Welcome back, Refugees! To those who have been following the site all offseason, and to those that are back in the routine, welcome. We had a football game yesterday, and it was glorious. Texas and Bama also lost, which is almost as wonderful. Whoever drew up this weekend deserves an A+. For the uninitiated, we do this every Sunday morning as a review of the game with insights as good as you can get anywhere else. 😉 On to the bullets!
- As I wrote in a comment last week, the only three expectations I had for this game were: 1) OL and DL domination, 2) No WR drops, and 3) hoping Thorson was healthy enough to punt. Two out of three ain’t bad.
- Despite injuries to Gaston (more on him in a bit) and Greene (hopefully not out for long), the first team OL leaned on Marshall’s line and won almost all the battles they needed to. The DL starters were ferocious and imposed their will. Check, check.
- I didn’t see a single drop by the WRs or TEs, and they all looked extremely athletic. So much so that when Dillon Bell caught his pass he looked like a comparatively lesser athlete. Very excited about this group.
- Thorson still isn’t kicking, and I wonder if Kirby is just waiting to play him against Tennessee, which I’m totally fine with as Drew Miller did very nicely. Special teams was largely elite yet again. What a massive weapon for this team.
- The front seven completely dominated this game, and a healthy Jordan Hall is fun to watch. Everyone had their moments, but watching the big man jump around is quite a sight. Elijah Griffin basically threw the Marshall center aside on his way to his first TFL. Very Jalen Carter-esque.
- The LBs were terrific for most of the game, and really brought the energy Kirby has been demanding. All 4 guys on the two-deep made huge plays. Raylen Wilson really shined on a stack-and-shed sack, and Justin Williams was like a heat-seeking missile out there.
- Secondary rotated a lot, which led to a couple communication issues but nothing too concerning. Just getting game reps, which will help down the road. Interesting that Daylen Everette sat out with a previously undisclosed injury. I’m looking forward to Kirby saying he’s “day-to-day” at every presser.
- As for the offense, RTDB is back, baby! It may come in the partial form of QB zone reads and scampers, but defenses appear to have a new burden to deal with defending the Dawgs. Stockton was terrific on reading his keys and keeping when appropriate. He was elusive enough against the Marshall front seven to get chunk yards and he’s a bundle of energy out there. Frazier was electric as always and Peanut Phillips showed the explosiveness we need when Frazier hits the bench. The Dawgs still need a second all-around back to show up, but this was a nice start.
- As for the passing game, it was up-and-down, but mostly up. Gunner had some really nice throws, managed the team well, and was mostly careful with the ball, but also stared down some receivers and allowed his throwing motion to elongate a few times. That’s got to improve in the next 2 weeks.
- Puglisi certainly availed himself well, although he clearly had some jitters on the first two drives and still hasn’t learned how to take some juice off the ball on short passes.
- Can we get some love for the wide receivers? That room appears to be completely retooled. They ran crisp routes, looked bigger and faster, and as noted previously, caught all the balls thrown their way. Branch was really explosive and has the athleticism that should translate in conference games. Glad all he had was a cramp on that punt fair catch, too.
- More importantly for Kirby, I thought the perimeter blocking was stellar. Colbie Young, Luckie, Thomas and Humphries were BEASTS out there, crushing corners and safeties and allowing for some long runs, which we haven’t seen much of since the (Deandre) Swift Era.
- Getting back to the offensive line, before Gaston went out he did seem to be having trouble hanging with the Marshall interior linemen, which was disappointing. I thought Calhoun did a little better after his first few nervy plays, but lacked aggression. Bobo mostly did well but had some misses. Morris and Freeling were excellent, as was Hughley who came in early to replace the injured Greene. Again, they’re supposed to dominate against Marshall, but they largely did so.
- If I’m being honest though, although they were outmatched, I thought Marshall showed some real team speed, especially on defense.
- Kirby clearly tried hard to win the middle 8 and did so, using timeouts strategically to get the last possession of the first half.
