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re: Matt Luke to Join Georgia coaching staff
Posted on 12/10/19 at 8:07 pm to BeefDawg
Posted on 12/10/19 at 8:07 pm to BeefDawg
quote:
We got big OL's that don't get pushed around, don't give up many sacks
They were very good at pass protection this year not so much run blocking.
quote:
mean this year was an anomaly because the playbook and play calling was beyond horrible and obnoxiously predictable.
I can promise you we ran more on 1st down
the 2nd half of the season than we did last year.Go back and look at the 2018 SECCG game.Talk about running up the middle on 1st down...we did it continuously vs Bama with Holyfield especially but we were getting 6 and 7 yards a pop.I think we also missed Gaillard more than anyone wants to admit.
quote:
Of course the OL looked uncharacteristically underwhelming this year compared to the last 2 years. Every goddamn person on the planet knew exactly WTF our run play was all damn season
Sorry we were just as predictable last year if not more so...with our formations and our play calling.
2
Posted on 12/10/19 at 8:11 pm to RD Dawg
Are we gonna keep rotating OL? I sure hope not.
Posted on 12/10/19 at 8:23 pm to RD Dawg
quote:I disagree.
Sorry we were just as predictable last year if not more so...with our formations and our play calling.
Again, if our RB lines up on the left of Fromm, there was about a 90% chance he was crossing Fromm and running between the center and RT.
And conversely, if the RB lined up on the right side of Fromm, he was going between the center and LT.
My wife, who doesn’t know shite about run plays or formations or play design, was asking me week after week after bloody week, in frustration as we watched the games, “Why are we running the same play, just swapping sides, over and over every game?”
No, we didn’t do this last year. Certainly not at the ratio we did this year.
Posted on 12/10/19 at 8:41 pm to BeefDawg
quote:
Again, if our RB lines up on the left of Fromm, there was about a 90% chance he was crossing Fromm and running between the center and RT.
And conversely, if the RB lined up on the right side of Fromm, he was going between the center and LT.
quote:
I disagree
So we never passes out of those formations? Or ran play action?
Toss sweep?
I'd have to look at the games again to verify what you're saying but I highly
doubt the 90% figure.
Watch last year's game vs UK or the SECCG.
We were amazingly predictable but it worked for the most part because we were executing and Gaillard was a beast at center.
Posted on 12/10/19 at 9:15 pm to wdhalgren
quote:
We won 11 games in the regular season for the 3rd year in a row, beat all of our traditional rivals for the third year in a row. And yes, the offense played a role in that success, more in some years, less in others. But the offense would have been less successful every year without the very good to excellent OL play.
If you're a "championship or bust" person who thinks that any season that doesn't end with a national title means nothing, then you've wasted another year of free time, following an endeavor that you don't control and feeling cheated in the end. Like nearly every other sports fan who feels that way, you should probably ponder this question; "WHAT GOOD DID IT DO"
Sorry, dude. Your o-line god just left for Arkansas. I think we have a very good replacement. But that’s just me.
Posted on 12/10/19 at 9:17 pm to athenian
So we hired a guy who couldn't make much progress as a head coach in the SEC, winning under 42% of his games in 3 seasons.
I get the Peter Principle so maybe Luke is falling back to a level where he was competent.
But is there a solid reason to be excited about this? Is he capable of bringing in top shelf talent as Pittman was doing?
I get the Peter Principle so maybe Luke is falling back to a level where he was competent.
But is there a solid reason to be excited about this? Is he capable of bringing in top shelf talent as Pittman was doing?
Posted on 12/10/19 at 9:51 pm to BeefDawg
quote:
Yep, it was awful this year.
I'm sure obnoxiously telegraphing nearly every run, using the same 4-5 looks/formations, and sending about 80%+ of our run attempts inside the tackles, while having a terrible passing game had nothing to do with it.
It was purely our two OT's who are probably getting drafted in the first round, or one of our handful of 5-star OG's, all of whom were absolutely brilliant and dominating the previous year or even two.
Yeah, Pittman was just so average at recruiting and got us a bunch of oversized fat scrubs.
Let's go back to the Kublanow/Theus/Lee/Houston/Bynum//Cardiello/Beard/DeBell/Ward/Long/Parrish/Tripp type players, right? All those stellar OL recruiting years we had under Richt that put like a whopping 4 guys in the NFL. /s
Are some of you folks seriously shitting on Pittman now? LOLWTF
Exactly.
