The Writings of Claudius Munsonius

***Stats within credited to Nathan Lawrence and the team at SBAnalytics.

In Worcester, Massachusetts there’s only one team televised each Saturday in the fall — the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. 

I grew up watching Arnaz Battle streak away from Michigan State, Tom Zbikowski dealing deathblows on punt returns, Jeff Samardzija catching sky-hook back-shoulder fades from Brady Quinn right before they became the fashion. It was a team that never quite cracked “elite,” but also one that carried a tough disposition and managed some — definitely not all (ahem, Reggie Bush) — significant victories. 

In short, it was one hell of an introduction to becoming a Dawg when I moved to Athens in 2010.

It was fortunate for me that in that same year — in the wake of three uninspired seasons that followed Quinn’s graduation — the loveably disheveled, hooded-sweatshirt-encased head coach Charlie Weis was replaced by that wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing, Brian Kelly. 

I have every reason to love Kelly. Another native New Englander, he grew up in Everett, Mass. an hour east of where I went to school. He played and coached at Assumption College in Worcester, the same school my aunt Cathleen served a decade as campus minister. My godson was baptized at Assumption’s Chapel of the Holy Spirit for St. Peter’s sake! 

I should admire this man, yet sympathies evade me.

With Kelly, ND abandoned Adidas in favor of Under Armour (an unnatural partnership I’ve never quite understood), traded the oversized, lunchpale sweatshirts and galoshes of the Weis era for starch whites and Brooks Brothers 1818 two-button’s, and painted the pants with mustard. What the hell, man? 

And that’s just the clothes.

The Kelly era hasn’t been without controversy either. Despite being the winningest coach since Holtz, Kelly’s teams have seen their share of scandal — academic, personal conduct, and otherwise — and sanctions and vacated wins have followed.

Now, if you ask a single Notre Damer there’s not a one of ‘em looking to bring back that Weis era, which ended embarrassingly and at great expense to the institution. In fact, I doubt anyone is looking to trade this “Kelly 2.0” epoch for any of the others that followed Holtz’s [first] retirement in ‘96. But despite whatever success they’ve achieved, there’s something artificial about these Notre Dame teams. They lack the spirit of those teams with Quinn, Anthony Fasano, Mike Anello, Terrell Lambert, Zbikowski, and others in the early-aughts. Much like the now-gold leaf gilded helmets donned by the Irish, this team feels like the painted-over version of something that used to be good.

And lest we forget, the Dawgs have their own axe to grind here. At the end of the 2012 season, Georgia did everything but win against Alabama in the SEC Championship before ND rolled over and handed the Tide a title in January. And then last season, the Irish leapfrogged a contending Georgia on their way to getting dismantled by Clemson in the Cotton Bowl Playoff semifinal. 

Some might argue the public shame of those lopsided Irish losses and their own 20-19 victory amidst a sea of red in South Bend during the 2017 season would be enough to balance the scales for Georgia. But there’s still business to attend to here. The easiest way to prevent Notre Dame from being considered in December is to beat the hell out of them in the regular season — in primetime on national television, if possible. Ask Ohio State how resounding defeats have influenced the Playoff Committee in the last two seasons. They’d tell you there’s some work yet to be done on these Irish.

The Dawgs have an opportunity to balance the ledger on Saturday.

On Offense

When Clark Lea was promoted to defensive coordinator following the departure of now-A&M DC Mike Elko in the offseason, he inherited a defense whose footprint would be familiar to you. The Irish were a defensive squad predicated on not giving up explosive plays (9th in isolated points per play, a measure of explosiveness) and forcing opposing offenses to sustain drives in order to score —  a close resemblance to your 2018 Dawgs. 

Even more so than Georgia, Notre Dame was suffocating in the red zone — they surrendered only 3.34 points per trip inside the 40 to opposing offenses, good for fifth in the country. 

While Lea would hope for that same production out of his 2019 squad, the reality is that the foundation of the 2018 defense now plays on Sundays. DT Jerry Tillery, LBs Te’von Coney and Drue Tranquill, and CB Julian Love all had their names called in April and Notre Dame is still trying to figure out who slots in to replace them.

Lea comes from Elko’s 4-2-5 coaching tree and ND’s roster is built with that system in mind. 

Unlike what you see with Georgia’s interior lineman, Lea will typically have defensive tackles play one-gap allowing them to attack up field. Rather than holding the point of attack, the defensive linemen are relied upon to force disruptive plays in the backfield. 

That difference in responsibility is reflected in their size — they don’t have anyone on the two-deep at or above 300lbs. 

Linemen slanting and attacking up field places responsibility on the linebackers and safeties to quickly read and react downhill and fill running lanes. While the Irish ranked 71st in the country in stops at or behind the line of scrimmage, they finished 21st in overall run defense and 26th in surrendered runs of five or more yards. 

That is the profile of a defense with strong in-the-box defenders making up for a line that isn’t generating much push. 

The skill of Coney and Tranquill masked some larger deficiencies on last season’s defense, and in them you get the feeling they are trying to replace a couple Roquan’s (not actually a close comparison) with a couple Reggie Carter’s. While the Irish have solid secondary anchors in Tony Pride Jr., Alohi Gilman, and Jalen Elliott, it would be asking a lot of them to step up in run support on every play.

Can the Dawgs run base offense on the Irish D?

Even with the change at OC, so far not much has changed about the Dawgs’ offensive identity. 

Through three weeks we haven’t seen much to indicate that the Dawgs can’t dictate on the ground. If Isaiah Wilson plays on Saturday, the Dawgs offensive line will outweigh the Irish starters by a combined 550 lbs. 

Good gravy.

Small sample sizes, crappy competition, etc etc — the Dawgs still find themselves first in the country in rushing success rate, gaining the necessary yardage on 61% of the plays in which they choose to run. They’ve gained at least five yards on 59% of their rushing attempts and only been stuffed at or behind the line in 9% of them. They’ve dominated in situations where they should have dominated.

The same can’t be said for ND’s defense which finds itself ranked 69th in the country in rushing success rate against after playing…Louisville and New Mexico State. They also wilted on first down against those teams, allowing at least five yards 39% of the time. 

So far there’s little to say the Dawgs won’t line up and run inside zone down their throat.

What if base offense gets taken away?

If you’re Clark Lea and, presumably, trying to take away the run game as a first priority, that would look like committing at least one safety to run defense. Two weeks in he has to know he’s working with linebackers that aren’t of the same athletic caliber as those he had last season. Louisville beat Notre Dame a number of times by catching linebackers in the wash on outside zone handoffs and involving safeties on tackles.

Even if he were confident in the safeties ability to react and fill, you know he’s seen James Coley’s tape from the last three weeks.

Georgia has been slowly grooving a scheme that allows for an “extended” running game that isn’t predicated on needing to run between the tackles to move the ball on early downs. You’ve seen the Dawgs run outside zone, inverted veers, counters, swings passes out of motion, and tunnel screens to the receivers so far in early down situations.

It’s paid off in a major way — the Dawgs are third in the country in success rate on first and second down, converting each 63% of the time. That means two-thirds of the time they are getting at least 7 yards before they even get to third down. Were Lea to commit extra resources to the box to try to thwart that early down success, James Cook is too athletic an athlete to require linebackers to keep up with on the edges:

Those linebackers had trouble even chasing down New Mexico’s backs to the sideline:

They can try to take away inside zone, but Coley will run right around them.

An extra safety would also place ND’s corners in man coverage on the outside. You can reach whatever conclusion you’d like on who wins that matchup, but so far I like who the Dawgs have trotted out to catch passes this season. And if the Dawgs are able to dictate on the ground like I anticipate they will, the Irish have already shown they can be manipulated with run action once a run game is established. 

Blind Spots

Notre Dame stunts and brings pressure in third down situations and the Dawgs have a bit of tape this season showing they’ve had trouble dealing with it.

