What to Look For

[Zodiac]

Another Saturday, hopefully this one yields better fruit than the last one. UGA is going up against a vaunted South Carolina team that boasts one of the best Defensive Line and Offensive units in college football. So as you can imagine it will be a tought matchup for UGA with a lot on the line.

As I mentioned before USCe DLine is among one of the best in CFB. You may think I am going to talk about former top recruit Jadaevon Clowney. I'm not, I'm going to talk about the monster named Devin Taylor, he's the guy that lines up on the opposite side of Clowney, and he doesn't only sack your QB, he knocks down a lot of passes, the guy is 6'6 and has large lanky arms which he can get up at the LoS in a hurry, and more times then not if theres a pass within the vicinity of him he's going to knock it down, this presents a rather unique problem for Murray, not only does he have to worry about shifting the protection schemes and avoiding pressure, he's going to have to find a way to get the ball around this guy. However Taylor just isn't a knockdown machine he's a future first round pick, and there's a reason for that, the kid has a great first step and a motor that never quits, since he has learned to play a bit lower he has been dominating OTs, he had 7 sacks last year in his first year starting, Glenn has to contain this guy, if he doesn't Murray won't be in the pocket for very long.

Stephen Garcia; yes Stephen Garcia is a key, just look no further then last week as to how anemic the South Carolina O was without him on the field, and how quickly they turned around when he did take the field. Garcia is erratic though, much like Brett Farve, if you can get him outside the pocket and pressured there's a good chance he'll try to throw back across his body or into double or even triple coverage, but if you let this kid stay in the pocket I don't care if you have Asomugha in your backfield he'll pick you apart one way or the other. Not only can he pick you apart in the pocket he's a lot like Murray in the fact that if he sees an opening and no one is open he'll take off and scramble for a first down, UGA has to find a way to keep him off the field and pressured when on, or esle with weapons like Alshon Jeffery at his disposal he'll destroy UGA's secondary.

You remember that guy who looked like an NFL player going against Pop Warner kids last year in this matchup? That was a man known as Marcus Lattimore, and outside of the now departed Akeem Dent, no one could tackle him one on one last year. UGA has got to stuff him, and they showed they can stuff RBs last week by holding Doug Martin to around 2 YPC on about 20 Carries, I don't expect them to hold Lattimore to 2, but if they could hold him to around 3.5 YPC I would consider that a win for UGA's front 7. Taking away USCe's running game is also taking away their PA game, and with a reciever like Jeffery the last thing you want is your safeties biting up on a PA play while Jefffery goes over the top and takes one to the house. Stopping the run is paramount for UGA.

Bring out the Big Guns; Bobo has got to stop with the conserative and insane (Einstein Definition) playcalling. If no one is open he has to let Murray take off and run with it, instead of asking him to force a ball into coverage. Furthermore instead of running it in a 4 wide Shotgun let Murray go downfield with the ball, when you have a man like Marlon Brown who finally decided to show up and play and a TE that is a matchup nightmare for any team in Charles you have to let the kid go have some fun, he's got all these toys it's time to stop grounding him, and instead it's time to start letting him play with them.

If it wasn't obvious enough last week, this is not a zone team, this a man-man coverage team and it showed last week, whenever we went to a soft Cover 2 Kellen Moore tore us apart through the air, whenever we were in man we were making plays on the ball, forcing incompletions and most importantly not allowing YAC. Grantham has got to man up and leave this team in Man coverage, Boykin isn't the first guy I would chose to cover Jeffery, but with Rambo back I feel comfortable enough with over the top help to put Boykin on that island, if I feel comfortable enough to do it, Grantham should be comfortable enough to do it was well.

For a TL:DR version

-Contain Devin Taylor

-Keep Garcia off the field or under pressure

-Stop Lattimore

-Don't get outcoached/open up the O

-Keep the D in man coverage in this game

All future comments and criticisms appreciated.

[Gritzblitz 2.0]

On defense, UGA's top priority will be to stop Lattimore so they will load up up front. But that will leave some very talented and physical receivers in man coverage so I believe that Carolina will throw today more than most people think. It's so important for UGA to be able to get pressure on Garcia. If he gets time, it's going to be another long day.

On offense, UGA needs to find their identity. Discover what they do well and make that the overarching focus on offense. Late last season and last week it seems that UGA went to new wrinkles and formations just for the sake of trying to trick someone, the problem was that the offense wasn't prepared to execute it. Traditionally, this offense was at it's best when it was establishing the power running game and working everything else off of that. There needs to be a movement back to basics. Stop picking plays and formations out of a hat and put together a coherent offensive gameplan that is built on what you do best.

[ChuyDawg]

I agree with just about everything. I would like to add that we need to execute on Special Teams. We have Boykin and Smith, it'd be great if we could sneak in a few good special team plays to get us favorable field position and possibly some points. Walsh has a good leg and it would be great to come away with points when your drive is stalled on the opponnents 35 or 40. Butler can give us a good advantage booming the ball.

That's it, my 2 centavos.