia’s golden opportunity at their 3rd national title in 5 years, I searched for the right Panic song to both commemorate the agony of the last minute loss, the regret Kirby must be feeling right now, and the hopeful nature of getting back up off the mat and trying again for 2026. “Aunt Avis” fit the bill nicely with this refrain: “How to remember how to be good, how to continue when I feel I really shouldn’t.”

Last night was painful, infuriating, and surprising. Based on how they finished the season, Georgia seemed to have a distinct advantage on both lines of scrimmage and I assumed that they would run the ball down Ole Miss’ throats, limit possessions and win a lower scoring game than their October barn burner. Unfortunately, Trinidad Chambliss put his Superman cape on, the defense tackled poorly too often, and Georgia’s offensive line decided to regress to its week 2 level of performance.

Sure, there were a couple of bad coaching decisions on both sides, the game was sloppy in the middle, and the refs weren’t great, but to me those aforementioned three issues decided the game. There’s a lot to get to in this, and I’m sure several of us will do different versions of a season postmortem (mine will relate back to my preseason questions), but for now, the game bullets.

  • I really liked the tempo to start the game and feel Gunner is at his best when they go faster. Wish that could have been employed more to wear down Ole Miss last night, but other things conspired against that plan (if it even was one).
  • Thought all we needed was a B game from Gunner and to tackle well for the win. We only got one of them. Ole Miss has really good skill players, but the Dawgs had been tackling much better than they showed last night.
  • The pressure packages Schumann utilized in the first game were largely stymied by Ole Miss, and missing Gabe Harris’ edge setting was a bigger factor than I expected. Lacy got to the edge too many times for big gains.
  • Their kicker made 2 FGs over 50 yards and Woodring missed his one long one. Not much you can do about that, but it makes for a 3 point differential.
  • We won the middle 8, but it could have been better. Kirby’s end of half time management issues continue. It’s his lone in-game coaching issue, so I won’t harp on it, but I do hope he puts some focus on that in the offseason. It’s these razor thin margins in the playoffs that can make a difference.
  • Welcome back, Colbie Young! So impressed and happy for him that he was able to come back after a gruesome injury, and his sideline catch was a thing of beauty.
  • Chambliss was absolutely amazing. When a great player is in the zone, it’s really hard to beat them. I know there’s hand-wringing about Schumann today, but I’m not sure what else could have been done. Without Gabe, Quintavius Johnson was on his own rushing the passer and can’t play every down. And Chambliss was just too elusive anyway.
  • I thought the defense played really hard against an elite offense, but I knew that losing one safety and getting another one dinged up was going to hurt the Dawgs at an already thin position at some point. Hate that Demello got beat and there was no safety help. What an epic back-breaker.
  • Gunner may not have had his A game, but he’s still the toughest QB in the country. I loved how he survived that huge hit in the second quarter and then showed Ole Maid his ball sack and snuck it in on the next play. What a warrior.
  • Both teams traded turnovers for easy scores, otherwise one would have been the difference.
  • While we saw it all year (because it was so effective early), Ole Miss stunted their interior guys all game, and for the life of me, I don’t understand why our OL could not communicate well enough to adjust. Drive killers.
  • Elijah Griffin is going to break out next year. He’s this close already.
  • Massive props to Kirby and Kirk Benedict for the fake punt design and execution. It almost looked easy.
  • The 3 straight plays Chambliss made early in the 4th were dark voodoo magic. After that, Bolden and Wilson got hurt, the defense was gassed and in shambles and allowed an easy TD. 
  • Zxavian Harris, the 6’8” DE monster, really took over the game for a while and Bobo didn’t adjust to put a TE out there to help. Freeling and Morris got abused on several plays.
  • Awesome comeback drive down 10 when a lot of people thought the game could be out of reach, a tough run from a dinged up Frazier and great catch by Branch for the TD. I really thought the cardiac Dawgs were going to pull it out again.
  • Thought Branch might’ve scored on that screen on 2nd and 20 if he didn’t trip.
  • Way too many balls got batted down last night, and it was an issue all season. Bobo and Searels have to figure out how to open better passing lanes or teach Gunner how to better adjust when they close.
  • What a hit by Zion Branch on Cayden Lee, but it was all for naught in the end, because we allowed that over-the-top pass and their kicker was on fire.
  • Going for it on 4th down with just under 10 minutes left was a brutal mistake. Kirby said Toliver was not supposed to snap it, but we gifted them a TD against a tired defense.

