Started By
Message
0
Posted on 2/4/16 at 8:44 pm to fibonaccisquared
So contrary to popular belief Richt could develop talent...hmmm
Shocking, a coach with a 75% winning percentage could develop players. I guess Vince Dooley did know what he was doing...
Shocking, a coach with a 75% winning percentage could develop players. I guess Vince Dooley did know what he was doing...
Posted on 2/4/16 at 8:53 pm to DawgNation4
quote:
So contrary to popular belief Richt could develop talent...hmmm
Not sure where I stated this (or if this was even directed at me at all). Generally speaking, my point was Richt was able to grab a fair amount top tier talent but was unable to win the big games with them. I'd say that would point to an inability to obtain maximum results, which is pretty much defined by player development. No one ever said Richt did "no developing", simply that what he was doing was insufficient to win on the biggest stages. Couple that with usually at least one glaring deficiency from a player personnel standpoint and you have what amounts to an achilles heel the size of the grand canyon and a neon sign pointing it out.
Posted on 2/4/16 at 9:21 pm to fibonaccisquared
quote:
I were just noting the lack of elite WR talent outside of AJ as well.
I mean what schools are constantly churning out players like AJ Green? We have had our share of good to great college WR's but there just aren't many WR in college in general that can take a game over like AJ Green did for us.
I know our problem with A Murray was that he liked to spread the ball out so we never really had a true go to #1 WR who will get 70% of the looks. Even with Stafford, we still had some good WR's but with Moreno you kinda run the ball a lot. Also that is another thing, our style of offense won't put up the best stats as some of the other pass heavy teams or teams who like to run up the score for style points.
Also not having a good qb will make your WR's look worse off as well... Huston Mason and Lambert. Eason will end up being much better than those two, so our WR's will look better as well.
Posted on 2/4/16 at 9:58 pm to DawgGONIT
quote:
I mean what schools are constantly churning out players like AJ Green? We have had our share of good to great college WR's but there just aren't many WR in college in general that can take a game over like AJ Green did for us.
I wasn't really setting the bar at AJ Green, there just happens to be a pretty wide gap between him and the next closest receivers. But one could argue that LSU (LaFell, OBJ, Jarvis Landry) and UF to a lesser extent (Harvin comes to mind immediately) have done a pretty good job of grabbing some good receivers. Additionally, Ole Miss probably had 3 guys on the roster this year that each would have been our #1 receiver. Bama is on a pretty good string right now from Julio to Amari to Calvin Ridley. Hell, fricking Ga Tech had both Calvin Johnson and Demaryius Thomas during this time span.
quote:
Also not having a good qb will make your WR's look worse off as well... Huston Mason and Lambert
So 14-15 are explained, but that's only the most recent 2 years. That doesn't do anything to explain the previous 12. When you consider the QBs that have been on campus during that 12 year span - David Greene, DJ Shockley, Matthew Stafford, and Aaron Murray - that's a pretty damn good list of college QBs. And while UGA has traditionally been a run heavy offense, during the Bobo years at least, we were also known for the play action passing game. It's not like the programs that I listed above are in the Big XII and every other play is a 60 yard pass completion...
quote:
I know our problem with A Murray was that he liked to spread the ball out so we never really had a true go to #1 WR who will get 70% of the looks
Look at the names on the roster and tell me who would have been that 70% guy? I'm fairly certain Murray didn't just spread it around because he wanted to, this was designed by necessity. Do you think the coaches and/or Murray would have spread the ball around with AJ still on the roster or an Amari Cooper?
Do I think it's the reason that we weren't able to break through? No... I've stated that opinion plenty and it's in line with Kirby... gotta win on the LOS. However, it's pretty odd when you really look at it compared to what you would expect with a program that had one of the top rated offenses in the SEC for much of the previous 14 years (2015 was an abomination, sort of like the Star Wars prequels) and above average to great quarterback play during that time span as well for all but the last 2 years.
Posted on 2/4/16 at 11:14 pm to fibonaccisquared
quote:
I wasn't really setting the bar at AJ Green, there just happens to be a pretty wide gap between him and the next closest receivers.
Yeah b/c AJ Green is a once in a decade type player and again, us and most schools aren't landing these guys very often. Sure you got Bama, but are they not the exception to the rule? Calvin Ridley did good, but when you have 89 receptions that can pad your stats a bit. CR avg only 11.7 yds a catch, while M Mitchell was at 14.9, but only 58 receptions. Godwin was 2nd of us with 39 catches. That is terrible, but we all know how good of talent Mitchel and Godwin are, even though looking at the stats wouldn't suggest it. Plus Bama's 2nd leading WR had 60 catches for 700 yards. So having a qb that can throw the ball and throw it down field can make your WR look better.