The O-Line play has been very good to excellent. Skill players and scheme have turned the offense to shite, not O-Line play.
At the risk of stating the obvious, A college coach's job is two fold:
1. Sign the best players
2. Get the most out of them.
Having 4+ NFL linemen means the staff has recruited and developed talent on the line, so the problem is not on the players or the position coach. If you can't run the ball in this scenario your scheme is trash.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 8:53 am to Sandwich
Well guys, after more thought I’m feeling a little better about this hire. Kirby needed someone who could start recruiting immediately and also really needed an Assistant HC for the Offense. Luke should be excellent in both areas.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 9:41 am to Coach7
Seriously, any chance at Plumlee coming over?
Posted on 12/11/19 at 9:50 am to chillmonster
quote:
Exactly.
The O-Line play has been very good to excellent. Skill players and scheme have turned the offense to shite, not O-Line play.
O line did excellent on pass blocking, but did not always do well on run blocking. They missed blocks and got beat more than I would have expected with such an elite group.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 10:16 am to Peter Buck
TL;DR... frick off... it's a message board. read it or move on. 
I think it's been said already in this thread (or another similar one) but I think the team has sincerely missed Gaillard at the Center position more than anyone would have anticipated. Run blocking up the middle frequently was blown up due to Hill skating backwards or at least a defender shooting the gap between G/C on either side, and causing the play to get blown up before it had a chance to develop.
Glory UGA podcast had a good soundbyte that was more or less the similar to the way I see things.
Coaches have 3 jobs:
1) Identify and land the best talent they can infuse into the program.
2) Develop that talent to get the most out of their potential.
3) Deploy that talent in a way that takes advantage of your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.
I think it's obvious that collectively the staff has done an A+ job at #1 and at minimum a B+ job (if not better) at #2 in totality - though it's certainly arguable that you could make the case that it's more of an A defensively and closer to a C on offense.
3 is really the biggest question mark. Defensively, I think we had the best iteration of talent deployment that we've had under Kirby. Even in the SECCG, while it wasn't perfect, the defense played well enough to keep us in that game and not let it just run away from us had the offense been able to do anything successfully. If there is turnover on the staff on the defensive side of the ball, it's going to be very interesting to see whether this continues, or if we revert back to what we had before, which was still quite good, but less of a weapon by itself.
Offensively, arguably this was the worst iteration relative to the roster talent - including year 1. At least in year 1, you had the excuse of "we don't have the talent on the OL that we want/need to support our desired scheme but we're going to establish an identity". In year 4, with one of the most talented rosters in college football, this just doesn't hold up.
I find it hard to believe that Pittman had zero voice in the room and allowed us to continue to focus on up the middle runs behind an interior offensive line that simply wasn't a strength. If I've got one criticism for him on the way out it's around that... If you're the best OL coach in the country, you have to be able to identify and vocalize a problem/concern with your talent... The gut reaction solution, which we seemed to rarely employ was to spread defenses out a bit to prevent "clogging the middle with bodies" if we were determined to run up the middle, or alternatively play to the strengths which were our two big body OTs and run outside more to make their "clogged bodies" more of a weakness.
At the end of the day, my concern here is Kirby's tendency toward stubbornness. I worry that he's like the many who say "I don't believe that we can't win with this offensive scheme". Which is a fine thought, and realistically is still accurate. The issue is this... it doesn't matter whether it *can* win, it matters whether it's optimal... Are you handcuffing yourself with your offensive philosophy or are you helping support better odds at success. The grind out a win offense seems better suited to ensuring that you beat worse teams more so than giving you the best opportunity to beat teams that are equally talented or potentially better in certain aspects. I think there's a happy medium that we could hit, but I'm not confident in the least that Kirby's convinced that we need to adapt/modify things much... I sincerely hope that worry is inaccurate but I'm not holding my breath.
I think it's been said already in this thread (or another similar one) but I think the team has sincerely missed Gaillard at the Center position more than anyone would have anticipated. Run blocking up the middle frequently was blown up due to Hill skating backwards or at least a defender shooting the gap between G/C on either side, and causing the play to get blown up before it had a chance to develop.
Glory UGA podcast had a good soundbyte that was more or less the similar to the way I see things.
Coaches have 3 jobs:
1) Identify and land the best talent they can infuse into the program.
2) Develop that talent to get the most out of their potential.
3) Deploy that talent in a way that takes advantage of your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.
