-Jarvis Jones, getting a LOT of national recognition for his play against the Gators, rightfully so. He was all over the place, getting sack after sack, causing false start penalties. The guy has been more than we could have expected to this point.
-Michael Bennett and Tavarres King. Both made GREAT catches with a defender on them for TD's on 4th down. Either of those are dropped, we likely don't win the game. I felt the Bennett TD just prior to the half might have been the biggest play of the game. We had just missed a chip shot FG, but Olgetree forced the fumble and we finally took advantage. Down 17-10 at the half, I felt like we had a very legit shot to win the game.
-Richard Samuel-didn't lead us in rushing but with us going for the lead early in the 4th quarter, the kid simply would not be denied. Many times in football you hear folks talk about who wants it the most-it was clearly obvious Richard wanted it more on Saturday, he ran with power and passion. Just hate he got hurt on the last play of the game-where he almost scored again.
-Chris Conley-that catch he made late in the game, that was big time football. He went up strong with his HANDS and snatched that ball. Having Conley picking up his game, along with Bennett and Mitchell, WOW, three talented freshmen WR's, Murray has to be smiling.
-The D-to hold the Gators to one first down and I think about 30-40 yards of offense in the second half, you just can't say enough about this unit on Saturday. Yes, the Gators were playing with a gimpy QB, but that team is not void of talent and we just simply beat them up.
I thought Murray played a decent game, he had some bad throws, he had some passes dropped that, he missed some wide open guys but other than one tipped INT, he didn't make the costly mistakes he has in big games previously. He also had a few key runs for us during the game. Murray is to me fighting the expecations we all have for him this year, and probably the expectations he has for himself after a very solid FR year. He is still have a solid year but I think everyone expected more of him and I am not sure that is really fair. His OL, especially on of his tackles, struggles to protect him and he is having trouble putting touch on his passes, but he still is a very promising QB and I think he is doing a very good job this year directing our offense, and helping our young backs know what to do.
The only negative for this game, as has been the case ALL season, dreadful special teams. This game, even Drew Butler joined in with some AWFUL punts in crunch time. Walsh, between missing two more EASY FG's for a kicker of his ability, to his kickoffs being easily returnable, it is pretty obvious the kicking is now in his head. Coach Richt has said there will be no shakeup with the kickers but I hope he will give Bogotay a few shots against New Mexico St. Talk about a wasted scholarship. Brought in a few years ago because Walsh was having trouble with his kickoffs, Richt said we are going to sign a kicker that drill the ball through the endzone. So, we offer the JUCO Bogotay to be our kickoff guy and Walsh beats him out-the kid is taking up a spot and NEVER plays. Why not let him kickoff and let Walsh concentrate on FG's?? That is a question for Mark Richt but I think a lot of UGA fans are extremely worried that our kicker is going to cost us another game before this season is out. He missed a 33 yarder against SCarolina, now, he is far from the reason we lost that game but the fact remains, we did lose by 3 that day. Two straight games with kickoffs returned for TD's, where the return man is not even TOUCHED. I blame a low line drive kick more than likely, also our kick team not doing a great job fighting through blocks. With how our D is playing, I would almost rather just have our kicker kick it out of bounds and give it to them on the 40.
Up next is New Mexico State, a gimme game in most folks mind but this team is not horrible, they have beat Minnesota this year, they have maybe their best team in years. We should easily handle them but with our injuries and suspensions, it will be VERY important we come out early and take care of business-for various reason. First, for a huge underdog, you don't want them having hope they can hang with us. Second, with a huge game next week against Auburn, you want our guys getting rest. Looking at their scores below, I think you can see that our offense SHOULD be putting up big numbers and with how our D has been playing, let's again hope this game is decided in the first half, then let EVERYONE get some snaps in the second half.
