How Do We Match Up Against UGA?

bamaslammer

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I agree Georgia is well capable of beating Alabama. My only observation to add is that they haven't played anybody worth a crap since mid season. It's a little hard to get a read on a team playing cupcakes every week. It could mean they are a great team that isn't really even trying hard because of the competition or it could mean they look better than the really are because of the competition.

We will know the answer Saturday night.
 

TalisiTide

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Dec 7, 2011
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Haven't read through the entire thread, so this may have been mentioned already, but I wonder how the game might be affected by what, for lack of a better term, I would call the "mental state" of the two teams. I can see how Georgia might have the "how badly do we want it?" edge, not to the extent that we did in 2009 but to the extent that they may have an anticipation of the game that we might not have. I would imagine that the "don't let them take what we have" message has been sent pretty clearly by the coaches this week. On the other hand, I think we have the edge when it comes to the enormity of the game. Certainly Georgia has been in big games and has the experience of being here last year. But they never have experienced what we did in 2008, being up in the 4th quarter with a trip to the BCSNCG on the line. I have always felt that the performance of our players, and of our coaches for that matter, was affected by the magnitude of the moment in that 4th quarter. With two teams that are seemingly so evenly matched, could "mindset" be a factor in the outcome?
 

rgw

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I'm not dueling with anyone. I respect everyone's opinion. I think Alabama is going to need vast improvement in some areas to win, I like UGA in this game, but I don't think it is hopeless.

One positive is that UGA isn't one of those opponents that tries to reinvent their offense each week. That means that tape study will tell us a lot about Georgia instead of it seemingly getting thrown out the window after the first quarter. Georgia is going to do the same things they've been doing well since Richt arrived in 2001. Hopefully this will allow Saban to have the players almost inside Murray's head.
 

BamaMoon

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We've played four teams that had legitimate running qbs (James Franklin was hurt when we played them):

Denard Robinson
Bo Wallace
Johnny Football
Johnathon Wallace

Against the traditional drop back qb:

Against AK, we got good pressure on the qb (going off of memory)

Against UT, if my memory serves correctly we got decent pressure on Bray and even sacked him a few times.

Against LSU someone mentioned (I think in another thread) that LSU kept their tight ends in blocking more to give Mett more protection. We got decent pressure but we all know the career day he had of laser point passing.

Don't know if it's much of a point, but against legitimate running qbs we've been in more controlled rush mode and against more traditional qbs we've seen decent pressure applied.

I guess the point is that we should be able to get more exotic with our blitzes in this game than what we've needed to show up to this point in the season.
 

selmaborntidefan

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For all the hub bub, GA's defense did not get better in November; they simply played weaker teams. Just look:

WHEN GA WAS BAD
Tennessee (23rd rank offense, 44 points)
South Carolina (24th, 37 points)
Missouri (44th, 20 points, led GA in third qtr)

WHEN GA SUDDENLY GOT GOOD
Kentucky (48th, but gave up 24 points to a team that scores 17 pg)
Florida (76th, 9 points)
Ga Southern (FCS team)
Auburn (116th)
Ga Tech (24th; however, their stats are skewed because Tech scored 50-plus points against Presbyterian and VA plus 68 on North Carolina). This is like Texas having the number 2 rush defense - it was because Big 12 doesn't run.

Alabama got worse because it played the number four offense (scoring 44 ppg, got 29) and LSU had a great game. Should I mention LSU had an off week while Bama prepped for an unbeaten MSU? Or that Yeldon's fumble stopped a blowout?

The fact is that worse offenses than Alabama have scored points on UGA. And UGA faced two similar defenses and got a TOTAL of 24 points in 8 quarters.

Are we vulnerable to the pass? Perhaps. But if they can't stop our run it don't mean jack. Keep in mind that despite SIX Florida turnovers, UGA only won by a TD.