I think it's obvious that collectively the staff has done an A+ job at #1 and at minimum a B+ job (if not better) at #2 in totality - though it's certainly arguable that you could make the case that it's more of an A defensively and closer to a C on offense.
3 is really the biggest question mark. Defensively, I think we had the best iteration of talent deployment that we've had under Kirby. Even in the SECCG, while it wasn't perfect, the defense played well enough to keep us in that game and not let it just run away from us had the offense been able to do anything successfully. If there is turnover on the staff on the defensive side of the ball, it's going to be very interesting to see whether this continues, or if we revert back to what we had before, which was still quite good, but less of a weapon by itself.
Offensively, arguably this was the worst iteration relative to the roster talent - including year 1. At least in year 1, you had the excuse of "we don't have the talent on the OL that we want/need to support our desired scheme but we're going to establish an identity". In year 4, with one of the most talented rosters in college football, this just doesn't hold up.
I find it hard to believe that Pittman had zero voice in the room and allowed us to continue to focus on up the middle runs behind an interior offensive line that simply wasn't a strength. If I've got one criticism for him on the way out it's around that... If you're the best OL coach in the country, you have to be able to identify and vocalize a problem/concern with your talent... The gut reaction solution, which we seemed to rarely employ was to spread defenses out a bit to prevent "clogging the middle with bodies" if we were determined to run up the middle, or alternatively play to the strengths which were our two big body OTs and run outside more to make their "clogged bodies" more of a weakness.
At the end of the day, my concern here is Kirby's tendency toward stubbornness. I worry that he's like the many who say "I don't believe that we can't win with this offensive scheme". Which is a fine thought, and realistically is still accurate. The issue is this... it doesn't matter whether it *can* win, it matters whether it's optimal... Are you handcuffing yourself with your offensive philosophy or are you helping support better odds at success. The grind out a win offense seems better suited to ensuring that you beat worse teams more so than giving you the best opportunity to beat teams that are equally talented or potentially better in certain aspects. I think there's a happy medium that we could hit, but I'm not confident in the least that Kirby's convinced that we need to adapt/modify things much... I sincerely hope that worry is inaccurate but I'm not holding my breath.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 10:37 am to Peter Buck
quote:
but did not always do well on run blocking.
When you're having to block 7 to 8 guys in a stacked box because nobody fears your QB, it becomes much more difficult to run the ball or open holes.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 12:30 pm to HTDawg
If they did that, we would have had at least one receiver not covered. We ran double twins a lot. We were losing at the point of attack.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 12:40 pm to Peter Buck
OL just couldn't get their chemestry/timing down.
Are the inside zone blocking assignments that difficult?
We would have a guard and center both release up to the linebackers after an initial double team leaving the DT alone to make the play. It is crazy how many tackles were made by defensive linemen this season.
Are the inside zone blocking assignments that difficult?
We would have a guard and center both release up to the linebackers after an initial double team leaving the DT alone to make the play. It is crazy how many tackles were made by defensive linemen this season.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 1:25 pm to BeefDawg
quote:
Again, if our RB lines up on the left of Fromm, there was about a 90% chance he was crossing Fromm and running between the center and RT.
And conversely, if the RB lined up on the right side of Fromm, he was going between the center and LT.
Okay,I went back rewatched most of of the UF and AU games from this year and what you're saying isn't close to being correct.
When we ran the ball in the A gap with the QB under center with the RB directly behind him or in shotgun with RB just to the offset on either side,we ran the EXACT same play with zone blocking (except for the draw which we ran exclusively out of the shotgun) It's basically a read play by the RB who picks his gap up the middle.There's no predetermination to either side.The RB obviously STEPS towards the opposite direction from where
he lines up to get the handoff...maybe this is where your theory is coming from.
When we ran to the B gap out of this formation it was extremely rare and we did run left to right but we also ran it to the left side with the RB lined up on the left but BOTH plays were extremely rare.
We also ran outside the tackle out of the shotgun to both sides regardless of which side the RB lined up.Swift obviously was the RB the vast majority of the time and we ran the quick toss to him almost exclusively to the left side.
Seems like many folks remember what they want to remember and see what they want to see when it comes to CFB and the narrative they want to build.
This post was edited on 12/11/19 at 1:36 pm
Posted on 12/11/19 at 1:42 pm to fibonaccisquared
quote:
1) Identify and land the best talent they can infuse into the program.
