Monday Morning Quarterback: UGA's D is better in 2022; another funky Friday; Loughdmouthings (Auburn/Freeze/Harsin, bad contracts, Dome finals, silly Falcons clickbaiting, Tech/Key/Fritz, more)
The topic had been roaming around the noggin for a few weeks, and then came Saturday at lunchtime.
Georgia Tech moseyed through Georgia’s defense on its first drive of the game.
Ruh oh.
And then not.
Georgia’s defense started looking like Georgia’s defense, and the Yellow Jackets’ hopes evaporated.
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
People in the state of Georgia currently seem bent on ways to blame a quarterback – in Athens or Atlanta – for most anything that goes wrong. Folks seem bent on not watching any other games or quarterbacks, or being caught with fingerprints on reality and/or context.
But speaking of that reality – and that nasty L word, logic – there’s a lot of evidence to make the argument that Georgia’s defense is better than last year’s.
A note: Overrated doesn’t mean something or someone isn’t still great or awesome or giggidy. It may just mean that people are blindly heaping greatness or awesomeness on something or someone without a deep dive.
Speaking of last year’s Georgia defense, well, yeah, it was overrated. Still great. Still historic in Georgia annals.
Lost in haze of hyperbole was the reality that Kirby Smart has had something of a cakewalk in the SEC East since he took over, a substantially more leisurely path to division championships in his first seven years than his predecessor did in his first seven years (and we can only count the years Smart has been in charge).
Why is this year’s defense better?
The offenses are better. The opponents are better. There is more stability among opponents.
Let’s pick four relevant major stats: third-down defense, pass efficiency defense, rush defense yards, and pass defense yards, and the NCAA I-A ranking.
Last year, in those five stats, through Dec. 31, game Georgia ranked 29thd, 1, 3 rd, 5 th
This year, through this point: 3 rd, 5th, 2nd, 22nd.
Average ranking last year: 9.5.
Average ranking this year: 8.
Schedule-wise, swap Oregon for Clemson, Mississippi State for Arkansas, Samford for Charleston Southern, and Kent State for UAB.
Samford is much better than CSU, Oregon and Clemson end up even (who would you pick to win, Oregon 2022 or Clemson 2021?), UAB a bit better than Kent State, Arkansas and MSU even.
Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri, and Vanderbilt, and Georgia Tech are better this year, as is Florida. Kentucky stepped backward, and Auburn barely counts right now, so screwed up are things on the Plains.
The Bulldogs’ opponents in 2022 are stronger, and the offenses certainly are. And look at what Georgia’s defense did to quality offenses this year?
Took one QB out of the Heisman race. Didn’t do that last year. Humbled a team early that became a playoff contender, until a week or so ago. Slowed down the momentum of other offenses.
This year’s defense took better teams and better offenses out with about the same efficiency as last year.
That kinda says “better.”
And those better offenses also were better prepared for an elite defense, so life wasn’t as easy. Yet the numbers and results …
But it won’t get the credit, because people became way too enamored last year, and once one at-a-mic moron mentioned “best in history” and more such folks jumped on board with no context, and fell in love with players who were great, not as great as hyperbolized – as the SEC title game showed clearly – it doesn’t much matter what this group has done or will do.
It’s not about the draft. It’s not about the intellectual gag that is “recruiting rankings.” It’s not about breathless homer website coverage, nor broadcast hyperbole.
It’s about results.
Last week’s surprises/upsets
Warner Robins was an underdog, and won.
Bleckley County was a favorite, and lost.
As per Maxwell picks, everything else was pretty close to as predicted (not so much elsewhere, where it was a crappy week of predictions).
From this viewpoint, I figured Creekside was better, and Houston County was better, and both found ways to open the door for two teams ready to win.
The Royals losing by a couple scores was a bit of a surprise.
And, of course, nobody really saw Stratford manhandling Tattnall that way, certainly not your’s truly. The win wasn’t a surprise, but being in that kind of control for so long was.
Loughdmouthings
How desperate – and any other similar and fitting adjectives – was Auburn going to be?
That was a question typed Monday morning, answered Monday afternoon.
(Pre-hire thoughts) Hugh Freeze is not who people of substance should necessarily want in front of 17- to- 23 year olds, if, you know, examples of substances are important.
And we know that substance anymore is … never mind.
If one has nothing about them other than wins, then stuff like meddling with an assault victim because she called out an AD who was hired after serving at a school where sexual assault was considered no big deal, nor was invading the lives of those assaulted, than Freeze is fine.
Every time a school blathers about being different, its people – in charge and in message board rooms – go out of their way to prove otherwise.
Some parts of the land, sexual assault is bigger than football. Other parts, football more important. …
It’s time for teams to drill into ball-carriers to put the dang football in the dang outside arm. And start fining/punishing players who don’t, especially after fumbles.
