15 Thoughts and The Weight of Expectations

I’ve always said it takes a mighty big dog to weigh a ton.

I love my Dawgs. Always have, always will. I love ‘em when they’re dominant, and when they’re average. I love ‘em with green eggs and ham and would watch ‘em while drankin’ a beer with Son of Sam.

In my lifetime, it has been a rare season when the Georgia Bulldogs were bad. What a blessing. If you had to press me on where they fall on some imaginary scale I couldn’t tell you. This team is an enigma sandwich right now and needs some spicy mustard.

1. On the afternoon Georgia made some big, chunk plays. It took a while to get untracked but we had a few. One of the highlights of the day was a play that didn’t even count. That’s a little bit of a concern.

This is the future. The future is now.

2. Our defensive back end is not good at the moment. The only guy who is playing with any consistency is Dan Jackson and for the 2nd week in a row he’s the defensive POTG. Getting shredded at home by a freshman quarterback who couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn for the better part of a half but then looks like the 2nd coming of C.J. Stroud for the back half of the game is baffling. Credit State’s offensively minded (and obviously very intelligent) Jeff Lebby for recognizing the most glaring (among many) weakness on our squad.

3. What’s going on with Malaki Starks? I don’t even want to begin to dissect Daylen Everette’s game at the moment. I still believe in Julian Humphey’s upside, but that kid is struggling in press coverage and got burned again on Mississippi State’s last touchdown of the game and we all saw it coming.

4. I remember several years ago, our mentor emeritus T. Kyle King attended a football game in Sanford Stadium with a fellow Alabama blogger whose name I cannot recall. It might’ve been from 2012 when Georgia had one of Mark Richt’s best teams he ever fielded. The ‘Bama blogger told Kyle that things change when you win, and if you happen to win a few championships along the way, things will never be the same. It’s known as the weight of expectations and this is where we are. It’s human nature to expect elite play and elite teams now. That’s unrealistic.

5. There’s a bit of criticism about the crowd leaving early in a late, 2-score Conference game on different social media platforms. We were never going to lose this game (right?), and if I had a reservation at any number of Watkinsville restaurants on my way back to 441, I would’ve left early, too. But I’m an older dude who is generally asleep by 9:30, so I’ve got an excuse. To be clear, I didn’t attend. The crowd was good ‘n loud early on, but a certain sector of the Sanford population bugged out a bit too early. C’mon, people. Your college days are fleeting and the opportunity to cheer for your team is closer to being over as a student than you realize. The keg party can wait.

6. We continue to struggle in run blocking on offense and are obviously missing Tate Ratledge. Holding calls that nullifies touchdowns can’t happen. I don’t think this is going to improve unless someone in that coaching room achieves some sort of breakthrough. By now, you pretty much are who you are.

7. Penalties happen. It’s just when they happen that kills momentum, keeps drives alive and keeps points off the board. Chaz Chambliss’ sack-a-penalty (facemask) on Michael Van Buren early in the 3rd quarter right after we scored on our opening 2nd half drive was the catalyst for a flurry of Mississippi State points. There’s a fine line between achieving a blow-out victory and having to keep your starters in far longer than they should have played.

8. Is this a flawed Conference or what? Alabama has as many defensive secondary issues as we do; perhaps more. Tennessee won, but for much of the game looked average on offense again.

9. Despite the obvious negative stuff that you, I and the Playoff Committee saw we still control our destiny. I don’t know how we’ll perform in Austin next week and I honestly can’t believe that game is already the next one to be played as time is flying by. I sporadically tuned into the Longhorns game against Oklahoma and just saw a superior team beat the hell out of their arch-rival. Texas isn’t perfect, either. But as of this writing they have fewer warts than the rest of this league.

10. We saw some positives yesterday, too. Carson Beck had a career statistical day and really began throwing in rhythm. Much of his yardage early were short throws by design, but he began to get chunk plays later on and his distribution was excellent with 11 players catching a pass. Arian Smith led the way with 5 receptions for 134 yards, but still had some drops that are just part of his DNA. Dillon Bell was excellent again.

