That’s not a grammatical error.
“We’ve got to affect the quarterback,” Smart said after the game. “We’ve got to do a better job of affecting the quarterback. I mean, we’ve got more packages than the man in the moon to affect the quarterback, but we’ve got to do it. We’ve got to do it, and we’ve got to go out there and execute and be able to do it.”
Interesting statement, as I’ve seen in more than one place in the socials and in comments that it seemed as though Alabama knew exactly what we were going to do throughout the entire first half of Saturday’s game.
That sounds like someone has some top flight analysts right there. Whatever bag of tricks Kirby and Schumann might have, they need to pull it out in the first half instead of “adjusting” in the second half. Perhaps some film study of the opposing offense might tighten that up, but I’m sure they’re doing that. Aren’t they?
Also from Weiszer’s article:
“I think we’ve put together some really good game plans,” coach Kirby Smart said on Monday Sept. 29. “I don’t know that we’ve executed them all the time well. There’s a line between execution responsibility, me, coaches, players, everybody’s involved in that. But I mean, the same calls that we called in the first half, we called in the second half. We got some stops, and we made some plays. It’s not about just calls. It’s about execution, putting people in a good position. Sometimes it’s playing with confidence, and we got to do a better job doing that.
Georgia has given up 45 points total in the first half the last two games. It allowed 65 points in the first half the entire 2021 season. Alabama had 24 of those in the SEC championship game in a 41-24 win.”
Before fire, passion, and energy, all the talk was about being “elite”. Might be time to re-engage an old refrain, or at least coach them up to that level. While execution is certainly a key component of the game, you also had two weeks to prepare for Alabama and likewise saw some glaring issues that Tennessee exposed that needed shoring up. While we didn’t have secondary players flailing to the ground while a receiver moonwalks into the endzone, the secondary was still picked apart and the affect on the quarterback was nearly non-existent in the first half.
Still, to be fair, someone was executing at a high level, and it was Simpson, who was getting the ball out quickly which I can only attribute to Grubb knowing what Georgia was going to show and exposing the gaps there to get quick hits and nice gains. Alabama was rarely in a position of playing from behind the sticks or in third and longs throughout the first half. That’s excellence in game planning and execution, combined, but sounds like some of the planning was better in one coaching room and maybe less in another. Whatever happened in the second halves of the Tennessee and Alabama games, I’d at least imagine, shouldn’t be rocket science to Smart and Company to recall what and why adjustments were made, though Kirby insists they dialed up the same looks and they worked (note – Alabama fans insist that DeBoer “took his foot off the gas” in the second half, which is laughable considering Alabama nearly lost the game last year, so they’re likewise insisting Kalen is a slow learner).
Why things work better in the second half instead of the first, though, is the thing the staff needs to figure out, and in short order. As Weiszer stated, we are in the NIL era and simply “outmanning” our opposition isn’t going to be ethos for the Bulldogs any longer.
Affect the quarterback, yes. Playing with your ass on fire from the opening whistle to the end seems to be a bigger priority for the team. A noon snoozer sandwiched between the Tide and the Tigers against the Wildcats awaits. If Kentucky is still a ballgame in the third quarter this weekend, we could be in for a long season.
I was skeptical at the time but the assholes at RollBamaRoll were asking “Is Kirby Smart the last man standing on the old Nick Saban 3-4 defense” BEFORE the game. God I hate those guys.
We don’t play a base 3-4 … there are rarely 4 linebackers on the field at the same time. We are in a variation of 5 DBs on almost every play other than short yardage. In longer yardage, we’re in 6 DBs.
Kirby mixes the down linemen up between 4 and 3. Some call it a 4-2-5, but others call still call it a 3-4 I suppose. I guess I need to study film but we don’t have 2 DE’s and 2 DT’s on the field at the same time do we? I thought it was more 3 DT’s and I LB in a stance.
Depending on alignment we’re typically 3-3-5 personnel in a 4-2-5 alignment.
Considering our ILB talent comparative to our OLB talent, I’ve wondered why we don’t shift to 4 LBs more often…but could be the RPO heavy offensive philosophies negates some of that.
Putting a 4th LB on the field brings the star/nickel off the field. In today’s 11 personnel as most teams’ base grouping, you can’t do it. Chris Cole as an example may be able to run with a receiver, but you typically aren’t going to have 2 LBs that can do it consistently.
Otherwise, you’re in zone all day with that grouping, or you’re playing a lot of cover 0 or cover 1 on the back end. You can’t play man cover 2 with 3-4-4 personnel.
Its really hardly ever a 3-4 any more as its rare to see 4 lbs and 4 dbs. In short, we are rarely in “base” defense. We might be more than usual Saturday tho. Base is for running teams who want to bump uglies.
The defense’s design is to use the front to “spill” the run outside of the a and b gaps and then use the dbs and lbs to leverage the ball back inside to teammates.
What we don’t want are:
North/south running up the gut or runners hitting the sideline. Those places are where you get killed.
This is why db tackling is essential and why I say Jalen Carter was the most valuable player Kirby has had. Travon would be close as well.