Alabama 24
Georgia 14
 

92tide

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For all the hub bub, GA's defense did not get better in November; they simply played weaker teams. Just look:

WHEN GA WAS BAD
Tennessee (23rd rank offense, 44 points)
South Carolina (24th, 37 points)
Missouri (44th, 20 points, led GA in third qtr)

WHEN GA SUDDENLY GOT GOOD
Kentucky (48th, but gave up 24 points to a team that scores 17 pg)
Florida (76th, 9 points)
Ga Southern (FCS team)
Auburn (116th)
Ga Tech (24th; however, their stats are skewed because Tech scored 50-plus points against Presbyterian and VA plus 68 on North Carolina). This is like Texas having the number 2 rush defense - it was because Big 12 doesn't run.

Alabama got worse because it played the number four offense (scoring 44 ppg, got 29) and LSU had a great game. Should I mention LSU had an off week while Bama prepped for an unbeaten MSU? Or that Yeldon's fumble stopped a blowout?

The fact is that worse offenses than Alabama have scored points on UGA. And UGA faced two similar defenses and got a TOTAL of 24 points in 8 quarters.

Are we vulnerable to the pass? Perhaps. But if they can't stop our run it don't mean jack. Keep in mind that despite SIX Florida turnovers, UGA only won by a TD.

Alabama 24
Georgia 14
no no you have it all wrong, georgia is peaking. and they have an nfl caliber defense. i know this because i read it in the ajc
 

Im_on_dsp

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We've played four teams that had legitimate running qbs (James Franklin was hurt when we played them):

Denard Robinson
Bo Wallace
Johnny Football
Johnathon Wallace

Against the traditional drop back qb:

Against AK, we got good pressure on the qb (going off of memory)

Against UT, if my memory serves correctly we got decent pressure on Bray and even sacked him a few times.

Against LSU someone mentioned (I think in another thread) that LSU kept their tight ends in blocking more to give Mett more protection. We got decent pressure but we all know the career day he had of laser point passing.

Don't know if it's much of a point, but against legitimate running qbs we've been in more controlled rush mode and against more traditional qbs we've seen decent pressure applied.

I guess the point is that we should be able to get more exotic with our blitzes in this game than what we've needed to show up to this point in the season.
Murray is Not Johnny Football. We would have sacked JF a number of times in that game if he wasn't so dadgum slippery. He's Houdini in a football uniform. All it's going to take on Murray is one really hard sack and he'll be toast. When he's under pressure he still tries to make that hero throw and many times ends up throwing a pick. A few well-timed blitzes will go a long way in this game.
 

rgw

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Murray won't create the issues Manziel did with his feet and I don't feel like Georgia uses the bootleg/sprint-out action as much as some SEC teams either. They use bootlegs like any traditional offense, but my feel from watching them is that most of their play actions are inside handoffs where Murray turns his back to the defense to disguise the ball. This is opposed to our offense where half or more of our play actions seem to be stretch handoffs where McCarron either resets in the pocket or bootlegs.

Point being: the place for the rushers to target isn't going to change as much as LSU's offense where they uses a good deal of stretch/off-tackle fakes with a reset/bootleg or TAMU's offense which had the advantage of a quarterback with shiftiness in the pocket area. Murray does an excellent job of faking those inside handoffs though so awareness of whether the ball is in the back's hands or not is key. The most similar offense when we actually got their generally best personnel was Tennessee. Arkansas' offense is really more of a pass-heavy version of our own. I think we handled Tennessee's attack pretty well overall. Not very many sacks to speak for on Bray but consistent pressure that caused sailing throws. Georgia has better backs than Tennessee, so their balance is a little better but I think our personnel is better built to handle this offense than TAMU.

My feeling is that they aren't going to win this game with the run game, so it will come down to stopping early down runs like we normally do and have awareness for "schedule" passing on first and second down to give them convertible 3rd downs. Against TAMU and LSU, we struggled in 3rd and long situations though. That must improve because I genuinely believe that Georgia will be in a lot of them Saturday...it's just a matter of playing well up front and in the secondary.
 