| Sep. 3 | Ohio | L 24-44 | |
| Sep. 10 | at Minnesota | W 28-21 | |
| Sep. 17 | Texas-El Paso | L 10-16 | |
| Sep. 24 | at San Jose St. | L 24-34 | |
| Oct. 1 | at New Mexico | W 42-28 | |
| Oct. 15 | Idaho | W 31-24 | |
| Oct. 22 | at Hawaii | L 34-45 | |
| Oct. 29 | Nevada | L 34-48 |
After our game is complete, what a great night of football awaits, of course in case you missed it during our telecast on CBS last week, #1 LSU will visit #2 Alabama on CBS at 8p in what could decided half of the national title game. Course at 7:15, it will be #7 Arkansas hosting #9 South Carolina in a game VITALLY important to UGA fans. Considering we MUST have SCarolina lose one more game to have any hope of winnning the east, this appears the best shot they slip up. They play the Gators next week and UF has enough talent to beat them but not sure I can feel confident it will happen for them in Columbia. Arkansas has NOT been playing well lately, barely suriving in Nashville last week-everyone that was upset with our game against Vandy, well, Arkansas really got beat by Vandy but a fumble at the 3 yard line, as Vandy was about to be ahead by 15 points in the 4th quarter, turns into an Arky return for TD. Then, late in the 4th, Vandy lines up for a chip shot FG to send the game into OT, and of course wide right. Here is the deal with Arkansas THIS year though, they have played 3 games on the road, Texas A&M was a neutral site game in which they pulled out late. But, the three true road games this year, they lost 38-14 to Alabama, trailed Ole Miss by 17 but rallied to win and then of course last week at Vandy. They have NOT lost at home this year, in fact their closest home game this year was 38-28 against Troy. They bombed Auburn at home a few weeks ago, 38-14. If you look at their point total, other than Bama, they have scored 29 or more points every game this year. That bodes well for them beating SCarolina because I honestly believe the SCarolina offense is not going to score more than 17-20 points at most, so if Arky can get over 20, I see them winning this game. IF that happens, the AU game is going to be HUGE next week. Auburn is off this week, they did beat SCarolina in Columbia with Lattimore and Garcia playing, so they will be a tough challenge but certainly if our guys know that they have the east if they can beat Auburn-and then take care of UK, the house should be rocking next week.
Now to close out, we have the suspensions of our top 3 RB's, now that Samuel is out for the rest of the season. It has been reported that Crowell, Thomas and Malcome failed a drug test. This has not been officially confirmed of course. This brings about a lot of questions from the media-when did the players take the test, when did the results come back, did UGA sit on the results until after the UF game. Here is my take on it from what little I know. It has been reported the tests were given on Thursday, of course UGA leaves for JAX on Friday. Most tests take 3-5 days to get results. Of course some folks say the instant tests can give you results within minutes which is true but a LOT of tests can give false positives. SO, usually if you have a positive, you are given another test and it is sent away for evaluation OR the positive result is sent away for furthe evaluation. Bottom line, if the test was sent away Thursday, if you have the 3-5 day waiting period as has been my experience, 3 days would be Monday, 5 days would be Wednesday, not counting Sunday because labs are typically not open on Sunday. My take is that UGA got the results either Monday or Tuesday. The question remains, IF Coach Richt had the results at the time of his press conference, why not give the results at that time. By not giving out the information, some folks say it looks like he was avoiding or hiding the information as it was released an hour or so after his presser was done. My thought on that, it could be that the results were know Tuesday morning but all the families/kids MUST be notified first before you go public. There is all kind of speculation of course and bottom line, the kids are suspended for one game. Hopefully the media will let it go and move on to something else but ANYTIME there are unanswered questions and potential controversy, the media is going to continue to try to dig, every media member wants to be one that breaks "the story". I guess I am just tired of their always being controversy every time we beat UF-in 2004 it was the firing of Ron Zook days before the game, in 2007 Tebow was hurt and of course the celebration penalty was talked about for days after the game by national media. Now this year, you have this situation to deal with. Oh well, such is life. Now we just have to hope history does not repeat itself as it has previously when we beat UF under Richt. In 2004 and 2007, we beat UF but did NOT make the SEC title game.
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