In general, Notre Dame’s pass rush is excellent — they are third in the country in havoc rate and 22nd in success rate allowed on passing downs. They scheme to produce that havoc, but they have the talent on the edge to compliment it. Julian Okwara, Khalid Kareem, and Daelin Hayes can all ball. The above is more an issue of communication than skill, but worth keeping an eye on in third down situations.

On Defense

Kelly hired Chip Long away from Mike Norvell’s staff after Long spent five years learning Norvell’s pace and space scheme at Arizona State and Memphis.

The transition was rocky last season until they inserted Ian Book as their starter at Q and let him out-efficient opposing defenses. Looking back at the 2018 stat profiles, Book picked up a struggling offense.

Despite the occasional Dexter Williams breakout, the running attack ranked 93rd in rushing efficiency, 112th in rushes of five yards or more, and 121st in rate of rushes stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage. While they return 60 starts between them, the offensive line lost their two best athletes to the NFL. Judging by last year’s production and the line’s struggles against Louisville it’s hard to say whether that gets better.

Book, on the other hand, was pretty outstanding. He led the 18th most efficient passing attack in the country and piloted the Irish to at least the middle of the curve in terms of total offensive production. Not quite championship-caliber, but good enough to beat most teams.

The only place Book really struggled was with explosiveness (66th), and in Long’s offense that can be a problem.

Long changed the overall footprint of this offense, transitioning to the Norvell scheme that runs a ton of plays, quickly (25th in adjusted pace). He has a handful of run looks — dart (tackle pulls and inserts):

Inside zone:

And outside zone (run from shotgun or under center):

They run each of those concepts out of a bevy of different formations and personnel groupings. In addition to the pace, Long makes this even more difficult to defend by tacking a pass option and quarterback keep onto virtually every shotgun or pistol look that the Irish come out with:

Notice the backside slant that Book steps into in the event that the safety overplays the run.

Incorporating these single-read plays has given Book easy two-player games on early downs and he’s demonstrated he can make the right decisions. They are gaining at least five yards on first down 57% of the time (zone read here with a bubble screen if the end sets a hard edge):

As soon as the run has been established, Long takes shots. This entire offense is built around giving the quarterback easy reads most of the time, so that they stay ahead of the chains, and can take one to two calculated shots every possession. They’ll either look like vertical passes off of run action where enormous, physical WR Chase Claypool has shown the ability to dominate (gets PI here):

Or gadget plays off of run action:

Can Notre Dame run base offense on the Dawgs defense?

The 2018 Georgia defense was a linebacker away from being top-10 caliber. Even with the struggles in rushing opposing passers, the Dawgs were the most efficient pass defense in the country and finished 3rd in explosive-plays-against.

That trend has continued.

Through three games the Dawgs remain a top-15 pass defense that has magically found the ability to effect the passer and force negative plays. Against Notre Dame, attacking and funneling the zone read inside is the first step in disrupting Book. Clemson took away virtually all of Book’s pass looks by leaving overhangs in the slot to cover bubble screens:
And the same on backside slants:

With the safeties and star occupied with those overhangs, the responsibility lies with the front-6 to maintain gap integrity and not allow the ball carrier to spill outside.

Last season, the Dawgs had a miserable time in run defense, surrendering runs of five yards or more on 50% of all carries. But early on this season, they’ve improved. Opposing teams have averaged less than 4 yards per carry through three weeks and much of that is the result of matured depth on the line, the development of Monty Rice at inside linebacker, and the emergence of Quay Walker and Azeez Ojulari.

Truly, one of the great keys to this 2019 Georgia team will be how effective they can be on first and second down. It’s clear that on third downs and obvious passing situations, the Dawgs have plenty of skill to bring to the table. Nolan Smith, Jermaine Johnson, Ojulari, Adam Anderson, and Channing Tindall have all had success with rushing the passer when the run threat is neutralized.

But getting to those situations is the metric to track here.

So far the Dawgs are holding up early. They’ve kept opposing offenses to a 36% success rate on first down (36th) and 26% on second (7th). By the time offenses get to third down they need to gain 8.57 yards to move the chains. That is a winning formula that will help get Nolan Smith onto the field:

This Notre Dame offense is built to present Book with easy decisions on early downs and to avoid negative yardage plays. Early data and the eye test would tell us that the Dawgs can hold up most of the time, but Notre Dame will be a worthy early challenge for this Dawgs front. We’ll learn a lot about this team by watching how they contain (or don’t contain) Book on first and second down.

What if base offense is taken away?

The Dawgs win this game if Notre Dame is unable to run the ball with their dart and zone concepts, whether Book keeps the ball or not.

Long’s entire scoring strategy is built upon long passing plays set up by the run. Once Clemson took the run threat away from the Irish they were happy to rush three, spy Book with Isaiah Simmons, and either man up or form a cloud ~10 yards from the line of scrimmage. That strategy overwhelmed Book and forced a number of mistakes and 3-and-out’s in the second half of the Cotton Bowl.

The Dawgs can now say they have a defensive roster with the same athletic profile as Clemson. We’ll learn whether they can execute.

SP+ Prediction and Game Grade

SP+ has the Dawgs favored by a little over 12 in this game, and Vegas is sitting at about 14. That puts it squarely in the “Dawgs should win” bucket.

Truth be told, I think SP+ and Vegas are being conservative here. There’s a world in which the Dawgs jump out to an early two-score lead, the crowd gets involved, and a bloodbath ensues. Regardless, if I’m wrong, and this is a four-quarter contest I’ll still take the Dawgs to out-physical and outlast the Irish.

***

In the space of a few short years this matchup has evolved into a rivalry of sorts, where the opposing teams and fanbases definitely don’t like each other.

Maybe that’s one of the silver linings of this Playoff era we find ourselves in?

With a few teams always on the outside looking in, you end up with blood feuds between fanbases that wouldn’t normally co-mingle at all. The conflict makes this whole thing a little more fun.

One of the narratives coming out of the Irish camp involves how arrogant last year’s Dawgs team was to call out Notre Dame’s place in the Playoff, only to be served a veritable ass-whooping in the Sugar Bowl at the hands of the Longhorns.

With only a few contests a year, and far fewer of these non-conference “friendlies,” it’s not often a team gets an opportunity to answer for a previous season’s transgressions like this. The last time the Dawgs met up with Notre Dame, they were a fledgling program relying on luck, cunning, and a few heady plays by veterans to eek out a victory. That game in many ways served as an Archimedes lever for the program, propelling it forward into relevance on the national stage again.

On Saturday, the Dawgs have an opportunity to go a step further. They can silence detractors and announce themselves as a contender for the belt this year and many years to come. If you’re in attendance, you owe it to the boys in red to be loud as hell.

Tee it up.

“What the hell?”

That is roughly what I said to myself as the Dawgs fell to Texas in January.

Getting left out of the 2018 Playoff didn’t really dig at me like it did others last season. Call it the pragmatism I try to espouse on this site, but we all knew the 2018 Dawgs had some flaws that could prove fatal against elite teams. It would’ve been challenging for them to outscore Clemson — a worthy champion, I’ll add — but hell, we had the Sugar Bowl to look forward to!

…

Needless to say, it took me a little longer than normal to amble out of my cave following my offseason hibernation this year.

You add it all together and the Sugar Bowl loss (itself a sound defeat despite the final score), the Justin Fields transfer, Jim Chaney vamoosing to the Vols, and then Mecole Hardman, Riley Ridley, Elijah Holyfield, and Isaac Nauta all moving on to The League early, all felt like the program was breaking free of the foundation that Kirby started to build several years ago, all in the space of a few weeks.

I felt crappy, man. And it stuck around for a long time.