TideEngineer08

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For all the hub bub, GA's defense did not get better in November; they simply played weaker teams. Just look:

WHEN GA WAS BAD
Tennessee (23rd rank offense, 44 points)
South Carolina (24th, 37 points)
Missouri (44th, 20 points, led GA in third qtr)

WHEN GA SUDDENLY GOT GOOD
Kentucky (48th, but gave up 24 points to a team that scores 17 pg)
Florida (76th, 9 points)
Ga Southern (FCS team)
Auburn (116th)
Ga Tech (24th; however, their stats are skewed because Tech scored 50-plus points against Presbyterian and VA plus 68 on North Carolina). This is like Texas having the number 2 rush defense - it was because Big 12 doesn't run.

Alabama got worse because it played the number four offense (scoring 44 ppg, got 29) and LSU had a great game. Should I mention LSU had an off week while Bama prepped for an unbeaten MSU? Or that Yeldon's fumble stopped a blowout?

The fact is that worse offenses than Alabama have scored points on UGA. And UGA faced two similar defenses and got a TOTAL of 24 points in 8 quarters.

Are we vulnerable to the pass? Perhaps. But if they can't stop our run it don't mean jack. Keep in mind that despite SIX Florida turnovers, UGA only won by a TD.

Alabama 24
Georgia 14
I'm not worried about our defense. I'm worried about our offense. It baffles me that we struggled on offense against A&M, not that our defense gave up what it did. A&M's defense was not highly ranked in anything, if I'm not mistaken. Yet we struggled mightily on 3rd down in that game, not to mention the turnovers.

It seems like the injuries really targeted the offense this season and I have no doubt that has plenty to do with it looking out of sorts for long stretches in the LSU and A&M games.

All in all, I think we're a better team than Georgia. I also think we're in a better place mentally than they are. Their players seem to be trying to convince themselves that they're not afraid of big bad BAMA. I haven't heard much of a peep out of our guys. I like that. A lot.
 

92tide

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This may have already been said, so forgive me that I didn't read every post in the thread. But if you look back to 2008, Bama has lost to Florida, Utah, South Carolina, LSU, Auburn, LSU, and A&M. If I am not mistaken, all of those loses but one--South Carolina--involved a funky offense with a run-threat QB. South Carolina involved a QB who played the game of his life.

So yeah, I think we are in good shape based on past performance.
in that same time period, jawjuh is something like 7-15 against ranked teams
 

selmaborntidefan

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But aTm came right after the emotionally exhausting LSU game. We got 24 points and had first and goal to win - despite three turnovers. Not overly worried.
 

92tide

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I'm not worried about our defense. I'm worried about our offense. It baffles me that we struggled on offense against A&M, not that our defense gave up what it did. A&M's defense was not highly ranked in anything, if I'm not mistaken. Yet we struggled mightily on 3rd down in that game, not to mention the turnovers.

It seems like the injuries really targeted the offense this season and I have no doubt that has plenty to do with it looking out of sorts for long stretches in the LSU and A&M games.

All in all, I think we're a better team than Georgia. I also think we're in a better place mentally than they are. Their players seem to be trying to convince themselves that they're not afraid of big bad BAMA. I haven't heard much of a peep out of our guys. I like that. A lot.
i think t a&m was just a weird game all around for us. we had 430 yards of offense in that game (our season average and out gaining t a&m) but we could not execute when we needed (bad fumble, weird play calling and interception late)
 

BamaMoon

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Murray is Not Johnny Football. We would have sacked JF a number of times in that game if he wasn't so dadgum slippery. He's Houdini in a football uniform. All it's going to take on Murray is one really hard sack and he'll be toast. When he's under pressure he still tries to make that hero throw and many times ends up throwing a pick. A few well-timed blitzes will go a long way in this game.
I wasn't suggesting that Murray is like JF...actually I was contrasting having to defend "running/scrambling" qbs vs. the more traditional dropback passer like Murray.

And the point is we ought to be able to be a lot more aggressive with our pressure since there isn't the fear he'll break off a huge run like JF, Robinson, Wallace etc. could.

rgw also makes a great point that may work in our advantage too. While Murray is excellent with his pa fake, when he does this he's relying on sitting in the pocket for a moment to sell it with his back to the defense. This ought to help us be able to be a little more aggressive with blitzes knowing that he's going to be in middle of the pocket most of the time.
 

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