Kirby Smart vs the Spread

snake plissken

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Apr 13, 2011
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Kirby Smart's defense was never that strong against the spread while at Bama. I believe that is the reason AU was able to expose Georgia on Saturday. With Pruitt calling the plays in 2 weeks, Bama should be a lot stronger shutting down their offense.
 

JustNeedMe81

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Sep 30, 2011
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You said the last two weeks.... LSU- Threw 155 yards and rushed 151 yards.. MSU.. Threw 158 yards and rushed 172... That's decent.... Now if you are talking about the run defense... Then yes.. I can see what you're saying, but that is not Pruitt's fault. This is more on Players than the coaches. MSU we gave up yardages because of poor plays by LB and Secondary. Kirby.. Lot of time he called lot of questionable plays on defense on 3rd downs...
 

JustNeedMe81

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I read it as though he was referring to our trouble getting off the field on third downs. I believe CNS brought that up as well (after the MSU game anyway).
Now, I understood what you meant. That's different situation. Smart had trouble getting players off on 3rd down time tot ime because of what he called during the game.
Pruitt is calling plays to where we've should've got off the field on 3rd downs, but we had dumb calls, players missing assignements... etc. We had plenty of chances.. Blame it on Hootie, Keith, and Tony.
 

RammerJammer14

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Aug 18, 2007
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Smart was never that great against spread teams such as Ole miss, Ohio State, Clemson, etc. Part of that was his inability to adjust on 3rd downs.
Soooo, what you are saying is, Kirby had more difficulty shutting down some of the best offensive teams in college football than he did shutting down teams like Virginia Tech...
 

B1GTide

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Apr 13, 2012
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The MSU game is really the only game in the last two years where you had this problem. The Smart defenses were terrible on 3rd and long the entire time he was your DC. Pruitt's blitz packages have changed that in a big way.
 

Snuffy Smith

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Sep 12, 2012
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Looking back at LSU we were not as bad as I had thought. They had 11 3rd down plays of 5+ yards and were 4/11. 3 sacks, 3,incompletions & 1 rushing play that failed to gain. I guess the reason it seemed bad at the time is because the 4 they picked up were 3rd & 9 - 31 yard pass, 3rd & 5 - 21 yard pass, 3rd & 8 - 23 yard pass, 3rd & 5 - 16 yard pass. They just got big yards on the 4 they picked up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

BamaInBham

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Feb 14, 2007
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The MSU game is really the only game in the last two years where you had this problem. The Smart defenses were terrible on 3rd and long the entire time he was your DC. Pruitt's blitz packages have changed that in a big way.
Smart would blitz some, which by nature I was happy to see, but they rarely "got there". And it was easy to tell when and from where it was coming. This was so bad, that even we aggressive types wanted him to stop because the opposing team would easily take advantage of vacated areas. The '14 Ark game was the most maddening.
 

TrampLineman

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That was my only knock on Kirby, he couldn't stop a spread offense for some reason. I'm thinking he overthinks what he is doing, Pruitt has been much better against those teams until this week and I'm not so worried. Yes we looked like crap against MSU but the LB's were playing in their first game without our big dogs so to speak and no depth what so ever. I think by the time we head to the cow pasture the LB's will have more time played and will be better.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Kirby Smart's defense was never that strong against the spread while at Bama. I believe that is the reason AU was able to expose Georgia on Saturday. With Pruitt calling the plays in 2 weeks, Bama should be a lot stronger shutting down their offense.

Really?

I may be not recalling correctly here, but I'm pretty sure Auburn and Florida both ran the spread in 2009, and Smart beat both teams in back to back weeks.


UGA loses a game and all of a sudden the narrative shifts to "well, he was never that good in the first place and X was always his vulnerability."


Georgia had a whopping 230 TOTAL YARDS on offense. That has nothing at all to do with Smart's defense.

Georgia made stupid penalties. Georgia was 3 of 14 on third down. Georgia had a turnover, Auburn didn't. And Kerryon Johnson ran over, through, and around the Dawg defense, too.


In 2009, Florida only rushed for 88 yards (although they had over 300 yards total offense in what was basically a blowout loss).


Auburn won - once again - because they did what teams that win games usually do: they ran the ball (237 yards - Auburn had more rushing yards than UGA had total yards), they stopped the run (46 yards rushing for UGA), and they won the turnover battle (1-0).

Those three things right there will win 98% of football games unless your team gets flagged for substantially more penalty yardage than the opponent.



Look, Auburn was clearly better than UGA on Saturday. Both teams made mistakes early - Auburn overcame theirs and UGA didn't.

But let's not start pushing the "Kirby was never good against X" narrative because at this point that's as ridiculous as the "UGA is number one because they beat a good Notre Dame" narrative.
 

crimsonaudio

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Sep 9, 2002
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But let's not start pushing the "Kirby was never good against X" narrative because at this point that's as ridiculous as the "UGA is number one because they beat a good Notre Dame" narrative.
I've not gone back to look at the specific game numbers (yet, not sure I will), but I do recall the defenses under Kirby struggling against good spread-options teams. So far, based on his time here and at UGA and FSU, Pruitt seems to be better at shutting those defenses down. No one is perfect, they each have strengths and weaknesses, and there's zero question CKS is a fantastic defensive mind. I just think that Pruitt is better suited to face these modern option offenses - he seems to keep them on their heals more.
 

RTR91

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Nov 23, 2007
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The MSU game is really the only game in the last two years where you had this problem. The Smart defenses were terrible on 3rd and long the entire time he was your DC. Pruitt's blitz packages have changed that in a big way.
The term "third and Kirby" exists for a reason.
I've not gone back to look at the specific game numbers (yet, not sure I will), but I do recall the defenses under Kirby struggling against good spread-options teams. So far, based on his time here and at UGA and FSU, Pruitt seems to be better at shutting those defenses down. No one is perfect, they each have strengths and weaknesses, and there's zero question CKS is a fantastic defensive mind. I just think that Pruitt is better suited to face these modern option offenses - he seems to keep them on their heals more.
The numbers may or may not prove it, but the perception is just as you mention.
 

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