BIG WIN, now avoid the letdown

I blogged last week that I really did have a gut feeling UGA would beat UF last week. I am no expert on college football but I did know enough to think all the love for UF was a little too much. Yes, they beat South Carolina badly, but when you really looked at South Carolina for that game, did you really expect Florida to NOT win. The game was at the swamp, SCarolina had just played UGA and LSU back to back, with LSU also being on the road. Marcus Lattimore was not 100% and in fact played very little in this game-and I hate to see what happened to him against Tenn last Saturday. The kid is a GREAT player and seems like an equally great young man, I hope he is able to come back and play again. Back to that game, you couple those factors I mentioned with the fact SCarolina also had three quick turnovers-not just turnovers but giving the ball up twice inside their own 5, you are asking for trouble. They get behind by 21 points and just as what happened with us against SCarolina, it totally changes the gameplan and the confidence level of the team behind-you are behind by 21 points on the road, against a tough defense, good luck with that.

I also had a sneaky feeling the defense would come to play, and getting Jarvis Jones back in itself improves that defense big time. Also, it appears Grantham got my memo wanting Jarvis and Jordan Jenkins in the game at the same time. I really like Jenkins, he will take over for Jarvis next year, he is a great young player. It also helped that UF, despite all the hype, was just not a great offensive team. They don't have what I consider a great OL, backs or QB, certainly not WR's either. This is not to say they don't have talent, just that if I were to look at our offense and compare to UF it would go like this-OL even, TE-advantage UF with Reed, WR's UGA, RB's UGA, QB UGA. Driskel is a pretty good runner but not a great passer-we hit him early and often and got in his head. They could NEVER establish a run game against us, they only gained 81 yards on the ground and UGA out rushed them 123-81. The UGA defense sacked Driskel 5 times, while Murray was not sacked. Of course the big story line was the turnovers, 6 for UF and 3 for UGA. Both defenses really did hold up strong despite the turnovers and quite possible the biggest one of the game, along with Jarvis strip of Reed at the 3 yard line, was the Bacarri Rambo INT just before the half, when UF was probably one play away from taking their first lead of the game into halftime.

I had no idea Aaron Murray would struggle so badly, with his 3 INT's, but to his credit, he did a MUCH better job in the second half-and I think you have to credit that to Murray himself being an experienced kid and a smart one on top of that, and also Coach Richt and Bobo. Both those guys are former QB's and could certainly personally relate to what Murray was feeling, and both being QB's, I am sure could probably see something that Murray was doing causing him to make the mistakes. Murray this week admitted to make some poor decisions with checking down-Richt mentioned that at the half, also his footwork was off as well. Something not metioned but I do think WAS a factor in the passing game, the wind. I believe the win did have a factor in the passing game, maybe not a huge impact but enough to mention. This game just continued to fuel the, Murray can't play against top level defenses. What I do believe this is showing Murray and probably for sure NFL scouts, he needs to stay for one more year. Reason I say that, if he is having trouble dealing with top defenses in college, what does that say for his prospects playing in the NFL with even better talented defenses and defensive coaches. Like I mentioned though, you have to give him credit for how he played down the stretch, and the fact our coaches had the confidence in him to call the pass plays in a game that was 10-9 mid 4th qtr.

If you go back and look at that drive that gave us for the moment at least, a little breathing room, a critical play was a defensive holding play on 3rd and 10. Check out the drive chart courtesy of ESPN website-

1st and 10 at UGA 25		Aaron Murray pass incomplete to Marlon Brown.	9	10
2nd and 10 at UGA 25		Todd Gurley rush for no gain to the Geo 25.
3rd and 10 at UGA 25		FLORIDA penalty 10 yard Holding on Dominique Easley accepted, no play.
1st and 10 at UGA 35		Aaron Murray pass complete to Marlon Brown for 18 yards to the Fla 47 for a 1ST down.
1st and 10 at FLA 47		Aaron Murray pass complete to Malcolm Mitchell for 12 yards to the Fla 35 for a 1ST down.
1st and 10 at FLA 35		GEORGIA penalty 15 yard Unsportsmanlike Conduct on Malcolm Mitchell accepted.
1st and 10 at UGA 50		Aaron Murray pass incomplete to Tavarres King.
2nd and 10 at UGA 50		Aaron Murray pass complete to Malcolm Mitchell for 5 yards to the Fla 45.
3rd and 5 at FLA 4		Aaron Murray pass complete to Malcolm Mitchell for 45 yards for a TOUCHDOWN.

