The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Damn, Damn, Damn. A few quick hits....

THE GOOD
- Aaron Murray is a stud - he is far from being the reason we lost. Playing in a tough environment, the R-Fr showed plenty of poise and great accuracy.
- Justin Houston - Enjoy this season, Dawg fans - it will be his final season in Athens.
-The defensive scheme seemed good - much better than last year when the opposing receivers were WIDE open. At least our players were in place to make the tackle. See THE BAD section for more on this.
- The Tech-Geeks lost to Kansas, who lost 6-3 to North Dakota State University last week.

THE BAD
- While the scheme appeared solid, the defensive players leaving their feet and launching their shoulders into offensive players is gonna drive me crazy. What happened to wrapping up the ballcarrier?
- Our O-Line - I don't care about the experience we have returning. I don't want to hear about injuries and how we need time to gel as a unit. We only get 12 games - we need to play good in the 1st 6 games as well as the final 6. The fact remains that we don't open up any holes for our RB's. For all "the experience" we have up front, I don't think we have much talent.

THE UGLY
- Ealey's fumble was huge. Big momentum killer following the SC fumble.
- Our safety play was a huge disappointment. I was expecting bigger plays from Rambo and The Hitman. Those guys fell backwards on way too many of their tackles. Maybe that is my fault for expecting so much after drinking the kool-aid all summer long.

FIND-A-WAY

There are enough articles out there complaining about (1) The unfair punishment that AJ received from the NCAA, (2) The bad decision that AJ made and how could he put the team in this predicament, or (3) the Chicken Little "Sky is Falling" people that say we are going to lose at least 2 out of the next 3 games without AJ.

Here's a few other ways to look at today's crappy news...

1. Aaron Murray is the real deal. He will have his coming out party over the next few weeks. There is a reason every school in the country wanted him. It would be easier with AJ on the field, but this kid can play. He does not have to win games for us, but he has the ability to make the play. And, from all reports, he has "it", whatever that means.
2. We are going to grow up fast as an offense without AJ out there. While it is true that AJ is the Playmaker on this team and the best WR in the country, we are not lacking for talent on the offensive side of the ball. Tavarres King showed signs last year and has supposedly taken the next step. Kris Durham is a solid option. Marlon Brown made an appearance last week and was almost as highly recruited as AJ. Everybody wanted Wooten-da-BallCarrier on their team when he signed 2 years ago. We have Ealey coming back this weekend. Carlton Thomas looked great last week (I kinda liked him better than King last week, especially if our line is not opening holes and the RB has to make something happen on his own). Orson Charles and the TE's get a bigger role in the offense now. I'm not saying AJ's production will be easily replaced, but we don't lack for weapons.
3. Bobo almost has to do what we did against Tech. We have a red-shirt FR QB that is missing his security blanket in #8. We have a stable of RB's in King, Ealey, and Thomas to go along with 2 great Fullbacks and a ridiculously deep set of TE's. Let's line up, pound the ball and keep it simple. And then run some play-action to TK to stretch the field.
4. Todd Grantham HAS to show up with a great defense without any holes. Something tells me that Grantham will enjoy having his back against the wall in a bunker mentality. I think he will thrive in this type of situation. We can not afford to get into shootouts looking for quick scores without the best player on the field for either team. We need some ugly wins - and playing great D is the key to that. We can not give up the quick score too often and Grantham knows this. The good news is I think we have the right guy running the defense to count on this to happen again. It's gonna be like the BVG days all over again. Unlike the last 5 years, we don't have to score 35 to have a chance.
5. AJ will be healthy for what will hopefully be the key stretch run vs. Kentucky, Florida, Auburn, the Tech-geeks and the GA Dome. We have never seen a healthy AJ Green at the end of the season vs. those opponents. If we can find a way to get through this suspension without a loss, we will be tough to beat with a beefed up lineup that returns AJ Green.