This game was SO close, even with Ole Miss playing their game of the year and Georgia playing at a B- level. Margins are thin in the playoffs, so any one of the aforementioned issues could have made a difference in the outcome. That’s playoff football, folks. Just have to trust that Kirby can build a new team and go after it again next year. I’d guess they’ll be ranked in the top 5 preseason and have a great title shot, but we’ll see how the portal giveth and taketh. That said, in a season where expectations were lower due to a new QB starter and huge OL and defensive player losses, Georgia won another SEC championship. That’s pretty great in my book. Go Dawgs.

56 thoughts on “Observations from the armchair, Aunt Avis edition.”

  1. Never not happy to win the SEC, even though it’s starting to seem like a Pyrrhic victory with the disadvantage that they bye has on quarterfinals performance. Still, I’ll never root for us to not win, and it’s really crappy that beating Ole Miss in Athens turned out to be a negative. I was against the four-team playoff, but I at least understood the argument for it from a football perspective. I can’t for the life of me understand beyond the money thing why anybody wants this abomination of a system now. It makes a travesty of what used to be the greatest regular season in sports.

    This season now feels like a huge disappointment. We were playing as well as anyone at the end of the year and now the only teams left are the third-place Big Ten team, a two-loss ACC team that couldn’t even win a hapless ACC, and the only team that looks like it might actually deserve a title, the losingest program in the history of college football. I guess this is how a basketball school would feel if the final four ended up being Murray State, Cal, South Carolina, and Oakland.

    I think I’d have felt better at the end had the loss come to Ohio State in the semifinal or even to Indiana in the final. But losing to this Ole Miss team tells me we had no business thinking we could win a national title. National championship-caliber teams don’t lose that game.

    • I just think there were no elite teams this year, and therefore the championship was up for grabs between 6 to 8 really good teams. This final four is therefore not surprising, but I agree it ain’t full of Blue Bloods.

      • I said midseason that around 5-6 teams had a legit shot and had a list of them.

        Only one is left: Miami.

        I really think part of the problem is that the so-called elite programs don’t have enough hungry players anymore.

        They’re fat, happy and somewhat indifferent. Their “why” was cash for themselves and their families and now their bellies are full.

        Motivated, hangry teams that love football and running and knocking the piss out of people, no matter what is in their bank account, are going to win games going forward.

        Kirby did a great job of addressing that issue this season.

    • This team surpassed any reasonable expectations we should have had in August.

      We should sincerely be proud and grateful for what we got.

      I mean, we ain’t Alabama, right? Those fuckers are jumping off of buildings.

  2. Can I get anyone to join my movement to take the field goal posts out?

    I hate to watch these big guys pummel each other for 3.5 hours and then some failed soccer player decides who wins and loses. Whether for good or bad.

    If you want to score get the ball in the end zone. Then go for two.

    I suppose I’d be ok with a drop kick OR a rule that says your kicker, holder and snapper must have played on the prior scrimmage down. And no bs like sending the three out there and take a knee.

    If the kicker is an actual football player I suppose I can live with it.

    Lou Groza played OG!!

    Now get off my lawn and let these kickers go play soccer with the other ladies!!

    • As a former elite soccer player, I half resent your half sarcasm, but I do understand it. It’s one of the silliest parts of the game, but without it, how can we still call it football?!

      • Btw, smartassery aside, I have no problem with elite soccer at all. Probably the hardest thing in sports is to score a goal in soccer. Those few who have done it consistently are amazing to watch. I can watch clips of Maradona all day. Phenomenal. Its like the ball is connected to his foot by an invisible string.

        And if soccer teams ran up and down the field for 90 minutes and then some 6’7” 295 lb Samoan, who can’t “soccer” for shit, takes the ball from 10 yards out and we all get to see if he can run the fuck over the goalie for the game winning score, wouldn’t it seem ridiculous?

        I just think that once we started down the road of “specialists” we lost the plot.

        We just shouldn’t be deciding which team has the best kicker. We should be determining who deserves to win a football game.

        Maybe create a new rule that says If you get the ball inside the 30 you can decide at anytime to take 3 points and ko.

        Anything that isn’t letting “not football players” decide things works for me.