If we review our Munsonian charge, it’s not hard to understand why:

My goals for this team remain:

• win the games you’re supposed to win
• compete like hell in games where you’re outflanked
• represent the University with honor and integrity

The trick for the first two is knowing which is which.

We’ll be able to study these games before they happen, note what we expect to happen, and assign them to one of the two buckets: “supposed to win” or “compete”.

It’s hard to call the Sugar Bowl a “supposed to win” game knowing what we knew about the Dawgs lack of quality linebacker play and Texas’ efficient, power spread attack. That was a buzzsaw. But it’s also hard to rewatch that game and say that the Dawgs came out and competed for four quarters. That sucked and you can justifiably be angry.

As an aside: We’ll probably have to get used to that sort of thing in non-Playoff NY6 games. I can’t fault the D[e]andre’s for sitting out to stay healthy before the draft, and it’s at least allowable that the team was deflated following the SEC title. If the same thing were to happen 10 times, I say we come out flat in the bowl game in 5 of them. *Shrug* It’s a whole new Playoff-powered world, and now that the Dawgs are flush with talent, it’s likely we’ll see more guys forego bowl games in favor of pre-Draft health.

We can hope now that the Dawgs have depth to deal with it, and that they’ll compete like hell next time.

All in all, 2018 was a good team. It was nearly a great team, though not quite a great team. Much like the 2017 squad, that’s about right.

But, hark! It’s the 29th of August and the season starts anew. It’s still great to be a Dawg, especially great right now.

---

I’ve written these pieces over the last four seasons as a catharsis for myself. Knowing how prone to pitchforks DawgNation is, I was nervous that Kirby wouldn’t get a long enough leash to build a program with.

Four years on, it almost seems like it was destined to happen anyway.

There’s been a sprinkle of luck, but mostly it’s just Kirby Smart’s steady hand and proclivity for preparation…and a selfless decision by a few seniors to come back and lay the groundwork.

It’s taken time to get here, but you get to enjoy the privilege of watching your football team take the field as either the more-talented or equally-talented team against every opponent they play this season. I hope it’s not lost on you just how special that is.

It shouldn’t be — you’ve suffered a lot.

Luck can determine outcomes, but the more talented you are and the more depth you have, the more you’ve stacked the deck in your favor against black swan events ruining the day.

The deck is now stacked.

This team can win.

On Offense

James Coley inherited a good offense when he took the OC job in January.

Of the five primary offensive categories that determine most outcomes, the Dawgs ranked outside the Top 30 in only one of them: starting field position. And if we’re honest, that is more a commentary on how much field the 2018 defense was willing to give up to make stops and how few turnovers they forced. The specialists also only managed 20 total returns last season if we discount Eric Stokes block return against Mizzou.

This team moved the ball last year, and they will again.

The offense ranked in the top 10 in rushing and passing efficiency, in the top 20 in explosiveness, 12th in rushes of five yards or more, 6th in average third down distance, 6th in % of first downs coming on first or second down, and 24th in points per trip inside the 40.

In fact, the only areas where the struggled looking at the aggregate stats were in short yardage and goal-to-go situations. Discounting those, you’d be looking at a championship offense.

But you can’t discount those and there are more important distinctions to make here.

10 Bad Quarters

If we take the 10 quarters that make up the second half of the Alabama game, the full game against LSU, and the full game against Texas, the Dawgs played a total of 72 first downs, 53 second downs, and 34 third downs.

Of those 53 second downs, the offense found themselves in 2nd-and-long with eight or more to gain 38(!!!) times. And in those 2nd-and-long situations, the offense managed to make up six or more yards only 17 times. If you watch back, those 21 times they didn’t convert were drive killers — several in key, momentum-changing situations.

We can look further.

When they found themselves in 3rd-and-4 or fewer, the Dawgs converted only two times out of eight.

So even in circumstances where they made it to manageable third downs, they still didn’t convert. Against equal or better competition the Dawgs relied on big plays on first down to sustain drives, and when they couldn’t manage them, they sputtered. The real kick in the pants was that the defense — the same one we anticipated would be 2018’s Achilles’ heal — kept them in all three games for the most part. The offense just couldn’t get it done in key moments on second and third down.

Scheming for Confidence

Here’s a quick refresher on how the team thinks about offensive strategy:

Kirby’s Offense

I’d rather not speculate about what will change under Coley until we’ve seen them play, but my best guess is virtually nothing. It’ll still be the same run-first attack, built to force SEC defenses to overcommit resources to stopping the run, and opening up opportunities in the boundaries for big plays.

Everywhere you look on the 2019 offensive depth chart there are prototype players.

The top 6 offensive lineman–tackles Andrew Thomas, Isaiah Wilson, center Trey Hill, and guards Solomon Kindley, Cade Mays, and Ben Cleveland–will all have opportunities to make NFL rosters, some with hefty guaranteed money coming their way. The same goes for all of the running backs. And Jake is a legend.

The receivers are everyone’s question mark, but I thought Coach Donnan made a nice point on last week’s UGA Sports Live.

Catching the ball is a function of skill, execution, and reps. The Dawgs have a stable of 10 or more guys that all have size and athleticism that can’t be taught. And they just spent all spring and summer competing against the Dawgs’ first, second, and third-team defenses, themselves a bunch of thoroughbreds. Pundits might point to lack of game experience as a huge issue for these skill guys on offense, but the second-team defense is better than whatever the hell Florida trotted out last weekend. In other words, they’ve already been competing every day in practice against the best the conference has to offer.

I suppose maybe confidence among those unproven receivers might still be a problem early on, but the team has three games before Notre Dame in late September to give their top guys as much exposure to game situations as possible.

From Epictetus: “Don’t worry until you have to.” Or something like that.

I’m more concerned about the Dawgs having a second option against top competition. Kirby will always want to run the ball, but sometimes — like on most second downs against LSU, Texas, and Bama — it just isn’t there. Even when you have huge NFL bodies at the point of attack. And the answer can’t always be to throw 50/50 balls to the boundary, hoping a taller receiver will make a play and save a drive, particularly this season when we don’t know who those guys will be yet.

Sooner or later this offensive staff is going to have to concede that there are other ways to manufacture yardage in gotta-have-it situations that don’t look like outside zone, draws, and 7-step drops.

We saw shades of it against Alabama.

Jake is rhythm passer and can be a streaky player if you let him. When things are going his way the ball comes out on time and accurately and he’ll string together 9 or 10 completions in a row. When they aren’t he’ll force balls and lose confidence. The easiest remedy to a loss of confidence? Getting the ball out of his hands quickly and getting ahead of the chains.

You can see how they scheme it above. Terry Godwin gets a favorable matchup on the enormous Anfernee Jennings with motion out of the backfield and the ball comes out quick.

With all the backs — D’andre Swift, Brian Herrien, James Cook, and Zamir White — that are capable of catching the ball from the backfield, and all of the new slot talent –Demetris Robertson, Dominick Blaylock, and Kearis Jackson — there are plenty of guys that can dictate those kind of matchups between and just outside the hash marks. Any one of those guys can win off the break at the line of scrimmage, put a foot in the ground, and get their hands on the ball.

In this humble Dawg fan’s opinion, a tempo passing game with an emphasis on the slot receivers and the backs is an essential tool to add to this team’s toolbelt before they get to November. It’ll give Jake a confidence reset with nice rhythm throws that he can make in his sleep, it’ll give all of those receivers plenty of in-game opportunities, and it’ll give the offense an option to toggle to when they get behind the chains on early downs.

They’ve hinted at it for awhile, but it’s time to release it into the wild.

Brian Herrien and Solomon Kindley

I used to include a little “guys to watch” piece in each offensive and defensive section of these previews, but now I just to like to use it to talk about guys that I think deserve the praise.