- I don’t want Gunner to get over-reliant on his legs because they may fail him against superior talent, but I do love the way it will change the way defenses play Georgia, which should free up more of the skill guys.
- Lastly, KJ Bolden and Talyn Taylor seemed to have picked up the (small G) gunner roles impressively. Another special teams advantage.
Like I mentioned, I did not have high expectations or needs out of this game (or next week’s). Both lines played well, the receivers looked good, and Gunner has made progress. Still plenty of work to do, but we have every reason to continue being hopeful that this team can put it all together over the course of the season and have a successful postseason. And at the very least, the team is focused on the important stuff again. Go Dawgs!
Testing
Ok Dawg in Austin I lived in Dallas a long time grew up in Statesboro knew Erk very personally this is UGAIII who met the Senator (yes we need to put Derek into a dunking booth) I’ve never heard Derek so happy and so am I.
Defense.
Branch looked like Lindsey Scott.
I predicted 45-0.
Very mad at our 3rd string defense ruined my prescience coach ‘em up Kirby God bless you.
BAH!… Derek’s like “Mikey” – can’t be true.
Pardon the small to medium doom and gloom. I know injuries are inevitable and know that offensive linemen have huge bodies on legs that may not be completely grown.
But . . .
Have we ever started a season without getting one or more offensive linemen banged up and on the casualty list in the first or second game? Seems like I hear the ‘out for a few weeks’ refrain every year.
Yeah, pretty shitty way to start for a position group on desperate need of continuity.
That was my feeling exactly. Are you f$cking kidding me when I heard about Gaston. It feels like Kirby is owed some good karma with injuries, plus interest. And the last couple of seasons it seems like whichever player position is most vulnerable is the one that’s hammered right out of the gate. Really hoping for these young men to stay healthy & reach their potential because they’ve earned it.
Zachariah Branch reminded me of Mecole Hardman and even a little faster.
Not sure if he’s faster than 4.3 speed, but he’s definitely bigger at this stage than Mecole, and super shifty.
Bigger? Huh?
Mecole was skinny at UGA. Branch hit the weight room hard this offseason.
When he took that screen pass to the house, all I could think was “It’s about time that we finally have one of THOSE receivers that always seem to play for Bama and LSU and tOSU.”
Hard to say what the offensive line looks like. To be fair, most of us here called the first offensive olay from scrimmage, so I can’t fault a team if they aren’t impressed by a receiving room when they believe that the OC is going to call a lot of run plays. The option plays, while nice, worked so well because it was clear no one on Marshall’s side believed the QB was actually going to keep the ball and run, which I can recall from the Murray years doesn’t happen a lot. I was shocked as well. Still not sold on Earnest Greene but I didn’t see a major drop off when Gaston and Greene went out.
Defense was stout. Let’s hope that continues.
I don’t think we tried to stretch vertically by design, they weren’t pulling out all the stops.
I agree that vanilla play calling was the order of the day, but I think they executed it pretty well. Remember Kirby has been chatting about Gunner running all offseason, so Marshall could not have been surprised by him keeping the ball.
Chatting it up and seeing it happen are two different things…watching tape on Bobo’s play calling would compel you to believe it’s going to the RB more so than a QB keeper (lack of terminology on my part)…hell even I was convinced we’d just given it to the RB. Gunner’s gotta good technique on that, and the first option look was beautiful. Everyone flowed to the running back and Gunner had nothing but daylight. Won’t be that easy for too long
He’s been running those plays since he was in eighth grade, and I agree he’s really good at it.
“…offensive olay…”
Is that the sound our line makes when defenders are rushing in? Just saying AI knows all. Maybe 😉
Hard to gauge performance when one team has a huge physical advantage. The defense played fast, tackled well and was in position most of the game. Offense looked out of sync at times and missed too many blocks. I wonder if Gunner was told to only throw short passes, there were lots of deep receivers open he dis not go to. Random thought, it appeared to me on the kickoff during the offseason Gabe Harris developed a tren addiction. Is R Robinson still hurt?