        • Colleges have a roster cap. It does not limit the number of each type of player. Kirby could field a team of all long snappers. He doesnt have to have a kicker on his roster. Schools choose roster composition.

          I do like your idea. I feel like there have been a few players that were an “every thing” man on their team. Punter, QB, kicker returner and kicker. Get a few of those and let them handle it.

    • Agreed. This is the one and only site/blog I visit everyday, and the only place I have ever commented. Thanks for all the hard work.

  4. Reflecting on yesterday, there were two forks in the road that led for victory for them & defeat for us. Firstly, we had the bad guys on the ropes early in the third when we stopped them on downs at midfield, only to see the O fail to move and Woodring miss the long FG. From then on Rebel sense of urgency seemed to go up 1000%. 2nd & most obvious was our inability to get in the end zone and go ahead with 1st and goal from the eight down 3 pts. Our failure to convert in the RZ coupled with our inability to drain clock (Ole Miss took two TO’s) led to our ultimate demise. I plan to do a re-watch before I start crapping on the coaches. As to batted balls, that appeared to be by design. I swear big #51 for Ole Miss appeared to be reading Gunners motions and getting into passing lanes intentionally to bat them down. He must have had 5 or 6 batted passes in the game. Huge impact.

    • Yeah I think the batted balls were by design. The big fellow took a step back off the line, watched Gunner and then stepped into the breach. Good play design by Ole Miss.

    • Oddly, Georgia was one of the best Red Zone teams coming into this game as far as getting TF’s was concerned. I thought all the talk about the bye week teams losing citing last year was BS because of the seeding rules in place last season, but maybe there is a disadvantage to it. The offenses of those teams seems to have more mistakes, missed assignments, etc. compared to the teams who played an opening round game. Hell, Oregon and Ole Miss basically got a preseason Cupcake game to work out the kinks before playing Texas Tech and Georgia. The Red Raiders were obviously rusty on offense and Georgia was too. Feels a lot like the MLB playoffs and the bye where the top teams struggle to hit while the wild card teams get a series to get the hitters back up to speed.

      My “fix” is make the first round games bowl games and then the quarter finals are on campus. Reward the top four teams with getting to host a game instead of the 5 to 8 seeds. Or better yet, cut the field to 8 teams so everyone has the same amount of time off ( I know this will never happen).

  5. The most disappointing thing to me was the regression of the physical attitude of the Offensive Line during the game. On the second drive where we ran the ball well, the O line was getting down field and PUNISHING Ole Miss players, I was super pumped. As the game progressed, there was less and less physical blocking.

    The best O line yesterday was Indiana’s… that was a clinic of what excellent offensive line play looks like. From a physicality perspective, Miami’s O Line brought the pain. They were not the best coached but they did bring a nastiness that we haven’t seen since the Pittman roamed the sidelines.

    I only had 2 plays I questioned…. the 4th down play that was executed poorly…. and the 2nd down call late in the game. We should have lined up in an I formation and rushed the ball straight ahead twice. Either you don’t make it and go into overtime, or you do and it’s game over. I am a Bobo supporter but that was a bad play call to go with the read option/inside zone.

    • Very well thought out article, I just want to say While I am disappointed, We had a very young team and I am glad to be a fan. GO Dawgs!!!!!!!

      Timinsav

  6. I’m convinced that Gunner was a bit concussed after the hit that wasn’t targeting – unless we do the same thing to their receiver, in which case it is. Gunner got up, staggered up to the line, snuck the ball in for the TD (more fell into the endzone), then kind of did a little Otis Campbell shuffle to field the extra point snap. I told my wife that that boy don’t look right during the extra point. To his credit as a DGD, he stayed in there and gave it his all, but he didn’t seem to be seeing/executing things too well downfield, and lord knows we weren’t scheming players open.

    • Yeah, we said the same on our text thread. But we say that almost every game! 😆

  7. Yall know I don’t mind being that guy. I don’t see this as an amazing performance by Chambliss. I just don’t. Not that he didn’t play well. But good Lord we gave him more help than he ever could have wanted with the head scratching game plan to blitz him relentlessly and stubbornly continue even though it wasn’t working. It made it possible for him to just run around and play backyard football and there was nobody left to stop his throws because most people had been sent after him. I can maybe understand trying it but when it didn’t work I can’t fathom why we just kept right on doing it.