I mean, how got-dang awesome is it to see both Herrien and Kindley get the kind of love they’ve received this offseason? Herrien brings a smile to my face any time I see him mentioned in articles and practice notes. A senior who battled his way onto the team after having trouble with academic eligibility and waited his turn behind at least three NFL backs, potentially four or fivee. And now with D’Andre Swift supposedly a little dinged up and the young guys not quite ready to be featured, he’s got an opportunity to be great and hopefully make some money himself. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone run quite as hard as him, I’m glad for one more go ’round. DGD.

Same with Kindley. Not nearly as highly touted as virtually everyone else in the O-line room, he battled through a number of injuries, competed behind veterans and blue-chippers, transformed his body into a force, and quietly became one of the best guards in the SEC. He even garnered 2nd team All-SEC honors in the offseason. I’m just excited for the guy to have an opportunity to dominate and make his way onto a roster in The League next year. With a solid season, he’s a first day pick.

On Defense

Modern defense is a balancing act, where defensive coaches are constantly trying to keep as much speed on the field as possible without sacrificing much to the opposing offense’s running game.

I laugh every time I think about it from the vantage point of evolution. Offense’s continue to find ways to game defenders, get them out of position, and get the ball where they ain’t. Evolution responds by just growing extremely large, fast people. For example, Clemson somehow has a defensive back named Isaiah Simmons who is 6’4″, 240 lbs. and has enough speed to challenge smaller slot receivers stride for stride while still holding up in the box against the run.

Alas, you can grow ’em as big as you want, but if you can’t solve for gap integrity:

https://gfycat.com/unselfishinfatuatedeel

And setting the edge:

You’re going to have an extremely sad time.

If you’d like to review how the Dawgs approach defense you can find more here:

Kirby’s defense

The Dawgs keep five defensive backs on the field about 75% of the time. It’s a handy strategy, especially when you can set the edge:

And maintain gap integrity:

Because it allows them to keep bodies in the secondary to defend against the deep ball, without over-committing resources to the run game. But when you CAN’T SET THE EDGE:

Or MAINTAIN GAP INTEGRITY:

Things can fall apart:

I hinted earlier that this defense wasn’t quite as bad as we make it out to be, and actually played admirably in spots, especially in the big matchups last season. On the whole, they surrendered a lot, giving up “successful” plays (based on down and distance) to opposing offenses 41% of the time, but they ranked 3rd in the country in preventing big plays. It was a very “bend-but-don’t-break-ok-you-definitely-broke-a-few-times” year for the 2018 defense and they eventually paid the price for it when the offense couldn’t pick up the slack. They just didn’t have the personnel to manage what Kirby envisions down in and down out.

Fortunately, that changes this season.

The first, pleasant change comes on the defensive line, where you can just start to make out the semblance of depth in the middle if you look close enough.

Sophomore Jordan Davis was a man last year, and Devonte Wyatt played the best game of anyone on the defense in the Sugar Bowl according to PFF. Seniors David Marshall and Michael Barnett return and junior Malik Herring has developed into a force. There’s even some freshman talent coming in Travon Walker, that will hopefully allow Tyler Clark the opportunity to transition back into his natural 1-gap, interior rushing skillset. The Dawgs have big bodies that can rotate at least two-deep and maybe three-deep by the time we get to November. A welcome change.

Bless Jawan Taylor’s heart, but he just wasn’t the guy at linebacker last season, routinely getting out of position and missing assignments in big spots. Now there’s speed, size, and talent inside in sophomore’s Channing Tindall and Quay Walker, and a third-down beast in freshman Nakobe Dean.

The crown jewel of Kirby’s recruiting monster is an outside linebacking squad that goes a solid three-deep and features JUCO transfer Jermaine Johnson, consensus #1 recruit Nolan Smith, Adam Anderson, Azeez Ojulari, Robert Beal, and Walter Grant. The defense is going to physically look different this season — all of these guys are stallions.

As if it needs to be said again, so long as the front seven can maintain their gap integrity and set the edge, this defense works. Now that there are bodies capable of generating pressure on their own, the Dawgs won’t need to overcommit resources to getting pass rush or standing up opposing run games. And the secondary — full of top-end talent in their own right — will benefit.

It’s been a long time since the Dawgs had a defense that could reliably generate pressure, hold up at the point of attack, and force turnovers. That changes this season, and the whole team will benefit.

Richard Lecounte and Eric Stokes

People gave Richard a lot of crap last year for poor tackling and bad angles on ball carriers. But truthfully he was just the last guy to fail on every play that made him look bad, you just didn’t notice the guys standing in front of him that missed assignments and forced Richard to play out of position. He’s a top-tier athlete that’s going to benefit in an enormous way from the new blood and experience in front of him.

And I’m here for the Eric Stokes story, man. What an animal. It’s barely been two years since he looked lost as hell in the spring game and now he’s on All-SEC watch lists everywhere. In much the same way as Lecounte, Stokes will benefit from the pass rush and run stopping capability of the front-seven this season. He’s already shown a knack for staying in the receiver’s pocket. Now he gets to eat.

The Schedule

For all of you juniors out there with your full season ticket package at $8/game, you owe me a beverage.

It’s a helluva slate this year at Sanford, and yes, even for those watching at home reluctant to part with $900 for a ticket to Notre Dame. ESPN FPI, a composite stat that ranks teams based on a number of factors like returning production, coaching tenure, recruiting, and a bit more. It’s got the Dawgs favored in every game with a few nail-biters:

I don’t buy the Florida or Tennessee hype against the Dawgs this season. Bill Connelly’s SP+ has the Dawgs at ~29 points per game better than the average team.

Those teams are average, maybe slightly better than.

But I do think there’s a loss hidden in here somewhere, and frankly, the Dawgs might be the better for it. Great teams get tested and that slate from 10/12 on through 11/23 is a gauntlet. The surest path to the title game is just to win all the other one’s before it, but winning in Atlanta in December — even with a loss — would see them into January.

This team has all the trappings of a title contender. It’s a nice time to be a Dawg.

—

One final note on the season: being a casual Dawgs fan has become a Championship or nothing proposition. It’s worse for many of the diehards, wondering if some of these years have already been a waste with no titles to show for it. Most of what I write here is to defend against that kind of thinking.

Championship or bust is the kind of Faustian bargain you don’t want to strike.

There are a lot of subtle joys of getting to watch a good football team over 12 Saturdays in the fall. You have seniors like Kindley and Herrien who have busted tail, waited their turn, and represented the G with a lot of honor and integrity. There are younger guys like Stokes that you’ve gotten to watch mature from raw beginnings into dominant players. It would be a shame to negate all of their effort because you didn’t get to raise a[n admittedly dumb-looking] trophy at the end of the season.

I’d settle for one, and I’m cool with waiting for it. But I don’t think we’ll have to be waiting for much longer.

Enjoy yourselves this season, whatever the outcome.

Go Dawgs!

https://gfycat.com/pessimisticvengefulicelandgull

 

 

 

When the 2019 Dawgs take the field against Vanderbilt in August, every starter on that team will have played in a championship atmosphere.

They’re the youngest team in the SEC and they’ve managed to add legitimate, championship-caliber experience to their youth. Every non-freshman on the roster next year will have faced the best team of the decade at least once. Many of them will have faced them twice, both times with a belt on the line. You can add that to this year’s burgeoning list of successes along with:

• High snap counts for virtually all freshmen (and RS-freshmen) offensive linemen
• The emergence of Jordan Davis as a bonafide space-eater on the defensive front
• Important experience (including some knocks on the chin) for CB1-in-waiting Tyson Campbell
• Eric Stokes stepping into the opportunity at CB2 and owning it
• JJ Holloman developing on offense as a threatening weapon with size
• Tyler Simmons putting his speed and hustle to great use as a receiver
• High upside underclassmen — Anderson, Cox, Herring, Tindall — all playing meaningful snaps in the defensive front-seven
• Kirby carving out a couple more plots in his backyard garden for CPJ and Gus
• Notably few team violations and no off-the-field nonsense from players or coaches

That’s to say nothing of the Dawgs efficacy on the field.