I don’t know what “tren” is but that Gabe Harris dude looks like a pituitary freak. He looks to me like he can be a Travon type who can play equally well with his hand in the dirt as coming off the edge.
Also curious about the RB Robinson. I thought he was a go…. Never picked up on anything suggesting he was either not ready or re-dinged.
Gabe looks amazing, right? You could be on to something. RodRob is still mentally banged up, is what I’ve heard. Can’t trust his body enough to play full speed.
The option pitch followed by the power sweep for a td had me reminiscing about John Lastinger football.
I don’t think Gunner was ever going to set the world on fire with talent, arm or otherwise, but if he can play with courage, poise and continue to make really good decisions with the ball, it will give us a chance every week.
Yeah, college may not be where he shakes his arm motion issue, but he does need to stop staring down receivers and learn to look off safeties. Maybe that’s being saved for Tennessee.
Great points.
I thought Gunner did exactly what we needed from him on this day. Run the offense, take care of the ball, and take what the defense was giving.
Puglisi is going to be an excellent QB when the time is right. The ball comes out of his hand with a zip we haven’t seen since Eason. The couple of times he pulled it down made me think he isn’t going to liability there.
The line play on offense was what we needed. We generated yards running. Juan Gaston is a large human being … hope he’s back soon.
The starting defensive line looked like they could be dominant. Gabe Harris looked like he needs to be the first guy off the bus every week.
The LBs showed why that may be the most stacked position on the team (and that includes the tight ends). Even when Zander Walker got in the game, you could see speed and violence.
It’s going to hard to keep Ellis Robinson off the field. He is just smooth and fluid. When he came on that corner fire, he was willing to stick his nose in there from the boundary.
We’ve said plenty about Zach Branch, but Zion did some good things at safety as well later tin the game.
All of this and, of course, it was Marshall.
The revisionist history on Gunner is weird. Here he basically gets described as a poor man’s Stetson.
The guy was pretty highly touted as a recruit from what I remember. This idea that he can’t throw very well and likes to run but isnt very good at it is Georgia fans being Georgia fans. He looked pretty damn good to me yesterday and I’m glad we’ve got him.
He re-wrote most of the GA high school record books, but he did it at the Class A level, so it’s reasonable to wonder if he can do it in the SEC. I do think he is a poor man’s Stetson right now. But that doesn’t mean that he can’t develop into something better either. He seems like a great leader, and the Dawgs need that as much as a talented thrower of the ball.
All I know is I would much rather have him than Arch Manning. Hype means absolutely nothing. It has always bugged me how Georgia fans love to be miserable and can’t seem to enjoy anything but I also know there’s no talking most of them out of it. There’s some jackass in the comments section on another site screaming for Puglisi to be the starter.
Yikes, that’s not a reasonable take. Pugs is getting better but Gunner clearly operates more of the offense better than him. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m certainly glad he’s developing, given Gunner’s interest in taking hits.
To be fair, Stetson was a poor man’s Stetson for several years. I don’t remember alot of fans clamoring for him to be the starter until well into the 21 season. What he did after that is legendary.
Agreed!
You don’t remember
Rabun Co was AA while he was there. They wore out their region and did well in the playoffs too. In 2019 they played against a pretty good North Murray team that was quarterbacked by some McConkey kid; he was pretty good I think.
Sometimes I think wordpress hates me. That was my post
Good point, forgot they dropped down a level after he left. That said, he never won state because they flopped in the playoffs against better quality opponents. I’m a Gunner fan, I just think he’s got a lower ceiling than I’d prefer. I hope I’m wrong.
The thing that made me smile the most was that I recall very very few missed tackles. Even against inferior opponents last year, we had a higher whiff rate than a Cy Young Award winning pitcher. That appears to have been corrected. With very few exceptions yesterday, if they got their hands on them, they went down OR they were held up long enough where they were sitting ducks for the red mob bearing down on them.