    What was disappointing and mind boggling was the way the offensive line looked like they hadn’t played football since they faced Ole Miss last time. I’m sure some of it had to do with something Ole Miss did but they played truly awful.

    What I don’t get is the way Inhave seen Gunner getting trashed since the game ended. It’s like our fans were just waiting for an opportunity to revert back to their canabalistic ways so they could devour another Georgia quarterback. Calls to get a quarterback out of the portal? I truly despise part of our fan base. People acting like they understand the nuances of quarterback play when they know no such thing. Go Dawgs.

  8. Kirby approved of the play calling on the last drive in particular on the pass on 3rd down. He said the “book” said not to play for overtime. We gave them a free timeout with the incomplete pass (and it was almost intercepted).

    • I don’t recall him referring to a “book” on that.

      I heard him say he wasn’t going to play for a tie and running it in from there was quite unlikely.

      He said he saw it as basically a 2 pt try to win the game outright.

      If he’d played for the tie and we lost in ot the same bitches would bitch about not trying to win in regulation.

  9. If we are going to make portal moves I hope it’s on defense and at receiver. Also, we could use at least one more running back.

    Once Nate Frazier got hurt on that last drive it would have been nice to have had one more good running back. I get why Bo Walker wasn’t playing. Chauncey was still playing through injury and didn’t look like himself. And Dwight Phillips has apparently vanished. I don’t know if he’s hurt or in the doghouse with the coaches but it’s like some time around the Florida game he just disappeared and hasn’t even been talked about as far as I know.

  10. Info got to say, why were we trying to run Josh McCray outside but from the damn three we had Chauncey in there instead of McCray? It really was just a weird game.

  11. If you want to make yourself nauseous, look at our first down plays in the second half. Imho, this is where the game was lost. We were behind the sticks 90% of the time. When you let really good teams hang around bad things happen.

  12. Ole Miss has a head of steam going right now. I predict they beat Miami and then Indiana. We couldn’t stop them. Don’t see how any other team would be able to. Seems like a more messy 2019 LSU team to me. Peaking at the right time.

    • Could be, but the portal brings the speculated problems to the forefront now for them.

    • I could see that. Miami seems to struggle to put points up. Could be a problem for them as slowing Chambliss down is tough especially if that stud back stays healthy.

      I wouldn’t want to put $ on any of the last three games.

      Those games are going to be won in the hearts and minds of the players. Its not going to be chess. Its going to come down to wanting it the most.

  13. Ole Miss has done all they are going to do. It’s fresh on our minds and we are all disappointed but we forget that at the end we still could have and should have won the damn game. For all the revisionist history that will be written about how amazing Ole Miss was and how their coaciane addict looking coach did this and that they won because we just damn refused to beat them when we had the ball on the damn three yard line with a minute or so to go. That’s on us. It ain’t a testament to how great Ole Miss is playing. Miami will beat their ass and they will be forgotten.

    • I sure hope you are right! Next year they’ll be back to 5-7 or 6-6. Their new HC was fired by Saban a few years ago.

  14. I don’t see Ole Miss going much further, but I would love to see them whip Miami’s ass (never been a fan of the U).

    As strange as it is to type, I think Indiana is the class of the field.

    • The U is just there to send to beat up on yankee teams. Beyond that, I agree, fuck ‘em.

      I think I want OM or Indiana and that probably means we’ll see Oregon and Miami play for it.

  15. The bowl system wasn’t perfect, but there were more ‘winners.’ With these playoff teams, all but one end their season with a loss, instead of a xxxx Bowl Champion. It’s a sea change for the mentality of college football fans.

    • Yep. It’s going to make nearly every fan base miserable. There may be one or two upstarts who win some shitty bowl who sees it as a stepping stone for a playoff year, but that’s about it.

      Ending a season 10-9 in Dallas is over and that’s fucking sad imho.

  17. 1 – Gunner is one of the toughest players I’ve ever seen, but he was outplayed by Chambliss.
    2 – They didn’t fold when we made our move. I was certain they would and they didn’t.
    3 – We missed Gabe Harris as much as we’ve missed any injured player this year.
    4 – Targeting is the biggest joke in college football in the last 50 years. There’s no way to make consistently correct calls.

    See you in September!

  18. Weird, I don’t think Gane Harris would have made that much difference. Not because I don’t think he’s a good player, the game plan was the defense’s biggest problem to me. The hurt player we missed most was Drew Bobo.