11. Beck also forced some throws. His first interception on our 2nd play of the game was a little bit of bad luck. HIs momentum killing 2nd pick was just awful when we are 1st and 10 on State’s 11 yard line. His intended target was Lawson Luckie, who may or may not share some blame in this – I don’t know. That is the 2nd red zone pick in 3 games, going back to the killer against Bama. This has got to get cleaned up.

12. I’ll just leave this here:

Which brings me to my final harbinger of undisciplined football: playing down to your competition. I know, Kirby will almost certainly say in his postgame press conference that “every week is a battle in the SEC” and “every team in this league has elite athletes.” The elite athletes from this Mississippi State team lost 41-17 to Toledo four weeks ago, boss. That’s an uncomfortable data point for adherents to the “every week is a battle” theory. Elite teams take care of business against lesser opponents. This Georgia team has played with fire all season. Do that enough times and you get burned. – Macondawg, in a moment of complete lucidity.

13. As of this writing, no real update on Branson Robinson’s apparent knee injury.

I’ve seen some chatter about a sprained MCL. This means we’ll being seeing more of Nate Frazier, which is probably a good thing. Play him. Let him figure out pass pro blocking. What other choice do we have at the moment? Frazier is a special talent and it’s time to shine.

14. I think Anthony Evans III is about to start flashing although he’s still making youthful mistakes at times. He’s got a tongue lashing by Kirby when he broke to the outside on a play when he should’ve bounced inside. However, he’s a dangerous playmaker who has some serious speed. He was close to scoring on his 52-yard run on a nifty end around.

14A. I thought Mike Bobo called a good game. He had some pretty cool stuff dialed up that will give pause to some defensive coordinators we’ll be facing on down the line.

14B. The tight ends got involved early, but disappeared. Lack of Blocking by #84 is still an issue.

‘ol Buck seems to have a different take than most of us. Next week will be The Truth.

15. We just won our 28th consecutive home game. That’s a helluva achievement.

I would not trade what has transpired since 2016 for anything. I’m still riding with this team, no matter what. A lot can happen betwixt now and whenever.

This team still hasn’t played a complete game of football. Not even close to one. I just don’t know what that looks like now. They’ve got arguably the hottest football team in the land waiting next week in Austin. We’ll need all hands on deck. Despite our flaws, I think we are going to give Texas all they can handle.

Maybe we’ll be getting some defensive help back. Mykel Williams looked good when he was in the game yesterday and his snap count was limited by design. A Xavier McLeod sighting! Big X played well, as did Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins. The defensive front could be getting Jordan Hall back as well which would be a boost.

We’ve got less than a week to fix a whole lot of things. Here’s hoping the repairman is up to the task.

BONUS THOUGHTS:

• I pulled for Florida over the Vols last night. And I hate Florida. Why? Because of crap like this. Never change, Vol Nation.

Evidently, this did not make it to the Florida locker room…

• Billy Napier not going for 2 points on the road in Knoxville with a chance to win was cowardly. He deserves to be fired. Florida botched so many scoring chances that would’ve been the difference.
• Can Ryan Day win the big one? Evidently not. But if football doesn’t work he’s got a gig peddling “Just For Men.”

• I’m glad we aren’t playing Vandy this year. Up is down, left is right and pizza is trash. Seriously, when a team believes, good things happen. I think it’s cool as hell. I hope we get some of that mojo.
• That Ole Miss/LSU finish was pretty incredible. The late games had some drama, didn’t they? What a stellar night of evening football. Arizona State beats Utah, K-State over Deion’s Neon players. Good stuff. (Admission: I went straight to bed after LSU scored in O/T.
• James Franklin finally won a big game. He didn’t deserve to win because USC got cornholed by the officiating, but more than that was Lincoln Riley’s clock management issues. Both coaches are posers.

That’s all I’ve got.

AS ALWAYS, GO DAWGS!