Were my eyes lying to me or did we actually set the edge yesterday. That seemed to be a foreign concept the last few years.
The fact that they actually put an inferior team away EARLY and allowed the backups a lot of meaningful playing time was a nice change from last year. In years past, next man up had a lot of time on the field in game situations when called upon. Last year that just didn’t happen. The quicker that we can get the starters out and protect them from injury while seasoning their backups, the better.
That’s a good team with a lot of fresh starting talent that needs these two opening scrimmage games to come together. Personnel groupings and substitutions will be worked out for UT. Gunner will find his receivers. I’d like to see a lot more in the running game next week (from the actual RBs) and suspect we will. Have a feeling the D is going to be nasty good.
The team executed, very few penalties, turnovers, drops, missed tackles, etc. The D owned 3rd down. It was fundamentally sound and started the game ready to play. A pleasant change from last year. We need to see it continue next week.
I was glad to see Gunner keep the ball on options. Hope this continues, we need the QB run threat for maximum effectiveness. We have a capable back up from what I saw, the QB needs to take the best option, and the QB option needs to be an play in the playbook that is used.
1 more cup to refine things, hopefully get and keep guys heathy, then into SEC play.
Yeah I don’t think people are talking enough about how penalties we had. To me that along with how well the defense tackled along with the lack of dropped passes makes it seem like whatever was wrong on that team last year has been fixed.
Very well executed game for sure. And I forgot to mention the fast start, which was nice.
Regarding Thorson, I have heard that he is cleared (medically) to kick, and he has been doing so in practice, but he isn’t cleared to tackle, and we all know that he will want to tackle if someone gets by the rest of ST. Right now Miller is fine – actually really good – but if need be I think Thorson could come in.
Just looked and saw that Miller had a 48-yard average. His long was 54 so the stats weren’t skewed by one monster kick. I love Thorson, but we seem to be in pretty good shape until he returns. Miller may can kick like him, but he can’t hold a candle to Thorson’s social media humor.
I thought the OL played just okay. The DL, really the entire front 7, played great. As was stated earlier, there were games last year against inferior opponents where that wasn’t the case. The team largely avoided penalties, which was great. There is an energy on the team that didn’t seem to be there last year.
I worry a little that Cash Jones being in the game is a dead giveaway that it’s probably a pass, because he seems to be our best back at pass blocking. I like the burst of Phillips a lot.
Well it was a very good game against a team that at least had a pulse. My only concern is our second QB had better be ready because Gunner is going to Gunner and he will get his head knocked off at some point when the big SEC boys get a shot. I know he wants to do the running thing but I just hope they have taught him to slide before the head hunters get to him. Oh well, I’m old and still think “discretion is the better part of valor”.
No real complaints about the team but TV timeouts over three minutes long in that heat with the sun beating down. We’ve got to do something about that.
A couple of corrections…
Gaston did just fine, yes missed some secondary blocks but he is a Fr. His upside is off the charts. That said Jah gets his stuff together. His upside is off the charts. Go watch Brooks breakdown of the OL…Brooks knows his stuff. We have some straight dudes. Need this next game to solidify. Remember our starting right side was replaced after the 2nd series.
As far as Gunner staring down…once. Go back and watch.
I know Gaston is a freshman and will improve over time, so I didn’t expect him to be great. But he missed some blocks so I mentioned it. And of course losing he and Greene was going to result in communication issues. But this was not a good Marshall front 7, so we got what was expected (mostly good but some mistakes). I will say I think Greene still looks out of shape and Gaston obviously hasn’t had enough time to reshape his body yet. That concerns me for the SEC speed rushers to come. I do agree that Jah looked good. As for Gunner staring down receivers, I watched the game and saw it several times. But guess what? That’s also expected of a guy making his third start. He did mostly well and he’ll continue to improve. (I’m not breaking down film for hours because I don’t get paid for this like Brooks does, but I will mention what I see.)