The unavoidable question: What If?

Russ at work (Image: Hipple)

So that was a bit unexpected huh? Raise your hand if you thought our tailbacks would rush for 340+ yards and average 9.2 yards per carry. I'm thrilled for the seniors and the entire team to get the stink of losing to Tech off them.

A game like that makes you ask yourself..."What if?" What if we had ran the ball like that all year? What if we had played defense like that all season? What if we don't turn the ball over +17 times on the season? What if we could've made it through 10 of our games with 5 or fewer penalties like we did Saturday?

Some of those are legit questions. Some aren't completely fair. It's important to remember:

• Caleb King and Washaun Ealey - King and Ealey missed almost the entire Fall camp due to injuries. King didn't return until Week 3, and he broke his jaw against LSU in Week 5. Ealey didn't debut until Week 5 from his injuries and lost practice time. Maybe Ealey could've arrived a week earlier, but he was legitimately behind. Our top running backs from the first two games haven't gotten a carry since Tennessee Tech.
  
  
• The Offensive Line - Josh Davis is a guy that I had little optimism for when he was signed. I believe it was one his HS coaches that disparaged the kid's upside so that wasn't a good sign. The past few weeks, he's played really well and shored up the revolving door at one of the tackle positions since Sturdivant went down. However, he's not the only reason the OL looked so much better. In the early season, the running backs couldn't find a 10 foot wide cut-back lane with the help of Garmin, Mapquest and Sacajawea. The vision, patience and aggressiveness was a total mess. The OL looked better versus GT because they are playing better, yes. But also because their holes weren't missed.
  
  
• Offensive Play Calling - This has been a puzzler for most of the year. As Blutarsky has said many times this year, we faced a crisis of confidence as a program. The play calling suggested that Richt and Bobo didn't believe our kids could make certain plays. In fairness, I didn't either. And the stats suggested that maybe we couldn't. But here's a stat to put your head around (borrowed and enhanced from a commenter on DawgPost.com)...We averaged 27.7 points per game this season. That's with a kid at QB whose only other scholarship offer was Duke. A kid that wouldn't be starting at Duke now. Yet, Bobo's guys in '09 averaged more points than the 2003 unit that won the SEC East and within 0.2 points from our loaded 2004 squad. It's possible that Bobo doesn't need to be run off...he needs a damn hug for working a miracle with the talent gap at QB, late blooming RBs and inconsistent OL. As for the turnovers, I point back towards the early season issues at Running Back as the QB situation.
  
  
• The Defense - John Wooden said that there's no such thing as "overachieving." If you do something, that's the level for which you can consistently achieve. In other words, it's physically impossible to do more than you can do. What we saw on Saturday defensively was what the UGA defense can do. It's what the UGA defense should've done all year. The DTs played to their ability. The LBs took the violence to the ball carriers instead of absorbing collisions, and Reshad Jones continued what was quietly a nice season. I realize Justin Houston didn't arrive until the Arkansas game, but that doesn't explain all the issues at DL this season. It doesn't explain why Rambo sat while Evans struggled, and it doesn't explain why so much talent took so long to come together. That's the reason Richt is off soul searching right now. And answering that question of himself and his coaches is the key to the future of the program.

Overall, it was an awesome effort, and I was proud of the kids. They looked like they had a great time. I know I enjoyed watching them.

PWD