It really is college football season now, after this past weekend. A lot of things happened, kind of fast. Hundreds of thousands of fans around the country suffered as their teams lost their first game.
Munson remarked that lots of us thought our speed would be unchallenged by most opponents after our performance in the first game. But SC had the speed to match us and a kicker who looked like he could do just about anything he wanted.
Munson’s first comment to Richt – how do you get the guys ready to play a small school. Richt says everyone is stinging enough to where each man has to look at his responsibilities. CMR met with each coach today to make sure he’s taking care of his segment. If everyone fixes their problems, we’ll be ready to play.
Steven in Ringgold opened up tonite and said he trusts what the coaches are doing. CMR says we’re young in spots and experienced in others. In the first game it looked like we’d done a nice job of preparing. In game two we found more chinks in the armor. A lot of guys weren’t quite ready for the pace of the game. When you have no experience to draw from you have to live through it. We put the young men in position to make plays but we didn’t make enough of them to win. We’ll get better. CMR knows we’re doing the right things as coaches and players. It’s just a matter of making the right play when it presents itself.
Eric in Augusta (first time caller - had his radio on) expects a higher caliber of play from the WR corps. Richt thinks we’ve signed enough players that are considered a high caliber. CMR doesn’t know why we don’t always seem to make those plays. When we don’t make them at the moment of truth those are the ones people remember. He pointed out a couple of drops SC WRs had that cost them first downs during the game. There were also opportunities for Stafford to hit open targets. And we have to provide space and time for Stafford to hit them.
John in Valdosta wondered why we threw into the end zone a couple of times before kicking our last FG when we had run the ball well coming down the field. Richt said we have to go with what we thought would work. We were protecting better in the second half, and we had one play where if the WR had held on we would’ve scored and everyone would think it was a great call. When you execute everyone is happy and when it doesn’t everyone wonders why you didn’t try something else.
Marlos in Dallas, TX wonders if the coaching staff has a killer instinct. He disappeared and Munson wondered about phone problems. Richt said we’ve won the most games in the SEC in the last five years and have won as many SEC titles as anyone else.
Travis (SC fan) thought we did a good job .. Richt said they did a good job and deserved to win.
Howsey in Athens worries about Stafford sometimes putting too much on the ball or overthrowing it, and notes the senior RBs (Lump and Brown) are stout, muscular guys while Moreno is more lean. Richt said first that accuracy is the most important trait for the QB. If he can run like a deer then you can run a different offense. But we do have to be more accurate on a consistent basis.
As for the TBs., you could get too muscular and heavy for benefit but that hasn’t mattered for them. Moreno is just a different type back. If you run the ball in college, especially the SEC, you’re going to get whacked a bunch.
Paul in Centre, AL wondered about the timeout we called on our final possession when we were a yard short. Also, how will our young team rebound?
Richt said we hate to use a timeout at that point, but if we’re unsure about a situation it is better to do so. We had to use a timeout on defense to regroup when they got some things going. CMR has given Martinez permission to call time in such a situation.
CMR does think the team will regroup. This week is the beginning of us starting to feel good about ourselves. Football is no fun unless you win. While everyone else is still trying to figure out what happened, we’re back at work.
Scott in Grayson hopes we’ll find Moreno or Brown or whomever is hot and just ride them. But about the defense .. used to be our defense made key plays in key situations. What will it take to develop playmakers for when we need to get the ball back in the fourth quarter? CMR said he chose to kick the FG with 4:50 left. Do you take the FG, play defense, and hope to get the ball back and have a chance? The defense eventually got the ball back but we would have liked a 3 & out. We did get the ball back with enough time to win and got the ball to around midfield with about 50 sec. or so. It wasn’t what we wanted but it was better than last year. The more pressure we put on an opponent’s offense by scoring offense, the better chance we have of making something happen.
Pete in Vidalia had a question about Stafford’s natural ability. CMR says that is as good as anyone he’s coached. CMR wants him to be on balance more than he is. You can be on balance more when there is space. No offensive line protects beautifully every time. He has a gift of being able to throw well when off balance, but we want him to follow through more often. He’ll tell you as much as anybody he missed some shots this last game. Sometimes you only have to make an ordinary play at a spectacular time to be successful.
Mitchell in Jax had another question about Stafford’s accuracy. Sometimes a pass seems to miss by 2-3 yds. Why? CMR: this game, WRs were mostly running proper routes. A couple of times Stafford was under duress and that could have contributed. Veteran QBs are good at looking off defenders. On the pass to Moreno Stafford had looked off the safety. But maybe he looked off so long he couldn’t put it on the money to Moreno.
Kelin Johnson’s ribs took a pretty good shot in the game. CMR considers him questionable this week. He did not practice today and won’t tomorrow.
Bob in Augusta thought they guys came out a little flat. It is obvious we’re going in the right direction but our recent record vs. SEC East teams is of concern. CMR knows we’ve lost five in a row in the division. There is an urgency in SEC games. CMR wishes we were playing someone in the East this week but we don’t for a few weeks. As soon as we get back into conference play he will talk about it. Everyone wants to turn the clock forward to SEC games but we have a game this week.
Ross in Macon asked how we might compare to
Florida or
LSU. CMR thinks we could still get to the SEC title game. Look what SC has left – the rest of the East plus LSU. They have plenty of ball to play. We all do. CMR does not think anyone will win the East undefeated.
Bryan in Snellville doesn’t think Stafford carries out fakes like Greene or Shockley. CMR thinks his ball fakes are not bad. Greene and Shock had their whole careers to get good at it. When a team blitzes, the RB has a responsibility to pick up a blitz in addition to carrying out a play fake.
As for the defense being on their heels, there were times we swallowed them up pretty good. We caused 3 fumbles but couldn’t recover any of them. But on their last drive we were on our heels for a few plays.
Kathy in Winder (Football 101 alum) thought our running game was having success at times, then instead of trying to throw, why didn’t we put Southerland in and try to pound it in? CMR reviewed a drive on computer during a break, noted the mix of plays, then got to the 12 or 13. We hit Mike Moore on a seam route last week for a TD; we tried to fake that route and run the corner route and just missed it. Then we jumped offsides, then missed one to Tripp Chandler in the middle which would’ve been 8 yds., then the one to Tony Wilson he couldn’t hold on to.
Quinn in Elberton also asked about Southerland. CMR thinks we should’ve given him the ball more in close. We had some stuff for him but just didn’t call it.
Fred in Cumming thinks whomever asked about killer instinct didn’t see the SEC title game two years ago or the Chick-fil-a Bowl last year. But what about the nickel defense? CMR said lots of times you want to match up personnel. When they have 3-4 WRs in the game you want guys on the field who can run with them.
Closing remark from Richt: If guys don’t want to play this week we’ll find someone who wants to.
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