There you see it, if not for that holding penalty-which was a very legit/good call, we are punting from our 25 only up by 1. You see what happened in this drive though, 7 out of 8 plays were pass plays. So, Aaron Murray after a horrible first half, with all the negativity surrounding him as far as winning big games, I think this drive SHOULD put that to bed. Sure, he still needs to play an entire 4 quarters of strong, mistake free football against the better teams but this says a lot about the trust of our coaches to put the ball in the hands of your leader and let him lead you.

This week presents a challenge in trying to put what was a HUGE victory, as mentioned before, the first time since Dooley last coached and Goff was just starting that UGA has beaten UF two years in a row. We now play what was preason picked to be a BAD football team. Ole Miss went 2-10 last year, 0-8 in conference play. They now sit at 5-3 on the season and are 2-2 in conference play. If you look at who they have played and where they have played, you get the sense that this team is one that is getting better and better as the season has played out. They started out with two non conference wins, before getting run over by the Texas Longhorns, 66-31. Now, it is hard to give up 66 points in a game, and that one was in Oxford as well. they also gave up 676 total yards including 350 on the ground. Next up was non conferene Tulane and another win, so they are 3-1 entering SEC play. Their first two conference games, at Bama and home vs. Texas A&M. Yes Bama beat them but the score was only 33-14, they followed that up with a 30-27 loss to A&M, a game Ole Miss lead 27-17 in the 4th quarter only to let A&M rally for the victory. Up next they hosted Auburn, yes, Auburn is awful this year but still, this was Ole Miss that had lost 14 straight conference games, they beat up AU 41-20, and then last week went on the road to Arkansas and got a road SEC win 30-27. I think one common element exists in all the losses for Ole Miss this year, it is turnovers, especially INT's. Their QB is JUCO transfer Bo Wallace, he has 10 TD's on the season but also 9 INT's, and in the three losses, he has thrown 2 INT's in all 3 games. This is a fast paced, spread offense that we are going to have to get off the field and a good way to do that is ball control on offense, and then play good solid D and force 3 and outs. This offense does have a nice RB in Jeff Scott, and some really talented WR's, especially Moncrief, so we will face a much different style of offense than the week before against UF. If our D is back to where we all hoped, they need to set the tone early by getting pressure on Wallace and having a player like Rambo make a quick INT and maybe even scoring. I truly believe this is one of those weeks where the Dogs need to come out FAST and make a statement early, or leave a team that is gaining more and more confidence hang around, and risk losing a game you really shouldn't lose.

I really do like our offense against this Ole Miss D. They are smaller and have less depth, we should be able to move the ball and score on them. It then becomes about our D and if they can play as intense and aggressive as last week. I also think the fact the game is at home-it has been a LONG time since UGA had a home game, NONE in October, and a 3:30 kick will help out. I expect the fans (and I will be there with my 8 year son attending his first ever UGA football game) to be loud and give the guys a needed energy boost. Bottom line and the players have said as much this week, yeah the UF win was nice but if the team doesn't win the next two games, the UF game will not matter nearly as much. I see the Dogs coming out and continuing the momentum built up last week, Ole Miss might score on us but I think we score to much for them to win. I see it UGA 38 Ole Miss 24.


Finally an update on the 8 year old Rams-as I just mentioned, my son and I will be going to the UGA game this Saturday which of course means we lost last weekend. The Dacula team was amazing, size, speed, you name it, they had it. Course that is what happens when you have an all star team-stacked and players coming from other areas of the county to play on one super team. They are really good and we just couldn't keep up, they won 33-13, but hey we scored the most points on them than anyone, with two TD's, they had give up 12 points before but one of those TD's was a KO return. We are the first team to score two rushing TD's on them all year, our boys fought hard but just didn't have enough. 7-3 to finish is a great season and we will be back for more next year. Next up for most of our players, the Abigail Grace Memorial Charity tourney, held locally in Gwinnett to benefit benefit the Dream House for Medically Fragile Children, located in Lilburn, Ga.

This tourney is a weekend tourney November 15-18th, with each team guaranteed 3 games. We did this last year and there is nothing like game experience for young boys learning football. Last year we lost our final game in OT when a boy picked off a pass and returned it for the games only TD, 6-0 loss for us. If we had won that, we would have played the next day to make 4 games in 3 days as we had to double up on the Saturday (which of course I think had a big impact on us losing that second game of the day 6-0). It should be a lot of fun and we have already started practice. I will make one final 8 year old update after that tourney and then turn my attention to basketball season.

Everyone have a great weekend, and as usual, GO DOGS!!