2) Develop that talent to get the most out of their potential.
3) Deploy that talent in a way that takes advantage of your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.
I think #3 kinda goes hand in hand wiht the second half of #2. Ultimately, your overall goal should be doing the best/most efficient you can with what you've got. And we seem to be pretty bad at that. Gratned, when our overall talent is great across the board (as it was in 17 and 18) everythign worked out just fine. I do think we had a problem takign the foot off the gas, mainly in the 18 SECCG, but that's more about playcalling rather than overall scheme. But in 2019 it was crystal clear that we had a passing problem. So you'd think, ok well let's just run it really well, but the problem as we saw was that by nobody fearing the pass it was easy to take away the run. What really bothered me abotu this season in that regard was 2 fold:
1) If we are hellbent on running, why did we lack any kind of creativity at all with it? Tosses, counters, etc would all help and finally towards the last like 2 games we started to see it more. Most of the season though it was just straight into the line. On RPOs we RARELY ever pulled the ball back and threw it. Meanwhile teams do this against us all the time. On read options jake maybe kepthe ball once or twice all season, I honestly can't remember. We didn't even attempt to keep the defense guessing, it was just "ok we're giving swift the ball now" and telegraphed from the jump
2) Knowing that we have a passing problem, why not AT LEAST try to help ourslevs in that area? Tyler simmons adn matt landers should never see the field, period. IGAF if they can block. I don't care if guys are true freshmen. I dont' care if they still dont' know the entire play book. Put playmakers on the fiedl that at least give the defense something to think about. Is D-Rob even on the team? Pickens, Blalock, and Robertson should have bene our starting 3 from the vandy game and onward. And we rarely run routes that maximize potential. Seemingly most of our routes were back shoulders on the sideline (where if we do catch it we're instantly down) or go routes down the sideline. We rarely threw deep not to the sideline, and rarely utilized the middle of the field on ins/slants/crosses.
I"m not a football mind in any way, but it's just mind boggling watching us run a painfully simple vanialla offense all season. It seems like the only game all season that we went crazy and kind of did the opposite of every other game was florida, and we looked awesome. Then went back away form it the next week.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 1:49 pm to BeefDawg
quote:
No, we didn’t do this last year
Yes,we did. We just had more success out of it. The only difference being is that it looks like we lined up under center more often last year but we still ran the play out of the shotgun.
Once again,go back and look at the SECCG last year and look how many times we handed the ball up the middle to Holyfield...we just had success running it
and Gaillard was a beast.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 1:54 pm to VoxDawg
quote:
Seriously, any chance at Plumlee coming over?
Pretty sure it’s around 0%
Posted on 12/11/19 at 2:57 pm to RD Dawg
quote:This sounds like nitpicking.
When we ran the ball in the A gap with the QB under center with the RB directly behind him or in shotgun with RB just to the offset on either side,we ran the EXACT same play with zone blocking (except for the draw which we ran exclusively out of the shotgun) It's basically a read play by the RB who picks his gap up the middle.There's no predetermination to either side.The RB obviously STEPS towards the opposite direction from where
he lines up to get the handoff...maybe this is where your theory is coming from.
When we ran to the B gap out of this formation it was extremely rare and we did run left to right but we also ran it to the left side with the RB lined up on the left but BOTH plays were extremely rare.
We also ran outside the tackle out of the shotgun to both sides regardless of which side the RB lined up.Swift obviously was the RB the vast majority of the time and we ran the quick toss to him almost exclusively to the left side.
Are you suggesting we didn’t run inside the tackles too much, weren’t telegraphing our plays due to unoriginal formation design, and generally weren’t predictable in our run game?
Because that’s just absurd and I’m not going to waste my time arguing it.
I watched every second of every game with dozens of the same people over the course of the season and every one of those people were complaining about this. Like every single one every freaking game, aside from receiver drops, Fromm looking awful, and general dissatisfaction with Coley’s play calling, “predictable/telegraphed, similar formation, too many inside runs” was the dominating complaint.
And nobody made the excuse, “well it looks just like last year, but it was successful then, why not now”. Nobody.
The rationale everyone I know made was exactly what’s been said here... that because our passing game was so bad, and because we were running inside at such a high rate, and because the run formations were so telegraphed, defenses were concentrating more of their efforts on beating us in the box and it worked.