Personnel groupings are keyed to offensive personnel primarily but also down and distance.
Usually you see two DT’s a DE with their hands in the ground and an OLB.
And then you have 2 or 1 ILB depending upon whether we are in nickel or dime.
Well, they’re stupid. Let that be your win.
The creativity Bama showed on the use of Proctor(74) and the final 3rd down play is missing at UGA on the defensive side. Your last sentence is absolutely spot on……….FPE is not working out well so far……
Aladawg
Bama didnt run the same stuff. We wanted to take the air out of the ball and Bama obliged. They did run some trick plays cause they wanted to embarass us. If they wanted to score again, Im sure they could have.
“More packages than a man on the moon” – that’s the problem in my opinion. Remember when Grantham first got here and all those packages he brought from the pros were new? Defense was very good at first and then everyone figured it out and “3rd and Grantham” became a thing. Sort of like “3rd and Schuman” is becoming.
If we’re as young as we seem (we are), maybe they can’t absorb and process all that info during a game. Seems like we were constantly adjusting/getting into position only to be out of position to make the play.
You just can’t be vanilla vs a team with the talent of Alabama.
You can be vanilla vs Tech or some other weak sister, but if you think your gonna “out dude” bama…
Did you see that LT?
You have to make them hesitant. You can’t just call base and steamroll them.
I didn’t see “exotic” being our enemy because people were in a technical sense executing the call. They just weren’t as aggressive with their wrs as they needed to be to be successful.
Maybe the phrase that I’ve heard so often – “We’re a 4th quarter team” shouldn’t be taken so literally in the locker room. Doesn’t hurt to be a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarter team too.
Bama analyst: Coach, if we just take a knee on first and second down, Georgia will play soft zone on third and we’ll pick up 12-15 yards.
We did have Bama behind the sticks quite frequently on 1st down, they ran a screen or a wrinkle to get to 3rd and manageable and then converted.
Kirby said in this week’s presser that our cover guys weren’t “putting hands on guys in the first half” and they got that corrected for the second half.
If the receivers are where you expect them to be when you expect them to be there, and the qb is talented and accurate, they’re going to complete passes. Disrupting timing is affecting the qb.
I think some of the dbs were a bit worried/timid/afraid to be aggressive for fear of giving up the big play early. Which is understandable vs. those three wrs.
I assure you that our coaches were equally familiar with everything Ryan Grubb had put on tape.
Ah huh. Kirby’s team lacks physicality, and you’re OK giving the coaching staff a pass on that, why, exactly?
Fundamentals are….fundamental. Can’t do a whole lot else if the coaches are incapable of doing their 101 job with the players.
Because I don’t know a fucking thing about winning two national championships in a row, this guy does. Add the necessary humility under the circumstances and there you go.
But Kirby is not giving himself or the coach’s a pass, btw.
You know that if you listened to the people who know what they are talking about and weren’t instead trying your best to be this board’s Skip Bayless.
My problem is why is the defense waiting till the second half before displaying FPE. Clearly the coaches and players have the ability. They shut bama out in the second half. Why do they have to be down multiple scores before playing well?
How about returning to DYJ or do your job every play.
Football is not hard. Offense lineman can pass block Georgia’s pass rushers. That make average DBs look bad, makes Georgia’s DBs look horrible. Kirby and Glenn can dial up whatever, the guys in red can’t get thru the blockers.
Why have we been so good on defense on 3rd down? It’s not typically been because of sacks (although certainly a contributor). It’s been because we have gotten teams into 3rd and long. You can play the sticks, force the check down, and make the tackle. When you’re in 3rd and 4 or less, you can’t play that way. You still have to defend the run. You have to play tight coverage. You have to account for QB run. Sometimes you have to depend on a QB making a mistake.
Alabama did a darn good job of staying out of true 3rd and long situations.
None of this is to excuse the defensive performance on 3rd down. I would love to see 1st and 2nd down success rate. I’m betting our 2nd down rate was atrocious.
That about sums it up. I long for for the days when we had everyone 3rd and 8.
Except this is not really true, ee. The first 6 straight 3rd down conversions were for 5 yards or more. We just got beat because there was no pressure on Simpson, or we were in zone coverage and he beat it, or we were in between switching from man to zone and he waited for it to open up. This defense has a long way to go.
I noticed this after tweeting with DawgStats.
Bama has outschemed Kirby in every single game but one…. They obviously know the game against us is going to be critical, and so start analyzing us well before the game; I also wonder how much of Kirby’s “tendencies”/counters/schemes still remain in the data room over there…. Finally, the pre-snap motion they pull on us is unlike what anyone else does, and they executed it perfectly in the first half on Saturday (again) and got us confused/out of position….
If only we had that coach who has a winning record against Alabama.
You know. That guy.
Is it you?
No, believe it or not I am not Sen. Tubberville, Oscar Meyer or driving the Gus Bus – hard to believe I know – nor am I getting $10MM+ a year to figure this stuff out…. The fact of the matter is that they have put our D on skates the last half dozen times we’ve played them, and that primarily demonstrates a lack of proper coaching/gameplanning/preparation….