I came into the year thinking this offense had a shot to be transcendentally good. They’re not quite Baker Mayfield/Oklahoma, or Kyler Murray/Oklahoma, or Tua/Alabama good, but they ain’t far off. The Dawgs ended the regular season 3rd in the country in offensive efficiency (behind the latter two guys above), 6th in rushing efficiency, 4th in passing efficiency, and 10th in explosiveness. They were the 3rd best offense in the country. You can win a championship with that.

You already know the knock on ’em though — they suck in short yardage situations.

The Dawgs are only converting on third-and-short 74% of the time. Same goes for success rate inside the 10-yard-line (40%) and on first-and-goal (41%). Despite that handicap, they still managed to finish 23rd in the country in average point scored per trip inside the 40. Like Alabama, this is an offense that is difficult to account for when they’re executing. If the last 5 weeks are any indication, they are executing indeed.

On defense, the Dawgs have largely been who we thought they were entering the season, with some notable surprises. With the departures of John Atkins and Roquan we figured the Dawgs run D would suffer, and it has. They rank 50th in rushing S&P+ against (actually, plenty of improvement there over the course of the season) and 110th in opportunity rate against (runs in which the opposing offense gained 5 or more yards).

But they’ve largely been able to break serve.

Even though the Dawgs rank 130th nationally in average third down distance, they’ve found a way to get off the field. They rank 20th in success rate against on third-and-medium situations and 15th on third-and-short. By and large, they are playing well with their backs against it. That’s in no small part due to the emergence of young players in the front-seven — Jordan Davis, especially.

—

The writing I did earlier in the year on past matchups was pretty stat-heavy, and for good reason. There was a lot to read into as the Dawgs developed this season and some of the matchups (Mizzou, LSU, Florida, etc.) posed cool angles worthy of unpacking.

Not so with this weekend if I’m being honest with you.

I mean, I’m more than happy to walk through every statistical category for both sides of the ball and try to make small inferences, but I think you’re already aware — Alabama is f***ing good at everything. I’d just be listing off a bunch of stats in which they have single digit rankings.

With what’s available in the advanced stat profiles, I thought BillC wrote a nice article earlier in the week pointing out the obvious: the Dawgs would be terrifying if they could put 7s up in the red zone. There’s maybe one small tidbit to add: Alabama ranks 110th in success rate allowed (they allow the necessary yardage 56% of the time) on first-and-goal, and they’re ranked 56th (48%) in success rate inside the 10. Not exactly dominant.

—

Stats aside, I’ve been noodling hard on strategy with this one, looking for ways to blind the cyclops.

Beginning with the end in mind is what I’ve landed on — if they want to win, the Dawgs have to find a way to remain in striking distance for all four quarters. Sounds obvious, but Alabama hasn’t had to play a four-quarter football game since January when the Dawgs hit them in mouth until the end of regulation. Making the opposition uncomfortable is the name of the game this weekend, and the ultimate discomfort for Bama would be to enter the fourth quarter with the game undecided.

Getting there is the challenge.

—

On Defense

By this point in the season, there’s very little hiding who the Dawgs are. On defense, we could certainly sit around hoping and praying that somehow the linebacker play gets an upgrade and the run defense all-of-a-sudden becomes elite.

That’s unlikely.

We’re better off acknowledging the likelihood of that happening is close to zero and dealing with reality as it is. Against an elite rushing attack like Alabama’s, the Dawgs are at a disadvantage.

It leaves a crucial point to ponder: if they play to win, what do the Dawgs take away from Alabama’s offense? Bama is brilliant in both facets — they are as efficient as they are explosive. They can run the ball down your throat or throw it over your head. On Bama’s explosiveness, Anthony Dasher from Rivals made a great point earlier in the week:

Fifty-five of Alabama’s 99 offensive drives directed by Tagovailoa this season have lasted five plays or less (55.6 percent). Thirty one of those 55 drives have resulted in touchdowns (56.4 percent) and two have ended in field goals for 33 total scoring drives of five or fewer plays (60 percent). Nineteen of those quick-strike drives have been 50 yards or longer.

Said another way, Bama has scored a touchdown in five plays or less on a third of the drives that Tua has led this season.

I don’t think there’s really a way to truly make them play “left-handed,” but the Dawgs can at least make them play in a different manner than they’ve grown accustomed to.

Leave the safeties back to limit big plays and let them take whatever they want on the ground. It will be terribly stressful and painful to watch as a fan, but forcing Alabama to execute on long drives of 10 or more plays multiple times throughout the entire game would be unlike any game they’ve played this season.

One of the only places Alabama’s offense looks mortal is in their average third-down distance. They rank 71st in that category, requiring an average of 7.4 yards. Truthfully they don’t really find themselves in third-down situations too often, and even when they do they are amazingly efficient. Check these success rates on third down for the Tide:

Utterly gross.

But the Dawgs have been at their best defending third down all season, no matter the distance:

This isn’t a game for the Dawgs to pretend they’re something they’re not, it’s a game to call reality what it is, leverage strengths where they’re available, and play the odds. The odds look the best for the Dawgs taking away the big play and getting to third downs where they can. That will involve yielding a lot on the ground, but they’ll/we’ll have to live with it.

It worked against Missouri.

Gulp.

On Offense

In January’s National Championship the Dawgs offense gained zero or negative yardage on 15 of their first down attempts. It was painful for me to go back and watch each one of them. It’s obvious that’s a massive disadvantage for the offense, but against this year’s Alabama team it also sacrifices potential opportunities.

Bama’s defense is pretty freaking amazing this year (6th in total S&P+), but they’ve been susceptible to giving up explosive plays. They rank 76th in isolated points per play against (a measure of explosiveness allowed) and 42nd in marginal explosiveness (meaning they gave up a fair number of explosive plays in situations when they shouldn’t have). If the Dawgs want to capitalize here, they can’t lose on first down. By Coach Chaney’s book, you don’t take shots downfield on 2nd-and-14.

It’s unlikely that the Dawgs will be able to run inside or outside zone at the outset of this game against Bama’s defensive front. In past matchups we’ve had (like Auburn in last year’s SEC Champ) against Saban cover-3 match schemes, attacking the edge is one of the first orders of priority. Involving the corners on every play and forcing them to play a more physical brand of ball bodes well in a four-quarter game. Attacking the edge also has the added benefit of requiring the interior players to run in pursuit over and over again.

A tired Quinnen Williams is a good thing for Georgia.

Bama runs so well in pursuit though that attacking the edge alone won’t be enough.

Terry Godwin and the backs are my keys to the offensive gameplan tomorrow. Saban will play press-man on any slot receivers that are on the ball as well as the receiver on the boundary closest to the formation. The receiver to the field and any slot receiver off the ball are the only ones allowed a free release.

This is a run-pass option where Jake is reading the linebacker to the field. Terry (on the ball in this case,  but still allowed a free release) runs a shallow four-yard in route and takes 10 yards.

This next ball didn’t go to Terry but illustrates the same point. Slot receivers off the ball can’t get jammed at the line — especially a guy like Terry who is an instinctual route-runner and is at his best playing in small spaces and getting separation.

“Extended handoffs” to Terry as a means of getting positive yardage on early downs would be a strong play against an Alabama defense looking to take virtually everything else away.

Same goes for the backs.

By nature of being in the backfield, they will always be able to release without needing to beat much of a jam. Sony nearly had a walk-in touchdown on this play in January.

The Dawgs have the luxury of a lot of talented players that can line up in the backfield and act as capable receivers. Swift, Herrien, James Cook, Holyfield (to a lesser extent), and even Mecole and Akhil Crumpton. Placing any of those guys in the backfield at the snap guarantees them a free release and potentially a favorable matchup on a linebacker or safety. Wheels, arrow routes, seams, drags, etc. would give Jake a safe option and notch important yards on early downs.

