-After his huge fumble in Carolina's stadium, Washaun Ealey needs to watch "The Program" 100 times this week. I mean really- can you think of any worse punishment?
-After the 1st series where Ealey ran well, I can't remember another run of more than 5 yards the whole game. I thought our O line was supposed to be good this year? They sure weren't good today.
-Schematically the D seemed much better, but many of the same players still cannot tackle. Yes Lattimore is a special back, but our poor tackling made him look even better.
-AJ may have made the difference today, may not have. It's a moot point and not worth discussing, so just move on.
-As disappointing as today was, do not forget that a bad 1st game performance does not equate to a bad year. Look no further than last year's Oregon team, and take a deep breath.
-There's lots to improve on, and Murray already looks better after 1 road game than Joe Cox ever did in 5 years. There is still reason to be optimistic that we can have a good year, and I actually feel better about our chances this season at 1-1 than I did before I saw Murray play.
-Have pride. Don't be an annoying whiner. Give this team your full support; they deserve it. Go Dawgs.
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1 comment:
This was a pretty strange game. If you had told me before the game that Murray would complete 67% of his passes for 192 yards and no picks, I would have been pretty happy, and probably would have expected to win. I was really impressed with his play. As you mentioned, at such an early stage in his career, he's already an improvement over Joe Cox, and it would have been nice if Richt/Bobo had allowed him to throw more in the 1st half.
I'm afraid to say that our Offensive Line doesn't appear to be nearly as good as advertised. For a unit that was picked to be one of the best in the nation, they struggled to open up many holes for Ealey. Some of this may have been due to fact that SC often packed the box in an effort to stop the run, but you would expect a dominant OLine to get more of a push than it did.
In my opinion, we currently lack an offensive identity. When we we had our backs against the wall and needed to put together a sustained drive, we seemed unsure of whether to lean on the run or the pass. After the Tech game last year, I was damn near certain that with all of our backs and OLineman returning, we would be a power running team. It's still early, but that doesn't appear to be the case. I'm hopeful that our identity will eventually be that we rely on Murray to win games for us -- I think he will be that good -- but it's still a bit early to rely on him. Our only hope for the immediate future is that the OLine gels after spending more time practicing together, that Murray grows into a playmaker as the coaching staff continues to give him more responsibility, and that A.J. gets back soon so that we have a player that can bail us out when we desperately need a play.
As for the Defense, I agree with what many others have said. I'm encouraged by the fact that our players were in better positions to make plays than they were under Willie Martinez's defense last year, but it's frustrating to see us continue to miss so many tackles. Lattimore is certainly a stud, but one would think that after watching him break tackle after tackle we would have eventually found a way to get him down at first contact.
One area where we have definitely improved from last year is in the pass rush. As the game progressed, we got better and better at putting pressure on Garcia, and sacking the QB 5 times in 22 drop backs is quite impressive.
My apologies for the dissertation.
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