LSU has had some studs on the same team, OBJ and Landry, but what other studs have they landed? Harvin is just one guy for UF, and he was GREAT, but who were their other studs at WR? R Cooper?
quote:
That doesn't do anything to explain the previous 12.
2002 - T Edwards had over a 1,000 yards on 59 catches for a 17 yard avg. F Gibson had 758 yards for over a 17 yard avg. This team also had Reggie Brown and Benjamin Watson. So yeah this team was pretty stacked at WR now that I looked it up.
2003 - D Greene threw for over 3,000 yards and spread the ball around pretty good. Again a lot of the same players, so the talent at WR is there yet again. That year, 3 WR had over 35 receptions and B Watson had 20+.
2004 - It was the Gibson and Brown so that year at WR. Both had 800 yards and L Pope (TE) had almost 500. D Greene only threw for 2500 yards and those three guys were the only people on the team to catch more than 20 passes.
***Gibson was drafted in the 4th round, while Brown was drafted in the 2nd. B Watson was drafted in the 1st round. So the talent was there, but never really had 1 guy develop as the main target. L Pope was also drafted in the 3rd round
2005 - DJ only threw for 2500 yards, and 3 players had 500 yards or more with L Pope leading everyone. This was M Massaquoi's first year, who was another really good WR for UGA and a 2nd round pick.
2006 - Staffords freshman year, which also means it was the Joe T experiment too. Naturally the WR's didn't do good, but was it b/c of their lack of talent or lack of qb play?
2007 - S Baily lead the WR and Mass avg over 15 a catch.
**2006 and 2007 were probably the weakest our WR have been so far in Richt's career.
2008 - Going from weakest unit for WR's to being very strong by just adding the best WR in UGA history, AJ Green. Green has 963 yards while Massaquoi adds 920 himself. So yeah, is this that great duo you have been looking for? Both were just shy of a 1000 yards and both had 8 TDs.
*** If you compare this duo to Landry and OBJ, take into consideration that for LSU it was only those two. J Hill was the 3rd leading receiver for them at 18 and the 4th place dude only had 7. 3 guys for UGA had 11-13 catches, plus 2 other guys had around 30 catches. So if Stafford would of focused in more on AJ and Massaquoi, their numbers would of been equal to or even better (for AJ Green).
2009 - AJ Green, T King, and Orson Charles is a pretty solid group. King was a freshman but got drafted in the 5th and averaged almost 21 yards a catch that year. We had J Cox at qb, so the numbers weren't great.
2010 - A Murray's time to shine and he spread the ball out pretty well other than when he feed AJ Green (800+ yds), even then he only had 57 receptions which led the team. K Durham (659 yds) had 32, T King (504 yds) had 27, and Orson C (422 yds) had 26.
2011 - The perfect example Murray's willingness to spread it out.
T King, 47 rec and 705 yds
M Mitchell, 45 rec and 665 yds
O Charles, 45 rec and 574 yds
M Bennett, 32 rec and 320 yds
C Conley, 16 rec and 288 yds
M Brown, 15 rec and 234 yds
** King got drafted, Mitchell will get drafted, O Charles got drafted, Conley blue up at the combine and of course got drafted, M Brown got picked up and started some for the Ravens (still on team at end of season). M Bennett would of been in the NFL in some capacity if not for his injuries. He still may make a team or practice squad if he tries to keep going.
2012 - Mostly the same guys with Gurley, Rome and Lynch sprinkled in and K Marshall. He is the spread down on Murray: TWO players had 40 or so catches, FOUR players had 20-27 receptions, and on top of them, there were FIVE more players with 11-16 receptions.
2013 - TWO guys at 40+ catches, THREE guys at 30-37 receptions, and FIVE with 11-20 receptions.
----
So you see we have had plenty of talent at WR, but we just hardly ever feed it to 1 guy outside of AJ Green. Even then he never got over 57 receptions on the season. Look at those other guys you mentioned and how many receptions they get on the season.
Julio had 78 when he went off over 1,000 yards.
L Treadwell had 82 for 1,000+.
Calvin Johnson had 76 receptions when he did it too.
D Thomas went absolutely nuts when he grabed 1100+ on 46 receptions. WTF was going on with that? Never realized he killed it like this.
A Cooper had 124 receptions his SR year.