I mentioned in the season preview article I wrote that I’ve long-dreamed of a tempo passing game to complement the running game on first and second downs. I’ve dreamed of that for a game like this where Coach Smart and Coach Chaney know they are facing an elite defense capable of taking away the run from our run-first-oriented offensive scheme.

The Dawgs have the personnel to get those early down yards in different ways than running standard iso, inside zone, and outset zone like we’ve grown accustomed to. It would be a huge ace up our sleeve if Chaney could toggle to it at will tomorrow.

If you can win on early downs, you can afford to take shots on later downs and capitalize where Alabama is weakest.

—

For reasons related to the pace of life, I haven’t been able to write much since the LSU preview. In fact I remembered today that probably the longest Dawgs-related writing I’d done since then was in the car (my girlfriend was driving) on the way back from New Orleans, in a hyper-pragmatic and slightly sad mindset. Trading texts with the Chapel Bell Curve guys I wrote:

I don’t know if y’all have plans to do a recap but had an echo chamber in my head after reading Dawg tweets so figured I’d reach out.

The offense doesn’t work if they miss on the deep ball.

So in that way Jake is somewhat to blame after the miss to Mecole on the first drive and the missed read that should’ve gone to Terry in the end zone. But after that really not much left to be analyzed.

Crowd gets involved and the LSU D can sell out on the run. O got off schedule and had trouble getting back on. Thought the D did a pretty great job winning first down and causing havoc. But missed assignments, poor ILB gap fits, and poor tackling in the secondary undid the good. All things we’ve been anticipating hurting at some point.

We both wrote and podcasted that this would be a team whose O would have to pick up its D in order to win against good opponents. Didn’t happen yesterday. In terms of adjustments, I’ve dreamed of a tempo passing game that can pick up the running game if it isn’t there. We saw a little magic from it in the second half yesterday. More of that sooner would be welcome. Fields basically running the same shit he did yesterday periodically flips the numbers balance as well. There is a nice balance to be struck between him and Fromm. It can work and doesn’t require that 1 gets multiple full drives a game.

The real tragedy here is that the media and silly fans will invent a controversy that isn’t there. Jake can play, just had a bad day. I’ve never known a college Q who started his freshman year and then had a linear growth curve for the remainder of it. It looks that way if zoomed out, but if you zoom in, you basically see a periodized, saw-tooth curve with failures and successes – each failure precipitating a greater success. His greatest issue now is that he’s smart and knows more than he did last season. He’s seeing it all, just needs to speed his decisions back up.

I write about the Dawgs for the people taking to Twitter now, but in all reality I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to effect them much. I’d be better off suggesting they just get another hobby so that the fate of their entire happiness isn’t balancing precariously on 12 games a year. This may not be *the* team that wins a title, but they are a good team. Maybe great. Great teams get tested. They got popped in the mouth. To Dawgnation would say CTFO and lets see how they respond.

Bear in mind that Twitter was basically a crypt for a week following the game so forgive my angst. But the points remain — this offense works really nicely if they can manage to hit the big play. As soon as they hit one, defenses creep back, removing any extra players they may have had cheating up to defend the run.

Just like LSU, Alabama will try to take the run game away all day tomorrow until Jake demonstrates that they have to contend with him. He’ll have his opportunities — both because the Dawgs have the athletes to force the issue downfield and because the stats say Alabama is going to serve a few of them up.

If he can hit one or a few and if they can manage to stay ahead of the chains on early downs, the Dawgs can score on this defense.

In the Got Dang Redzone

I am in a very lonely, one-person camp that doesn’t think the Dawgs have actual issues in the redzone. They have an enormous (and terrifyingly athletic) set of linemen, at least one size-advantaged receiver in Holloman, two more that have elite ball skills in Godwin and Ridley, they have a battering ram in Holyfield, a chimera in Swift, and both Justin Fields and Jake Fromm.

I promise this an issue of scheme and I’m glad that they ran into trouble with it several times this season so that they are prepared tomorrow afternoon.

Jake isn’t a great “sneak” quarterback. It seems simple, but there’s a small skill set there he could afford to practice in the offseason. Running the inside-the-three offense out of the spread with Fields and any of the backs would be my go-to. Any zone read look with an RPO swing pass, slant, or hitch tacked on. Auburn is so good at this crap it hurts:

I also had some fun with this on sticky notes a couple weeks ago. Imagine for a moment the Dawgs were to have the ball inside the opponent’s three-yard-line. They’d line up in their traditional goal-line “heavy” look with a couple exceptions. Fields would be in at QB, Justin Shaffer or another one of the “heavy” package tight ends would be in at full back, and Isaiah Wilson would sit back as the third tight end:

At Fields’ signal the formation shifts to unbalanced left…with Wilson as the lone back:

At the snap of the ball Holyfield takes out the backside pursuit and everyone blocks toward an apex point in the end zone – ye ole wedge play from Pop Warner with Big Nasty on the carry:

I tweeted it out and the man himself thought it was a good idea:

I’m just sayin’, he’s got experience:

It’s kind of a joke, but also I’m kind of serious.

A Prediction From S&P+

S&P+ has this game at a three-point spread with Alabama favored. BillC has stated multiple times this year how he’s been thinking S&P+ has Bama underrated. Someplace between that and the 13-point spread Vegas has is probably about right.

If the Dawgs find themselves within ten points of Bama entering the fourth quarter, you have reason to believe.

After all, you got Rod:

If they don’t and Bama walks away with it, you can bet they won’t walk away comfortably. Whatever team gets them in the playoff will have a debt to pay the Dawgs. Whatever the outcome, Bama leaves this game beaten and bloody.

Go freaking Dawgs, to hell with Alabama!

There was some discussion this offseason about the loudest Sanford Stadium has been in recent years. My vote came easy – the loudest single moment I’ve experienced in Sanford came when Todd Gurley brought the opening kickoff back against Auburn in 2014.

You’ll remember how narrative-heavy that moment was.

Todd had been suspended four games for reasons too petty to remind you of and in his absence the Dawgs got throttled in Jacksonville. As they’d already notched an early-season loss to SC in week two, that Dawgs team had lost control of their destiny in the East. The fans knew it and responded like only Dawgs fans would. They showed up in droves prepared to ruin Auburn’s night.

When Todd broke through all of the angst and frustration of a snatched-away season evaporated.

The lid blew off the stadium.

—

The second loudest moment I’ve experienced at Sanford was equally fueled by narrative.

Zach Mettenberger, Odell Beckham, Jarvis Landry, and the LSU Tigers showed up to Sanford in late September of 2013 an undefeated football team with title aspirations. The Dawgs had dropped a game in week one to Clemson, but were still hunting for a title shot themselves.

Besides his mom, there wasn’t a soul among the 93k people in the stands that day that didn’t want to see Mettenberger, the misbegotten local cast-off, buried.

To his credit, he played a helluva game and had an opportunity to take the lead with two minutes left to play in regulation.

My voice — I’m not exaggerating — has never been completely the same after the fourth quarter of that game. Todd Gurley breaking away on the opening kickoff against Auburn in ’14 may have been the loudest single moment I’ve experienced at Sanford, but the second half of that game against LSU was the loudest sustained noise I’ve ever experienced at a sporting event. Every person in the stadium that day was invested in effecting the outcome of the game, and they did.

On the first play after the Dawgs had taken the lead — less than two minutes left, the crowd in full throat — Leonard Floyd wrapped around on a stunt and hit Mettenberger as hard and as violently as the game allows.

The student section lost it.

There were red pom-poms raining from the sky.

—

This weekend marks the Tigers first opportunity at revenge since that game in ’13 and it’s largely a role reversal.