  19. I’m hurting, but I try to keep a little perspective. Any year we beat Florida, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn, and Tech, plus win the SEC again, is a good year.

    It still sucks when we should have won that damn game! In fact, we should have won both games we lost, both of which should have been decided in our favor when we were on the doorstep late in the game. I trust that there’s a guy in Athens who’s bothered by that fact more than me, and he’s on the mother!

    Go Dawgs,

    TripleB

  20. When the season ended, we were playing our best football and were, imho, the #1 team in the nation.

    But somehow we lost some of our fire and intensity during the huge layoff.

    That partly fall on coaching, but its also something you cannot do much about.

    In between the SEC title game and last night the kids had finals, trips home to family, Christmas, weeks with the girlfriend, etc. No matter how good your are mentally, that has an impact.

    Ole Miss got to tune up on a hapless Tulane and get the fire stoked again.

    We didn’t.

    It’s not an excuse – we still should have and could have won (look at Indiana) – but the current format sucks bad.

    I always wanted an 8 team playoff, but next best is 16. This weird bye shit sucks.

    • I would be ok with the current format if everyone played 1 game in mid-December. There’s a reason NFL teams want the bye.

      The first thing I would do as Power 4 commissioner for all sports would be to contract the CFP to 8 with the CCG participants as the only teams in. Keep the regular season as the best in the sport. Each conference has the same tiebreakers.

      • The NFL bye is different though, imo. The other teams get no time off and the top seeds just get 1 week off. Also, like mentioned above besides 3 weeks off you have all the distractions in college football with exams, travelling home for Christmas, etc. in the NFL it is just a regular bye week basically.

        • You hit the nail on the head. If the bye is important, play the first round games on the 2nd weekend in December and the quarters on the 3rd.

  21. It’s already been said, but the hollow feeling I have is from the fact that both games we lost were imminently winnable and we managed to gag them both.

    Of course there were some other games that were imminently losable and we pulled out victories.

    But it annoys me to no end that we should have won both games. I’m a big fan of Kirby and think he is the best in the game (though cignetti is making some serious progress) but both losses came down to coaching in my opinion

    Love him or hate him the pattern with bobo remains the same. Some brilliant games and some duds

    I think we (coaches, players, fans) all took ole Miss too lightly as well. It’s like as soon as we returned the fumble we expected them to fold at the adversity and when they didn’t it took us a while to recover

  22. Kirby has the date circled and his boys will be foaming at the mouth on Nov 7th in Oxford, Mississippi.
    I pity those fools. It will be like the Vandy game after the covid cancelled game type of beatdown.

  23. Somebody needs to convince me that, assuming we were going for the win on that third down play, it was the best play we had available.

    Kirby said he trusted the defense But that call, combined with the two fake punts, is very much evidence to the contrary.

  24. Apologies to be late to the party.. Had to walk away and heal for a minute. This was a NC caliber team that slipped up. One of few C performance games for Kirby & Co. The most egregious of all calls was the final series. If the “book” says go for the win, fine.. roll Gunner out and let him do his best open field work 4 plays in a row, but under no fucking circumstance was it OK to throw the ball on like that on 3rd down and give that team a chance to go downfield with a kicker that was making 60 yarders in his sleep. That was egregious.

    Gunner played with all the heart, but the kid took some nasty hits and was undoubtably dazed and not 100% after that decapitation on the missed targeting call. Sure, he ran it in the next play but he was not firing on all cylinders the rest of the game. His downfield passing was not great and he got bailed out by 2 PI’s on our last drive. I don’t see any world where he get’s a real NFL shot, but he’s more than serviceable/capable of taking a Kirby team to the promised land.

    If I could have one defensive play over, it’s Chambliss’ highlight where he ran all around and made the long throw.. Daylen Everette’s over pursuit and took a bad angle and slipped.. all he had to contain him b/c he had tons of help and it’s a 25 yard sack and would have been a game changer.

    Still stings a bit. Was a team with mojo a month ago.

    I saw where Lanning said the higher seeded teams should have home field advantage until final game and I totally agree. How dumb is it to see the Orange Bowl half empty? I thought it was ridiculous to have to travel twice to see them win a championship, but now it’s 3 games and that’s a shame.

Comments are closed.