Sports

Although I don’t believe in moral victories, the way Georgia played against South Carolina shows that the Bulldogs have the potential to win every game left on their schedule.

Before going into the reason why, here is a quick history lesson. In 2010, Virginia Tech opened their season with a neutral site loss against Boise State. The Hokies then lost again in week 2 to James Madison.

But then Virginia Tech would go on to win their next 11 games, including the ACC Championship before falling in the Orange Bowl to Stanford.

Fast forward to 2011, Georgia opened with a neutral site loss to Boise State to open the season, and followed it up with a loss against South Carolina in week 2.

If you ask me, Georgia has the ability to do the same thing Virginia Tech did a year ago. I’m not saying they will, but it is definitely a possibility.

Bottom line, there isn’t a team left on their schedule that is as good as Boise State or South Carolina.

Without a doubt, those were the two toughest games of the season.

There isn’t a quarterback that is better than Kellen Moore or a better running back better than Marcus Lattimore left on the Bulldogs’ 2011 schedule.

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Final Score, South Carolina 45, Georgia 42

End of 4th Quarter

Another knee is taken by Garcia.

0:20

Garia takes a knee. A loss of two.

1:10

Steven Garcia takes a knee. 2nd and 10. Timeout. Georgia has no more timeouts.

1:14

Marcus Lattimore rushes eight yards for the 1st down.

1:17

DeAngelo Smith for a gain of one.

2:03

Lattimore runs for six yards. Timeout.

2:07

Onside kick recovered by the Gamecocks.

2:13

(more…)

The NFL season will begin tonight when the defending Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers play host to the New Orleans Saints.

Every week, Josh Kirschner, Grace Olson and I will pick every game on the NFL schedule. Below are our week 1 picks:

If you thought the Boise State game was bad, don’t expect things to get much better for the Georgia Bulldogs in week 2.

Looking back at the Boise State game, it’s simple. You can’t win a game you don’t play to win. Yes, I will say it. Georgia did not play to win the Boise State game.

Now obviously, the players and coaches will all say that they want to win every game they play, but when you are conservative down big in the third quarter, you are only making a lie out of yourself.

The situation was a run draw Mike Bobo called on 3rd and 16 down 21 points in the third quarter. And then followed that genius move by punting on fourth down.

When you do stuff like that, you simply are not playing to win the game. There is no excuse. (Unless you thought a draw play on third down would gain 16 yards, which if you did, you should immediately be fired and banned from coaching football in general.)

Wasn’t it Jim Mora that said, “HELLO, YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME!!”

Apparently, while Mike Bobo was doing whatever the hell he does in the coaches box during the game (it certainly has nothing to do with the game of football), the Georgia offense failed to use Brandon Boykin on offense. I know he’s a defensive and special teams starter, but the first time he touched the ball on offense he went 80 yards for a touchdown.

I don’t think this takes a rocket scientist to figure out.

Now, I could go on and on about mistakes from last week, but I don’t want to hear more about it either. It’s time to move on.

Read more at SportswithMike.com

After an exicting opening weekend of the 2011 college football season, the second weekend of action will feature a pair of SEC conference games. Mississippi State will travel to face Auburn, and Georgia will play host to South Carolina.

In the only non-conference game of note, the Alabama Crimson Tide will make the journey up to Happy Valley to play Penn State.

Every Wednesday during the college football season, Josh Kirschner, Grace Olson and myself will pick every game on the SEC schedule. Following the picks, all three of us will take an in-depth look at the Game of the Week, which is the South Carolina-Georgia game this week.

Here are the week 2 picks:

For an in-depth look at the South Carolina-Georgia game, click here

ATHENS — Georgia will begin Southeastern Conference action this Saturday against the South Carolina Gamecocks after falling in the season opening game against Boise State.

Mark Richt addressed the media Tuesday afternoon and discussed whether or not it’s time to panic, the importance of a running game, and a preview of South Carolina including how to stop Marcus Lattimore.

Below are video highlights of Richt’s press conference.

Editor’s note: This is today’s transcript of  Mark Richt’s weekly press conference held every Tuesday, which is provided by the UGA Sports Information Department.  Video from today’s press conference will be coming in the following days.

Richt, Bulldogs Preview South Carolina

UGA Sports Communications

September 6, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ATHENS—–Georgia head coach Mark Richt and a delegation of football players met with the media Tuesday during the Bulldogs’ weekly press luncheon. They offered the following comments:

Head Coach Mark Richt

Opening Statement…

“We are getting ready for South Carolina – the first Southeastern Conference game of the year. It’s definitely a great challenge. Of course Coach (Steve) Spurrier has been coaching a long time and is doing a great job. Over the years he’s got South Carolina going the way he wants it. So we know we have our work cut out for us.

