Thoughts after digesting the game?

Nice summary. Eason is a gamer, just needs to work on mechanics and touch on those short passes and his accuracy should improve.

I can't praise McKenzie enough. Without him we probably don't score a single point. It just goes to show the difference a superior athlete with a unique combination of speed and agility can make. I still think we need bigger/taller receivers to go with Eason's 6'5" frame but I have to say our receivers played well over all. That one pass that McKenzie missed in the endzone (hit him in the facemask) was disappointing but considering he was likely getting physically worn out from saving our butts time and again, it was understandable. Chigbu has hands of stone; needs to either get his act together or find someone who can actually catch a routine pass to the bread-basket.

Oh, and how in the hell Missouri does so much more with less is beyond me. You can throw out the recruiting rankings relative to Missouri. They find superior DL every season regardless of rankings. Their QB is a stud and their receivers are taller and better than ours. Like I said, without McKenzie we lose this game badly.

The Good:
-Eason, obviously. True freshman, first road start, down 6 on a final drive, does grown man shite. Really showed why many considered him the best QB in that nation.
-IMac. Kid has turned from a return man and gimmick player into a true receiving threat. We'd be in a world of hurt without him.
-Mauger. Kid had basically lost his starting spot since Mo Smith had moved in but we needed him last night and he did not fail us.
-2nd half defense. Maybe it wasn't all our defense, maybe Mizzou helped us out with overly conservative play calling. Either way, the boys locked it in the 2nd half and limited Mizzou's yardage and scoring.

The Bad:
-Briscoe. The only reason he's here and not under "The Ugly" is because he played a decent 2nd half and showed some grit. The defensive backfield as a whole needs to step up, but Kelly will set some NCAA records next week if Briscoe plays like that again.
-Wide Receivers. That techno song that kids love about "shots, shots, shots, shotsshotsshots"? Yeah, our receivers were drops, drops, drops, dropsdropsdrops. I read a lot of practice reports that stated Chigbu catches most everything that comes his way. maybe that's a good thing, because it's not a talent deficiency, he just needs to work through some mental stuff. He's not the only one, though. We had some key drops, even McKenzie had a few bad moments.
-The pass rush. Good God almighty. It got better when D'Andre Walker was put in (he actually played pretty well, minus a stupid penalty), but it was non-existent most of the night. We've generated zero pas rush this year and opposing QBs have way too much time to sit in the pocket and wait for their targets to run open. Eventually on of the OLBs has to turn it on, otherwise we're in trouble.

The Ugly:
-Kicking game. Might be the worst in the nation. Going to leave it at that. Everyone saw the same thing last night.
-Offensive Line. I'm not going to blame this on Pittman or Kirby, this really falls on the previous regime. We have 2 linemen who would push for starting jobs at other big programs; Wynn and Pyke, that's it. I think Kublanow is smart and he plays tough, but he's undersized and gets pushed around too much. Sims and Gaillard I think could get there, but they're way too raw right now and that's not going to be solved in 1 off-season. Catalina is a monument to our absolute failure at recruiting tackles over the past 4 years. He's an absolute liability in the passing game but I honestly believe that if someone could do it better, then they would be in there. For as great as season played, the poor kid will get murdered out there when we play a team with a real pass rush if something doesn't change. The main problem with the run blocking has been defenses stacking the box, but we've been shitty at combo blocking and getting to the 2nd level to block, as well. I hope that 5* tackle out of NY is watching, because we need some tackle help bad and he can start from day 1 down here.

Cleveland won't make a difference when 9 guys are in the box.

- If Blankenship is not a better kicker than Ham, we need to be having open tryouts for a kicker. Our kickoff distance and FG kicking are fricking pathetic.

- Our OLine is better at pass protecting than run blocking. I can't recall the last time that was the case at UGA. This is a talent deficiency and help is not coming this year so we may have to pass to set up the run.

- Eason is a gamer and he had some NFL-esque throws last night.

- McKenzie is uncoverable on slants if he is not jammed at the LOS.

- Our defense made a lot of mistakes but also made plays. I think this group will continue to improve and be a good unit by the end of the year.

Bottom line, this is probably a 8/9 win team from a talent / youth perspective but Kirby seems to be maximizing what we have. I'm nervous we are going to get beat soundly against Ole Miss next week but who knows.

I know I am going to be in the minority here but I absolutely loathe Jim Chaney's offense. When we go shoutgun and spread teams out we rarely if ever run out of it. When we go to the PowerI in 3rd and short we run into the teeth of the defense and get stuffed every fricking time. Kubanlow gets blown up at the point of attack so much it makes my head spin. That power I set....the only wrinkle is the toss to the FB outside of running Chubb into 9/10 man boxes and it fricking sucks. That set particularly has been god awful this year. There is a reason CHubb is averaging 3 yards a fricking carry. His biggest carry came on a shotgun wildcat run last night. My thoughts are Jim Chaney is not getting it done and if it wasn't for an insanely explosive IMAC we would fricked.

Positives- Jacob Eason stood tall against a damn good pass rush and made some very good throws. The kid has moxy. He isn't going to be breaking any records this year but he is learning on the job and performing pretty well.

That sidearm pass Eason made under pressure around the lineman wasn't for a big gain but that was something I wouldn't expect out of a freshman QB.

quote:

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With that 9 man box last night I don't understand why we didn't run Chubb and Michel outside with sweeps and pitch outs

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We actually did that often with Michel and McKenzie, just not Chubb for some reason.

At this point, I still don't think we know what we are.

But we do know what we aren't.

We aren't a power running team.

We aren't going to run anything down anyone's throats because our OL gets no push.

I was hoping it was just a matter of effort after the Nicholl's game, but now I'm afraid it's a lack of strength and agility on the OL.

The pas to Godwin down the sideline on the final drive was a beauty. Why didn't Godwin stick his arms out?