So we have had the talent drafted in the NFL and some are still in the NFL. We had some stud college WR while Green and DJ were here. Stafford probably had the weakest group by far, but starting as a true freshman really hindered the WR group from a statistical standpoint. Then J Cox for a year, then that lead to A Murray who spread the ball out and never just gave a guy 70+ catches.
So you see we have had the talent and had guys put the statistics to back it up in college. I think we may be focusing in on the post A Murray WR's and forgetting all the talent we really have had.
Posted on 2/5/16 at 12:02 am to DawgGONIT
WTL;DR - skimmed through it a bit
Overall, I think you're missing the point. If you read back, pretty much every guy you put there has been accounted for in our discussion. I'm not saying we had no one on the roster, but if you compare the talent level of those WRs to some of the other programs in the SEC that I mentioned, it's not the same no matter how you slice it. With high quality QB talent, you can still get by throwing to WRs that are less than stellar, you simply don't have WRs that just take over games.
Let's put it in "Madden" style rating terms, if I say AJ Green is a 99/100, where is the next best WR rated... 83? 85? That's a pretty wide gap... If you think there is someone who should be rated higher, feel free to make the case. I think Gibson and Edwards were both solid guys but not elite. Similarly, the other guys you referenced that were drafted were pretty much all late round pickups and while M. Brown manages to see the field for the Ravens as a spot deep threat, he was by no means a top receiver while at UGA.
A lot of the guys you referenced are TEs, and I don't deny we've had some pretty stellar TEs (Pope, Charles, Watson) but that doesn't equate to WR talent. If we open it up to TEs then you're bringing in Aaron Hernandez (among others) at UF in addition to a couple of WRs I left out in Jabar Gaffney, Louis Murphy, Dallas Baker, and sure Riley Cooper.
Again, it's a relative world, and UGA WR talent simply hasn't been where one might expect given the talent at the QB position for 12 of the last 15 years and a reasonably aggressive offense for the SEC. Were they serviceable? Sure. We had a pretty damn good run over the last 15 years, it's what made getting rid of Richt so difficult. But just look at some of the other rosters over this time span and the number of WRs that are still actively playing on NFL rosters. I only listed a few SEC schools, but FSU, Clemson, Miami all have a slew of WRs that not only excelled in college but have gone into the league during this time and are still performing (Sammy Watkins, Kelvin Benjamin, Deandre Hopkins...)
Overall, I think you're missing the point. If you read back, pretty much every guy you put there has been accounted for in our discussion. I'm not saying we had no one on the roster, but if you compare the talent level of those WRs to some of the other programs in the SEC that I mentioned, it's not the same no matter how you slice it. With high quality QB talent, you can still get by throwing to WRs that are less than stellar, you simply don't have WRs that just take over games.
quote:
Yeah b/c AJ Green is a once in a decade type player
Let's put it in "Madden" style rating terms, if I say AJ Green is a 99/100, where is the next best WR rated... 83? 85? That's a pretty wide gap... If you think there is someone who should be rated higher, feel free to make the case. I think Gibson and Edwards were both solid guys but not elite. Similarly, the other guys you referenced that were drafted were pretty much all late round pickups and while M. Brown manages to see the field for the Ravens as a spot deep threat, he was by no means a top receiver while at UGA.
A lot of the guys you referenced are TEs, and I don't deny we've had some pretty stellar TEs (Pope, Charles, Watson) but that doesn't equate to WR talent. If we open it up to TEs then you're bringing in Aaron Hernandez (among others) at UF in addition to a couple of WRs I left out in Jabar Gaffney, Louis Murphy, Dallas Baker, and sure Riley Cooper.
Again, it's a relative world, and UGA WR talent simply hasn't been where one might expect given the talent at the QB position for 12 of the last 15 years and a reasonably aggressive offense for the SEC. Were they serviceable? Sure. We had a pretty damn good run over the last 15 years, it's what made getting rid of Richt so difficult. But just look at some of the other rosters over this time span and the number of WRs that are still actively playing on NFL rosters. I only listed a few SEC schools, but FSU, Clemson, Miami all have a slew of WRs that not only excelled in college but have gone into the league during this time and are still performing (Sammy Watkins, Kelvin Benjamin, Deandre Hopkins...)
Posted on 2/5/16 at 8:21 am to Porter Osborne Jr
quote:
Bama Adams
Was he that QB out of Charlton County? Think I saw him play in the Georgia Dome that year during the playoffs.
Page 2 of 2
Latest Georgia News
Back to top
Follow SECRant for SEC Football News