“Their offensive line is big. They are kind of a downhill running team. They kind of maul you a little bit; that’s what their goal is. Of course when you have a back like (Marcus) Lattimore, who can run as physical as he does at 230 pounds now, they are doing the right thing with those linemen, just kind of zoning you up and getting the big bodies on you and pushing the pile and creating some seams for Lattimore. They’ve been protecting well so far. Marcus is a great player, not a good player. He proved to be a great freshman. Of course a year ago he broke out with 37 carries and 182 yards, so it’s not like we can forget about that. He will get spotted a little bit with Kenny Miles and Shon Carson. Mainly it’s his show in the backfield.

“Stephen Garcia, I would have to guess, would be their starting quarterback. He is a veteran, a senior. He has been through a bunch – good and bad. He is also the quarterback who led his team to the Eastern Division championship a year ago, so he is a heck of a football player. He throws it well. He has a great big target in Alshon Jeffery. All of the receivers are big actually, but not as big as him – 6-4, 230, a guy who can go deep and a guy who can catch a screen and run people over for four, five or six yards after contact. He’s really a great player.

“Garcia is also a threat to run the ball as he’s done from time to time. The only receiver who is not a big guy is Ace Sanders. He’s more of a slot guy, more of a jitterbug type of guy. He also took a punt return back for a touchdown 69 yards last week, so he’s a guy we have to keep an eye on. They do a good job of using his skills.

“Defensively they are a team that takes their front four and basically plays eight people there. They rotate just about everybody in and out of there. Melvin Ingram is an outstanding player who plays inside and out. He’s big, he’s physical. He showed up very big, we thought, in the last ballgame. We thought he played extremely well.

“Devin Taylor is also a great player, preseason All-SEC. Of course everyone wants to talk about their freshman Jadeveon Clowney for good reason. You can see he’s destined to be a great football player. He’s already a very good football player, but I can’t imagine what will happen once he gets an offseason under his belt. He’s going to be a special football player.

“As far as their linebackers are concerned, they play everyone, about six of their linebackers. They rotated them around and kept everybody fresh. Antonio Allen played the spur, or what we call a nickel linebacker, and had 16 tackles in the game. DeVonte Holloman, I don’t think he played the last game. I don’t know what the reason was, but he played safety last year. I think he’s been moved to that spur position too. It will be interesting to see who plays there.

“Stephon Gilmore, the corner, is a preseason All-SEC player and a great football player. On the other side, (C.C.) Whitlock is a returning starter at corner also, but then you have Akeem Auguste, who did not play in this last ballgame. I’m sure he will play this week, or we’re hearing he’s going to play. I’m not sure if he’s going to line up as a corner or a safety; he’s played both over his career.

“Their safeties are kind of twin safeties. Some teams will have a safety that plays the deep-middle, and one guy is always in the box, but these guys share the load both ways. They are very well coached defensively.

“As far as their special teams are concerned, (Jay) Wooten didn’t play against us last year, but he is the kickoff man. The majority of his kicks have been returnable, or were at least a year ago. We’ll see how that goes, but we expect that we’ll have some kicks that will be returnable. They usually have a twin-safety look at their kickoff return. It looked like (Bruce) Ellington is the guy they are trying to get the ball directed to, but he also played some wildcat for them. He’s a very multitalented kid.

“I mentioned earlier that Ace Sanders returned a punt for a touchdown. Gilmore started out and muffed one, then Ace got a chance and took it to the house, so my guess is Ace will be the guy. Their punter, Joey Scribner-Howard, is a senior and he’ll be handling their punting duties. I don’t know if they’ll do any rugby kicks or not. I don’t think they did it game one. We’ll have to wait and see and prepare for that.

“That’s South Carolina. We have got to really play a physical game. I think the game is going to be won in the trenches. I think whosever offensive and defensive line plays the best will have the best chance of winning the game. It will be a great challenge for us – our players and our staff. Today we are going to have a good, physical Tuesday practice and competition day. I think Coach (Vince) Dooley called them bloody Tuesdays, and I think we’ll call it that today too. We’ll be ready to go.”

(more…)

ATHENS — Georgia has released their depth chart for the game against South Carolina.

There are no major changes following the Boise State game, although there are a couple of notes.

ILB Alec Ogletree will be out 4-6 weeks, and his replacement will be senior Jeremy Sulek or freshman Amarlo Herrera. Safety Bacarri Rambo is back on the depth chart after serving a one-game suspension for a violation of team rules. The depth chart lists Rambo or Sanders Commings as the starting safety.

Mark Richt has a problem with keeping assistant coaches around for a couple years too long. The 11th-year head coach did it with Willie Martinez a couple years ago, and now he’s doing the same with Mike Bobo.

Granted, I know I’m only a college student and my only football experience is limited to playing high school football and watching games on television. However, some of the stuff Bobo does, just doesn’t make any football sense at all.

The problem withe Bobo doesn’t deal with him as a quarterback coach, he has coached some great ones — David Greene and Matthew Stafford. The problem with Bobo isn’t his coaching ability, but rather his inabilty to call plays.

