I'm actually bummed for UGA. Murray was having one of those magical years and injuries have just wiped them out. I can't imagine what we would look like if we lost Saunders, Shepard, Bester, and DD Willams for the season. And if that wasn't enough, thrown in Clay and Reynolds "indefinitely". I was hoping UGA could break up the inevitable Bama/LSU lock on the SEC this year, but no way in heck now.
I agree with the steam-rolling part. Our D-line was pushed back all game long. Our linebackers were pretty bad too. I thought we were great in pass coverage. Those 2 long passes that McCoy made were just great f'ing passes. I didn't think he had it in him. Better players? Eh, whatever. We could have won the game, but they were simply better that day.
I hate to even suggest it, because Bob has done a LOT of great things here. But at some point he has to answer for these letdowns. I'm not hitting the panic button on Bob like UT fans are with Mack, but I think everyone needs to be accountable. The re-hiring of Mike (clearly a great move so far) and the off-season changes in staff were enough to extend him a little extra leeway...mainly because he's been so stubborn about that stuff in the past. I think it also shows that he actually does recognize where the problems are. I'm hopeful he can find a way to fix the offense, too. But I'm also tired of watching us flail away helplessly when times get tough.
You can't? What if you lose 4 guys on your o-line? Didn't we do that 2 years ago at the beginning of the season? That **** seems to happen to us too often! We lose Bradford, Murray, White, Peterson, Broyels, and guys that that at key times. Sucks, but it happens all the time.
I was talking about this years team. I didn't have to imagine what happened to our '09 team But if we're talking reality of today's team, I now don't have to imagine what would happen if our already thin middle defense lost our only true NT and best LB.
Georgia is a lot like us - no matter how high or low the expectations they'll find a way to disappoint. Missouri beating them is like Texas beating us, except Georgia had better excuses with its top 2 backs being out (one of em perhaps the best back in college football). Anyway, we could trade Bob for Mark Richt and not miss a beat, and vice versa.
Not a kool aid drinker, but I would say there were some good stuff, not much, but some. The play action pass out of the diamond to Millard was a great play. The diamond runs for Ford were pretty good too. The FG and PK kicking was a good thing. Deep snapping was awesome. Dom Alexander was a bright spot overall as well. He wasn't perfect, but recorded 17 tackles. Outside a couple of deep balls, the DBs played well too. Just that the middle was like puddy.
So, missing our starting MLB and DT isn't bad enough? I'm not really going to argue the merits of missing players, but I will concede that I didn't think missing Nelson would hurt us as much as it did. Anytime you take a solid contributor off of the field, it's going to hurt somewhere. I'm also not going to argue your point about UGA and OU being very similar. I've thought that for a long time.
I have to disagree here somewhat... Missing Nelson we are missing a leader. But it really didn't hurt us as bad as missing a dominate NG....Phillips. Alexander didn't have a perfect game by any stretch, but he had a good game. Recorded 17 tackles. So he was around the ball a lot.
Stop it, I hate having to agree with you. :surprise: I thought Alexander played pretty well and only missed a couple of plays that cost us a few yards. Can't say what Nelson would have done or the impact he has on other players though. But missing Phillips was huge and the impact was obvious. Running a 3 man front defense without a true anchor at NT doesn't fly. I have no doubt Phillips would have disrupted enough running plays to interrupt drives and put them in harder 3rd down situations. Just 1 play per drive can make a huge difference. The horns dominated our D line consistently on running plays.
No doubt missing Phillips was huge, but at this point in the season you're gonna be missing some players. But the defense wasn't our biggest problem! My point was Georgia missing the guy who may be the best back in college football (and his very talented backup) was a bigger deal to them, than OU missing Phillips and Nelson was. This is arguable I guess, but again our defense wasn't our biggest problem.
The problem with using that stat is it doesn't tell us WHERE he was when he made them. He had 13 solo tackles and only 1 TFL whereas Nelson up to this game had 13 solos with 3 TFLs. So lets take a look shall we (anything 2 or under is good)... -1 yards 4 yards 22 yards 6 yards (assist) 4 yards 3 yards 3 yards (assist) 5 yards [end of first quarter] 5 yards (assist) 13 yards [end of 2nd quarter] 1 yard (assist) 1 yard 3 yards (assist) [end of 3rd quarter] 4 yards 4 yards 3 yards 2 yards (assist) 5 yards [end of 4th]
It doesn't matter where he was when he made the tackles. The fact remains he made the tackles. Surely you are not suggesting Nelson makes all of them behind the LOS? The fact remains he made the plays. 17 tackles means he was hustling to the ball. you obviously want to discredit his game.
Many of those 1-4 yard gains were pretty good stops and I doubt Nelson does much better. Their O-line got that much push against our D-line with blockers left over to help with LBs.
It doesn't matter where the tackle was made? Are you insane? Run defense is ALL about WHERE the tackle was made. If you give up 10 yards a carry and your safety makes 22 tackles your run defense sucks. If you give up 4 yards a carry the other team never has to pass. Thus, in order to be good against the run, the object is to stop someone in 2 yards or less >75% of the time (hopefully netting a 3.2 average). Right now we are giving up 4.3 yards/rush which is much improved over last year's 5.2. However, we are also not even into the meat of the schedule.
The one thing about Nelson this year has been that he is more decisive. He makes his read and goes whereas the last several years it took 2 seconds before our LBs even moved. I think that Nelson would have cut some of those gains in half because he would have had more momentum at the point of contact and not allowed Gray to get an extra yard or 2 on the takedown. I also think that some of those tackles wouldn't have been made as Nelson does tend to randomly disappear. At this point, Alexander is Travis Lewis with a motor. I have no idea if that is going to get our run defense worked out, but we'll have to see.