Post-hire thought: Had Freeze been a good citizen, it’d be easier to offer the second-chance thought. But taking on a sexual assault victim? Makes it a whole lot harder.
Yes, it’s an issue if one has a daughter at a place and wants to trust the leadership to properly handle sexual assault (and domestic violence, etc.) issues at a school. …
Nebraska sure hasn’t learned a blessed thing about administration, signing Matt Rhule to an eight-year contract.
Eight years, $72 mil, and he’s in the top 10 already nationally in salary. Come on, people in charge, are all of y’all just clueless?
Ah sports, where the people who preach proving yourself don’t have to prove themselves. How about this, you mismanaging and fiscally fraudulent dingbats? You get a raise if we are better than last year.
Period. …
Yes, we’re getting closer to the GHSA state championship games being in the Georgia Dome – OK, in what the building should be called, dammit – aka Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
No, that’s not all that good.
Let’s not blather about toughness and greatness when considering there are no domes anywhere in the Northeast – except Syracuse – or Midwest – except Indianapolis, Detroit, and Minneapolis – and they all survive much worse elements than down here.
Still would much rather prefer – if the game experience was more important than sponsors and GPB – regional sites, and maybe some doubleheaders. …
Not all media folks have a clue or pay attention or aren’t clickbaiters. In the opposite class comes Deadspin, with a pathetic attempt last week to make it look like Atlanta really blew it by not drafting Justin Fields.
No, Atlanta didn’t blow it. At a minimum, bring that up now when Fields hasn’t really done anything but have some nice running games is kind of idiotic.
But there’s a lot of idiotic going on when it comes to this year’s Falcons and their quarterback and their head coach.
Same day that story posts is another noting “the league’s worst passing offense” which was facing an inferior pass defense, and the defense clearly won that battle.
Good grief, the clickbaiting of society.
Fields’ QB rating, among those with at least 150 pass attempts, is 86.2. Marcus Mariota was 90.7 starting the day Sunday. Mariota was tied with Justin Herbert, and ahead of Daniel Jones, Travor Lawrence, Matthew Stafford, Matt Ryan, Kyler Murray, Kirk Cousins, Russell Wilson, and Taylor Heinicke, to name a few. …
Assorted discussions about impending Central Georgia high school football coaching carousel moves are pretty dizzying. And we thought the last go ‘round was funky. …
One thing underrated – certainly to the public, which pays little attention to relevant stuff – in a coaching search is how a new hire will be perceived by a state’s high school coaches.
Georgia Tech will be roundly welcomed quicker into more doors with somebody like Brent Key: long-time in-state coach, offensive lineman, just a ball coach and not a bad “branding” whiz or egomaniacal attention-seeker.
Tech can win more recruiting battles with Key than some of the shiny, noisy, severely-lacking-a-resume candidates out there.
Willie Fritz spent only two seasons at Georgia Southern, but he also fits in there, too. Tech should pass on Bill O’Brien. Note that Coastal Carolina’s Jamey Chadwell has nearly two dozen Georgians on his roster, and from many upper-level programs. …
Speaking of silliness among coaching changes, let’s revisit the piling-on stretch about Bryan Harsin and recruiting.
For one, head coaches close, assistant coaches do all the recruiting. All of it. They’re on the road, they’re manning the insanity that is social media, they’re judging talent.
Harsin was announced on Dec. 22, 2020, a week after the early signing period started. So cross that off.
Then he had a naturally tough – anywhere – transition of hiring coaches and recruiting, for Feb. 2021, while the sabotage of the program quietly started.
And he had the 2021 early period, and winter 2022. Recruiting coverage and “analysis” being as homery, knee-jerky, and kind of airy as it is, we can’t grade any class until they show up, play, stay or leave, and get done.
Auburn’s listed two-deep for Saturday had 18 freshmen, redshirt freshmen, and sophomores out of 50, 36 percent. That’s a lot.
So maybe the cupboard isn’t quite as bare as simpletons and saboteurs spout. Harsin’s successor will win games because of players Harsin signed.
Book it. …
Two Tattnall opponents are in the GHSA Class A/Division II semifinals, Schley County (nipped Tattnall 28-21 in the opener) and Bowdon (beat Tattnall 48-35 three weeks later). …
Know somebody who is in front of a microphone on Friday nights? Buy them a pair of binoculars, and beg them to use them on Friday nights – not like they’re keeping stats or anything - so they stop saying “I don’t know” and “I didn’t see it” so often on Friday nights.
They Wrote It
“What was the more disastrous investment, putting your money in crypto on FTX or hiring Jimbo Fisher for $105 million?”
- Jack Finarelli of SportsCurmudgeon.com