Obviously, you can call the right plays at the right times, but if one offensive linemen misses a block or if a receiver falls down, the play could turn into a disaster.

However, there are a couple of things from the Boise State game that just didn’t make any sense to me at all.

Brandon Boykin: 1st Carry: 80 yards, 2nd carry: ???

In the first quarter cornerback Brandon Boykin touched the ball for the first time in his career on offense on an end around that resulted in an 80 yard touchdown.

So, did Boykin touch the ball on offense again?

Read more at SportswithMike.com

The goal for this 2011 Georgia Bulldog football team is to win the SEC East Division and have a chance to play for the SEC Championship in the Georgia Dome on Dec. 3

Even with the loss to Boise State, the dream of accomplishing that goal remains intact. However, the poor performance by the Bulldogs shows that there is a lot of work that needs to be done before the 4:30 kickoff next Saturday against South Carolina.

Before the game, the players were pumped up, the fans were fired up, but when it the whistle blew to start the game, Georgia talked the talk, but clearly didn’t walk the walk.

The Bulldogs lost to a very, very good Boise State team that will go 12-0 and be in contention for a BCS Championship this year. Chris Peterson is one of the best coaches in the nation, and his Broncos team just came and executed a nearly perfect game.

Last season the problem with Georgia was they didn’t finish games. In the Boise State game, they never really got started, so they didn’t have the opportunity to finish.

What went wrong?

There are too many things that went wrong in this game, but I will focus on just a couple of key things that affected the outcome of the game.

The Georgia offense scored three touchdowns on plays of 80, 36 and 51 yards. The furthest the offense ever took a snap on the Boise State side of the field was the 26 yard line.

The Boise State offense scored one touchdown in their first six possessions, but then went on to score four touchdowns in their next five.

The Georgia defensive line was unable to put pressure on Moore, which allowed him to play an almost perfect game. The senior quarterback threw for 261 yards and three touchdowns on 28-for-34 passing.

On the offensive side of the ball, Murray did not play that well especially on deep throws down the sideline. Orson Charles caught six of Murray’s 16 completions, and Tavarres King dropped a couple of balls that he should have caught.

Isaiah Crowell did well with what he got, but Richard Samuel never got going. The 6-foot-2, 243 pound junior ran seven times for 12 yards with a long of five yards.

Don’t even get me started on the playcalling of Mike Bobo. Why he thinks it’s a good idea to run a screen or draw on third and long continues to make me question why Richt allows him to call plays.

Moving On

There is no doubt that the loss hurts, but as painful as this loss was, it will all be erased if the Bulldogs top the Gamecocks next weekend.

The Sept. 10 game has always been, and will continue to be the biggest game of the Georgia schedule this year. Even if the Bulldogs topped the Broncos, it would have all gone for nothing if they lost to South Carolina.

The loser of the South Carolina-Georgia game has never played in the SEC Championship game. And that trend will continue into the 2011 season.

South Carolina, Georgia and Florida have about the same level of talent on the field, but the Gators’ October schedule will play them out of the SEC East.

Florida will play Alabama, at LSU, at Auburn to start the October schedule before playing in Jacksonville against Georgia following a bye week.

LSU and Alabama are the two best teams in the SEC, and Georgia and South Carolina do not face them in the regular season.

With all that being said, CAN Georgia beat South Carolina?

Absolutely.

I know you might have doubts, I do as well.

South Carolina is a very good team, and they have the best running back-wide receiver duo in the nation in Marcus Lattimore and Alshon Jeffery. The question mark on the offensive side of the ball is Stephen Garcia, or whoever Steve Spurrier names the starting quarterback.

Like I said before, Georgia has a lot of work to do before the Bulldogs tee it up between the hedges.

The offensive line has to play better. The running game played well last week, but in third down situations, the offensive line did not give Murray the time he needed. Georgia was 2-for-13 on third down conversions and 1-for-4 on fourth down conversions.

South Carolina has one of the best defensive lines in the Southeastern Conference, so the Bulldogs’ offensive line will have their hands full next week.

One bright spot of the game, freshman wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell made a couple of great plays that showcased the athleticism the coaches and players have raved about throughout fall camp.

Tavarres King is going to have to step up. The junior wide receiver that was supposed to help fill the void of A.J. Green’s departure, but only caught one ball and dropped a couple of balls that were thrown right to him.

On the defensive side of the ball, the line will have to get pressure on Stephen Garcia if they want to win. Also, they will have to wrap up Marcus Lattimore.

In the game against Boise State, Georgia had a difficult time bringing down running backs Doug Martin and D.J. Harper. Another key is going to be wrapping up Lattimore. Because if they aren’t able to, Lattimore might have another outstanding performance like his game last year against the Bulldogs.

Mike Bobo needs to call a better game to allow Murray to develop a rhythm with the offense which lacked in the game against Boise State.

On the defensive side of the ball, Grantham will need the defense to play better and put pressure on Garcia.

Georgia can certainly win this game, but they can’t afford another poor performance .