Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Kneejerk Sugar Bowl reaction

West Virginia is making the Georgia defense look like amateurs. And this is even further embarassing since this offense is remarkably similar to that of Louisiana-Monroe (who I thought played us way way better than the score). We clearly learned nothing from that game, and since West VA has actual D-1 athletes, the result isn't good.

And I'm writing this in the 4th quarter. Much props to the offense for getting back in it (and the defense gets a little credit for a couple of decent series in the second half). But putting the ball on the carpet as much as we did and allowing several 50 yard runs won't lead to a win. Early in the game I thought this felt like a Madden game where the computer just won't let you win. Mostly because of the fumbles, ill timed personal foul calls, and just crazy long runs where seemingly easy tackles turn into matador training. Now, I'm not so sure. I think we have trouble with this kind of offense. And the mistakes are our own. Credit to the Mountaineers, sure. But damn, we didn't come out well at all. Expectations of an easy game aren't a good thing.

On the positive, the young receivers look OK. And we're playing a ridiculously large number of underclassmen on defense (experience).

But it sure looks like the second loss of the Richt era when we've scored 21 points. The other one is this year's Auburn game, which also featured bad turnovers by the Dawgs, well capitalized upon by the opponent.

ADDED: And yet another late-game situation riddled with coaching errors. 90 seconds burn off (the two downs before the punt) without a thought of using a time out and then just a fucking ridiculous return strategy on that punt. Why does clock management continue to be an achilles heel? I'm not prepared to write more about that punt return now. Utterly moronic.

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