This time the Dawgs go to Death Valley the undefeated team, slated to play the one-loss Tigers. I think if you asked most Dawgs fans, any animosity they might’ve felt towards LSU back then has largely faded. The cherub, Coach O, is about as lovable an opposing coach as you’ll find and the personalities of the past — Tyrann Mathieu, Mettenberger, Beckham Jr. — have all moved on. The Tigers are a worthy opponent and a fine midseason test for the Dawgs.

On the other side, ain’t nobody in Baton Rouge feeling any kind of love for the Dawgs. A week after an exhausting loss to Florida, the Tigers can’t afford another.

They’re backed into a corner and plan to hit us in the mouth.

Five Factors

My dream at the end of this season is to publish a post that can act as an UGA advanced statistical profile reference whenever you read one of these posts. I’ll include examples from this Dawgs team within so that you can refer back to it as you read future posts. For the moment though, I’ll walk through each one briefly as I go.

Hats off to Bill Connelly at SB Nation for his lovely, lovely advanced stat profiles and  SQL know-how. He’s a Missouri Tiger, but we’ll grant him that fatal flaw in light his invaluable contribution to advanced analytics for college football. You can reference Georgia’s current advanced stat profile here if you are hungry for numbers.

In general due to small sample sizes, advanced analytics in football have trouble being predictive, though a composite analysis of five factors of the game does as good a job as we can hope for at being both predictive in individual contests and for the season as a whole.

If you can be efficient, explosive, establish a field position advantage, finish scoring opportunities, and land on the right side of turnover margin you stand a winning chance of being pretty good.

Bill takes the five factors — success rate, explosiveness, average field position, points per scoring opportunity inside the 40-yard-line, and turnover margin — and builds a composite metric he calls S&P+ that we can track for teams as they progress throughout the season.

How’s LSU lookin’?

Like a top-25 team that isn’t quite a top-10 or 15 team.

LSU’s defense resembles the Dawgs’ in that they’re elite at preventing the big play — they rank 6th in defensive explosiveness — but unlike the Dawgs, they’re also decent at keeping offenses behind the chains. They rank 58th in success rate, allowing opposing offenses to gain the necessary yardage only 39% of the time.

That might not seem intimidating, but a decent success rate against and an elite ability to avoid the big play leaves you with a recipe for winning defense. If the Dawgs defense had a 39% success rate against I promise you we’d be dancing in the streets. Excellent defensive starting field position has been in the Tigers favor as well. Opposing offenses on average are beginning drives inside the 25.

Any way you look at it, they make you earn it.

On offense though, they are anything but elite and struggle in every area. They rank 93rd in explosiveness, 78th in success rate, 86th in expected turnover margin, and 53rd in points per scoring opportunity netting less than 5 points for each trip inside the 40.

Whether through the air or on the ground it’s an offense that’s had trouble moving the ball and scoring when it’s had opportunities.

That all in mind, I can’t help but watch this team and think it’s just another version of the same LSU product we’ve been watching for more than a decade. Great/excellent defense paired with poor/mediocre offense. Their recipe for beating teams is to out-physical them for four quarters, remain stingy in the red zone, and force turnovers.

It’s an older brand of football that works for them some of the time.

Dawgs on Offense

This Dawgs offense hasn’t completely self-actualized yet, but it’s starting to feel close.

It hasn’t always been pretty, but the Dawgs have gained the necessary yardage 54% of the time — good for 5th in the country — and rank 16th in explosiveness. Despite slow starts and untimely penalties, they’ve flashed in spots and been able to finish. This is an offense with all the tools to be championship-caliber.

Can the Dawgs run base offense on LSU’s defense?

Early on, probably not. But I wouldn’t expect them to try.

You’ll remember that the Dawgs always work to get back “home” with their offensive scheme. “Home” looks like inside zone, outside zone, and iso.

Inside Zone:

Outside Zone:

Iso:

They don’t necessarily need to start there in order to dictate and score, but it’s where Kirby and Jim Chaney always want to get back to. They think that over the course of a game, a consistent downhill running attack will outlast most defenses. South Carolina, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt would agree.

While Dawgfans have lamented the pace of play in recent weeks, the numbers speak for themselves. The Dawgs rank 7th in the country in rushing marginal efficiency (based on down and distance, they are elite at gaining the necessary yardage when running the ball) and are gaining at least 5 yards a carry 59% of the time.

Fans outside of the SEC will decry the Dawgs for playing a JV schedule so far, but even against inferior opponents — and with a shuffling offensive line — that’s impressive.

—

Dave Aranda’s defensive strategy at LSU resembles what you’ve grown familiar with from Kirby and Mel Tucker.

Aranda will show two, three, and four-man defensive fronts with either a single high free safety playing cover-3, or two high safeties playing cover-4. On early downs you’ll see “tite” three-man fronts designed to clog inside running lanes and free up inside linebackers to flow to the ball. It’s a defense designed to allow unblocked players to be aggressive, dictate mismatches, and force turnovers.

They’ve been ok at it so far. They haven’t affected the passer as much this season as in recent years (72nd in sack rate) but they’ve made up for it by completely snuffing out big plays (6th in explosiveness against) and playing consistently against the run (46th in rushing success rate against) and pass (44th).

From a personnel perspective this LSU defense reminds me of what the Dawgs saw in last season’s SEC Championship game against Auburn. They have a couple stud interior defensive linemen in Rashard Lawrence and Breidon Fehoko, an elite interior linebacker in Devin White, and a couple elite defensive backs in Greedy Williams and Grant Delpit.

There’s skill at every level, but not on the bench. They’ve struggled in both recruiting and with injuries.  It’s a talented starting 11, but there’s not much spell them with. That in mind, what do we know so far?

They intentionally clog interior running lanes on early downs, they play an overly aggressive style of defense intended to force as many turnovers as possible, and they lack depth at virtually every position on defense. I’ll add one more: while they have length in the secondary, both of their starting corners — Williams and junior Kristian Fulton — are at or below 190 lbs. You see where this is going.

The Dawgs will attack the edge early to beat this team.

If you remember back to the SEC Title game, the Dawgs forced the ball to the edge on 15 of the first 20 offensive plays. By kicking the ball out to the edge on swing passes to backs and receivers, bubble screens, and sweeps they triggered all of Auburn’s interior defenders to run in pursuit on every play. The corners were forced to be involved on virtually every tackle.

It’s a strategy designed to tire out a defense and weaken them from the outside in.

Much has been made this season about how bought-in the receiving corps has been with blocking. They’ll get rewarded for it again this week. Involving the corners early on all tackles and getting a body on them for every running play will soften this secondary quickly. It’s been rare this season that the Dawgs have passed first to set up the run. But once they’ve asserted themselves on the edge, these receivers could stand to have a day.

While the Dawgs likely won’t be able to run base offense to start, they’ll be able to pass in order to set it up in the second half. You saw Chaney flex the ingredients of that strategy in both the Tennessee and Vanderbilt games the past two weeks. They practiced tempo and passed the ball on early downs. All of those elements will be necessary to move the ball on LSU.

Once the Dawgs have managed to force the Tigers to dip into their bench, they’ll be able to lean on them with the inside running attack.

Justin Fields

There’s been a lot of discussion about Justin Fields in the two weeks following the Tennessee game, after which Kirby confirmed the Dawgs have “no plan” for Fields. It’s not that there isn’t a plan in place here, just that it isn’t something that is decided before the game (even if it was, you wouldn’t know about it). Every time Fields has entered the game has been a result of circumstance.

Against Tennessee, the Dawgs had opportunities to beat the Vols vertically and missed.

After they whiffed on their shots downfield, Tennessee walked extra defenders into the box and made running the ball difficult in the interior. Bringing Fields into the game was the easiest way for Chaney to flip the numbers advantage back in the Dawgs favor.

This weekend against LSU you might see the same strategy again, and you might see it early.

