Sunday, September 6, 2009

Thoughts on Oklahoma State

Damn.

When we came out to open the game on fire I was excited. Samuel running hard, AJ getting open, a little bit of Branden Smith and Logan Gray - it was awesome. And then, the next 3 quarters happened. I could go on forever about everything that went wrong. This is not the way I expected to start the season.

The only real bright spot I saw was the play of the Georgia defense. Holding Oklahoma State to around 300 yards of total offense was a hell of a job. Turnovers and special teams let OSU score 17 points while only having to get 51 yards. That's not the defense's fault. Bryan Evans got burned deep once, but Dez Bryant is one of the best in the country and made a good catch. Overall, the D looked much improved over much of what we saw last year.

On offense, Cox looked erratic and not willing to throw the ball more than about 15 yards down the field. Richard Samuel ran with some consistency and did not fumble, however he failed to break any run over 10 yards and seemed to go down on first contact too much. Once again, we got down in the second half and totally abandoned the run (shades of South Carolina in 2007). I liked getting Smith and Orson Charles involved, but where the hell were Brown and Wooten?

The kickoff team looked horrible again. Short kicks combined with long returns did not help us out either. At least Butler had a few good kicks and Blair Walsh was able to nail a 50 yarder.

In the end, it was just a bad game. We lost the game, we Sturdivant (again), and we lost our confidence. The officiating sucked, the coaching was horrible, and the team looked scared playing at a stadium that only had 50,000 people at it. We better get it together fast.

I usually get made fun of for being too positive, but for once I don't have many good things to say. If Cox can't get it done, let Logan or Murray have a shot.

GO DAWGS!

6 comments:

Gov Milledge said...

Agreed... Samuels' falling on first contact and Cox's lack of willingness (or ability) to stretch the field raise a lot of questions.

Every first drive in a game is 100% scripted. The fact that we only showed offensive prowess on the first drive reflects more Bobo's inability to effectively scheme and playcall.

The only other thing I'd point out is Branden Smith's willingness to try and run anything 8 yards deep out of the endzone on kickoffs.

Earl said...

I've thought about it enough and I can't add much more here that won't raise my blood pressure a little bit, so I'll just say agreed with both...

Ally said...

Excellent recap Streit! The only thing i'd add a/b Butler is that I think he did a good job, but only because his punts tooks some formidable bounces. That won't happen in conference play, especially against returners the likes of Jeff Demps.

Kudos to Blair Walsh for his 53 yard FG. That kid has one hell of a leg and thank God, because we're gonna need his 3 pointers A LOT this year.

Anyone else jealous that even OSU manages to find a kcickoff guy that can boom it out of the endzone?

And i don't know how many of you noticed how gassed our players looked, but this puzzles me given all the chatter we've heard defending the conditioning program. We had upwards of 10 players needing IVs?? It was hot, but not THAT hot. And certainly not any more hot & humid than it was in Athens, Georgia (the 5th circle of hell) this summer for Christ's sake.

MT: I echo your assessment of
Bobo. I still for the life of me cannot understand why he abandons the run and switches from what works, like he did Sat after the first drive. The fact that we managed only a field goal in our last 11 possessions Sat and only had one run of 10+ yards ALL DAY is frightening.

I hope we turn this ship around real quick, because we all know what we saw from Spurrier's lamecocks last Thursday is not what we will get this Saturday in Athens.

Have a great Labor Day holiday y'all. Go Dawgs!

Walter Sobchak said...

streit good recap...same sentiment here. As to bobo, i expected us to come out and throw more on drives 2-4 in 1st half, but i expected it to be out of I-form playaction not the damn Shotgun. I agree, Cox appears to not be able to throw more than 15yds downfield so why put him in shotgun and eliminate playaction and short passes? I also thought the spot of the ball on that 4th down was ridiculous. I am worried about the rest of this season's SEC Defenses.

Earl said...

MT, Ally and Walter...good points...

Ally, I thought the same exact thing about the kickoff guy for OSU.

Walter, I'm worried about SEC defenses too.

Oh well, go have a great Labor Day everyone!

Michael J Fischer said...

Just remember boys and girls, just as thing are never as good as they seem, things are NEVER as bad as they seem.

We'll bounce back hard, look for USC to come in cocky after they "dominated" NC State.