It’s no secret that football games are won in the trenches. We’ve seen it play out time and time again…all the flash of a great backfield, an all-star QB, and great receivers but no line play to save their lives. 2008 Georgia comes to mind. But I digress.
Reason being, I came across this question yesterday on the Twix:
Mine? I’d say it’s when I believed that Georgia’s offense was doomed when Pittman left for Arkansas. Kirby quickly scooped up Matt Luke, though, and, coupled with Todd Monken, produced some pretty remarkable offensive performances. When Luke left, though, my second worst take was that our offensive line would absolutely tank with the hiring of Stacy Searels.
I was wrong. This was further evidenced as I started seeing various football programs tweeting out their one Outland Trophy finalists for outstanding interior defensive and offensive linemen. Most, if lucky, had one, some two, a few with three.
Who was leading the way? You guessed it.
Granted, Stackhouse is in the group on defense, but to have three offensive linemen up for the distinction? Wow.
Georgia has the most representatives with four, one of them a fellow defensive tackle in Nazir Stackhouse. The Bulldogs were 18th against the run last year giving up 113.6 ypg. The three others from Georgia are off the offensive front – guards Dylan Fairchild and Tate Ratledge alongside offensive tackle Xavier Truss – that helped the Bulldogs list fifth in total offense last season (496.5 yards per game) and 20th among FBS teams in rushing offense (191.2 ypg). Ratledge is the only unanimous All-SEC First Team member returning from 2023.
Alabama, Ohio State and USC are next listing three players each with one defender and two from the offensive line, and 13 schools have at least one pair of players represented. The Southeastern Conference, with Kentucky, LSU and Missouri each having a pair of players, leads the conferences with 18 total players. Ohio State and USC make up almost half the Big Ten Conference’s 13-man roster spread among eight league schools. The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 Conference each have nine.
I’m sure Beck took a while to announce his decision to return based on the Draft potential and his potential NIL deals, but seeing the Wall of Georgia standing in front of you, I’d say Carson will be comfortable in the pocket in 2024. Could also be what Etienne saw as a good reason to leave Gainesville as well.
Or maybe Trevor just wasn’t one of Billy’s good people, huh?
I just don’t get the love for 78….sorry.
Several to choose from but for my worst take I will go with this one: That we couldn’t consistently bring top-3 classes year in and year out to Athens and that it would hold Kirby back from replicating the “death star” approach to football he had learned from Saban when it didn’t happen. I speculated, wrongly, that CMR had established what our maximum recruiting potential was and that it was around number 6-ish on average nationally. Good, but not good enough. Who knew we could challenge for #1 in recruiting every year? Not me…. I thought if we could have, we would have. And that makes what Kirby has done a whole lot different than what Nick did at alabama. The bammers bringing in #1 classes was no surprise at all.
By the end of the season, I hope we have a few more DL on the list.
Not sure how Earnest Greene got replaced by Truss.
I remember a T-shirt from earlier, while maybe Dooley was still coaching that had the UGA line and was titled The Georgia Power Company. Anybody else remember this?
My worst take. I wince to say this, but saying Geoff Collins was going to get the NATS back to something approaching relevance. Boy was that out to lunch.