I can’t tell you how many times I heard one of my friends beg for a different formation and more off-tackle/outside runs, and how many times they cursed at Coley after they shouted out what we were about to do just before we did it, only to watch us get stuffed for a 0-2 yard gain inside the tackles.
Sorry, but I know what I saw. And if you didn’t see this or you somehow think this is what it was like last year too, then I can’t help you and can’t argue this case with you anymore.
Posted on 12/11/19 at 3:25 pm to WG_Dawg
quote:
I think #3 kinda goes hand in hand wiht the second half of #2
It definitely all ties together, just kind of a decent delineation between taking a 3* guy like Eric Stokes and getting him to play at SEC Starting level vs. scheming to minimize the weakness of your nickel corner, or creating rub routes to generate more space for receivers since Fromm is having a hard time throwing into narrow windows... Pretty sure we're on the same page here.
quote:
1) If we are hellbent on running, why did we lack any kind of creativity at all with it? Tosses, counters, etc would all help and finally towards the last like 2 games we started to see it more. Most of the season though it was just straight into the line. On RPOs we RARELY ever pulled the ball back and threw it. Meanwhile teams do this against us all the time. On read options jake maybe kepthe ball once or twice all season, I honestly can't remember. We didn't even attempt to keep the defense guessing, it was just "ok we're giving swift the ball now" and telegraphed from the jump
Yeah, it seems weird that we find ourselves - not professional football coaches - asking the same damn questions week after week, and yet the guys making millions don't seem to think about this stuff and/or just slough it off as irrelevant. There is zero reason why Jake wasn't given the green light to run a few times each game... even if he's told under no circumstances do you take a hit... slide if it's even a concern. I know we are thin at the position, just as we were in 2018, but by never/rarely keeping the ball we just eliminate any requirement for defenses to even consider it... and he's not terribly slow. On the few plays where we did see him keep it, he runs for like 8-10 yards before having to slide.
And if you are struggling to run up the middle, you have other options that are still running plays... or... or... you can just not line up in such a way that allows defenses to do minimal adjustments to account for anything between the tackles... flex the TE out, wide splits for your WR... move the bodies wide so that you have actual running lanes up the middle behind whichever of your stud NFL OLmen can beat their man.
quote:
2) Knowing that we have a passing problem, why not AT LEAST try to help ourslevs in that area? Tyler simmons adn matt landers should never see the field, period. IGAF if they can block. I don't care if guys are true freshmen. I dont' care if they still dont' know the entire play book. Put playmakers on the fiedl that at least give the defense something to think about. Is D-Rob even on the team? Pickens, Blalock, and Robertson should have bene our starting 3 from the vandy game and onward. And we rarely run routes that maximize potential. Seemingly most of our routes were back shoulders on the sideline (where if we do catch it we're instantly down) or go routes down the sideline. We rarely threw deep not to the sideline, and rarely utilized the middle of the field on ins/slants/crosses.
If any of those receivers didn't know the whole playbook that would have made one person in America that didn't know our whole playbook... We had like 6-7 primary formations, and 2-3 variations on plays from them that we ran with any regularity.
shite in 2017, Kirby's best year, we basically had 2 different WR platoons... brick hands blockers, and semi-ok hands catchers... There was zero excuse for Landers to see as much playing time as he did this year. Especially once we saw the effort issues as the season progressed.
The field utilization seems to be a Fromm limitation or a Kirby fear... and I'm not sure which one it is (or maybe column a/b)... but it seems to stem from a fear of not accounting for an underneath linebacker who picks you off... but unless that's happening to us regularly in our own practices, it just doesn't seem like a valid concern to prevent you from utilizing the whole field - again maximizing what you force the defense to game plan for.
That's perhaps the most mind boggling thing... Kirby knows how to game plan a defense... If I'm self scouting, I would have looked at our offensive game plan and said "here's how I would shut this down... and it doesn't take enough effort/skill/talent... we need to do more".
quote:
I"m not a football mind in any way, but it's just mind boggling watching us run a painfully simple vanialla offense all season. It seems like the only game all season that we went crazy and kind of did the opposite of every other game was florida, and we looked awesome. Then went back away form it the next week.
Florida was definitely the anomaly... It not coincidentally was the best that Swift seemed to look all season as well to my eyes (haven't gone back to look at the stats). What on earth we were thinking by not going back to that well, I have no idea.
I'm sadly convinced that Kirby disagrees with the masses though and truly thinks that we're going the right direction offensively. I'd love to be wrong...
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