Both Kirby and Chaney know they’ll be taking the team into an awful crowd environment. The first two drives of the game will be as much about disarming the crowd as attacking LSU’s defense. The Dawgs have notched only 21 first quarter points over the last three weeks. That will need to change.

The first two drives will be a dance between Chaney and Aranda. If for some reason the Dawgs have trouble completing passes on early downs in the first 20 plays and LSU sells out in order to take the run away, Fields could enter the game.

Scoring early points is that essential.

Blind Spots?

Both the stats and the eye test will tell you that the only trouble the Dawgs have had on offense has been protecting Jake Fromm in obvious passing situations.

On passing downs they clock in at 120th in the nation, allowing a sack nearly 15% of the time. They’ve combatted that by improving their average third down distance to 6.6 yards (good for 23rd in the country) and by managing most of their first downs on 1st and 2nd down. Staying ahead of the chains keeps the Dawgs out of trouble. I’m reaching though — this offense is really good.

Dawgs on Defense

The emergence of Jordan Davis last weekend against Vanderbilt feels a lot like one of two things to me. This is either the Dawgs cramming for a test the night before, or it’s the product of many months of quiet preparation.

One thing’s for certain: he ain’t gonna make things any worse.

It’s been hard to avoid the word “concerning” when reading about the Dawgs run defense over the course of the last six weeks. I don’t like that word — may as well just call it “bad”, IMO — but it speaks to the larger purpose of why I write about Georgia football. When you can define the limitations of something, you can set expectations for it.

You can try to fake run defense as long as you want, but if you don’t have the dudes, you don’t have the dudes.

I want to give Julian Rochester internet daps for his effort since he showed up at Georgia. He’s a capable player who has worked really hard to get into playing shape. When he shifts down to play three-technique defensive tackle he plays just fine, but the poor guy is in the wrong spot trying to lock down the nose. With Rochester getting pushed back in the interior and the inside linebackers — RIP Juwan Taylor in the gif below — either over-pursuing or arriving late, this team hasn’t shown itself capable of stopping the run on early downs.

The numbers agree.

The Dawgs rank 95th in rushing marginal efficiency given up, and they are allowing at least five yards a carry 50% of the time. That might be worth repeating.

Half the time opposing offenses choose to run the ball, they gain at least five yards.

Great googly moogly.

It’s not helping the cause on 3rd down either. The Dawgs are 127th in the FBS in average 3rd down distance (5.9 yards). That’s really the saving grace of this defense. Even though they’ve been losing repeatedly on 1st and 2nd down, they’ve been able to find a way on 3rd. They’re allowing only a 31% success rate against on 3rd down, and rank 23rd in 3rd-and-long success rate against, 21st in 3rd-and-medium, and 6th in 3rd-and-short.

You have to give them credit. They may bend, but they’ve been knuckling up with their backs against the wall.

Some of our older brethren in the stands may be reaching for their heart medication more often than they’d like, but it’s working. Whether it will continue to against better competition remains to be seen.

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Fortunately, they won’t be facing better competition this weekend.

I kid you not, Tennessee has a better offense in nearly every statistical category than LSU does.

For an offense predicated on establishing physicality and running the ball, LSU is only ranked 65th in rushing marginal efficiency (to Tennessee’s 56th). Whether run or pass, on standard downs they are only getting the necessary yardage 46% of the time. They require an average of 7.6 yards on third down and have converted only  33% of their third downs thus far — good for 106th in the country.

Standard down: First downs, second-and-7 or fewer, third-and-4 or fewer, and fourth-and-4 or fewer. These are the downs in which the offense could conceivably either run or pass and therefore has an overall advantage over the defense. Offenses typically run about 60 percent of the time on standard downs.

Their feature back, Nick Brossette, is a solid player but he already has plenty of tread on his tires. Through six games he has the same number of carries (118) as D’Andre Swift and Elijah Holyfield combined. Joe Burrow is a serviceable quarterback but they haven’t been able to keep him upright, and even when they have he’s only notched a 53% completion percentage.

I could speak more to strategy here, but I doubt you’ll see much different from what you already have against Tennessee, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt. The Dawgs will rely on their secondary to limit all big plays and commit any resources they can to stopping the run.

Can the Tigers run base offense on the Dawgs?

Probably. Base offense for LSU looks like Iso and Power plays out of Pro-style sets. If Jordan Davis can provide a leverage point at nose on early downs — even just on 1st downs — that would go a long way.

If the Dawgs find a way to get Joe Burrow into third and medium-or-long, the Tigers patchwork offensive line hasn’t proven that they can protect him. Even if the Dawgs don’t bring extra pressure, I’m not confident Burrow could complete passes when faced with a defense that drops seven into coverage.

This matchup comes down to winning first down. The Dawgs haven’t proven the ability to do it yet this season.

Maybe this is the week.

S&P Prediction and Game Grade

S&P+ gets reflected as a number – that number is an adjusted scoring margin. It’s an expected point total against an average team on this year’s scoring curve in the FBS.

To date Georgia ranks third in the country in total S&P+ at 25.2.

LSU is ranked 19th at 13.6.

S&P+ predicts a two-score game, with the Dawgs favored by about 12 points.

Frankly, I don’t see it being that close and with a couple early scores could see it even getting out of hand. However, weird things happen and in two-score games, it’s worth considering the fringe factors that can dictate outcomes.

Penalties

The Dawgs rank 94th in the FBS averaging 64.4 penalty yards per game.

LSU ranks 85th at 62.6.

You could call that a push – but with both teams proving undisciplined so far, they’re playing a fool’s game. If one can iron this area out they stand a heavy advantage over the other.

Field Position

When Georgia is on offense: The Dawgs average starting field position on offense is the 29-yard-line (89th in the country). On defense, LSU has managed to force opposing offenses to start just inside of the 25 (good for 5th). Advantage LSU.

Worth noting the Dawgs average starting field position has been influenced heavily by penalties and miscues on special teams. Unforced errors aren’t doing them any favors. A winning gameplan for LSU looks like making the Dawgs drive the length of the field.

When LSU is on offense: LSU starts their drives on average the 31-yard-line (38th in the country). The Dawgs defense has begun it’s drives on average at the opponent’s 27 (31st). We’ll call this a push. Jake Camarda had his first great punt in a few weeks on Saturday against Vandy.

An inconsistent freshman punter in his first truly meaningful action — in Death Valley no less — isn’t appealing. Here’s hoping the Dawgs won’t need him much.

Turnovers

LSU has benefited from some pretty excellent turnover luck this season. Their differential between expected turnover margin and actual turnover margin would’ve equated to 4.8 points per game. If the ball starts bouncing the other way they could be in for some trouble.

The Dawgs on the other hand have roughly equivalent expected turnover margin and actual turnover margin. We know Jake has had trouble holding onto the ball this season, but the Dawgs have managed to pounce on those and force enough turnovers of their own to offset them.

From Football Study Hall’s Advanced Stats Glossary:

Turnover Margin

What a team’s turnover margin would have been if it had recovered exactly 50 percent of all the fumbles that occurred in its games, and if the INTs-to-PDs for both teams was equal to the national average, which is generally around 21-22 percent.

If there is a huge difference between TO Margin and Adj. TO Margin (in other words, if fumbles, dropped interceptions, or other lucky/unlucky bounces were the main source of a good/bad TO margin), that suggests that a team’s luck was particularly good or bad and might even out either in the next season or in the rest of the current one.

Both quarterbacks take pretty good care of the ball. Though Burrow made a bad decision last weekend against Florida when he was playing from behind in the fourth quarter. If they Dawgs establish a lead early, that would force Burrow’s hand.

I’m putting the arrow in the Dawgs favor here.

Scoring Opportunities

When the Dawgs are on offense: The Dawgs offense averages 5.23 points per trip inside the 40 (30th in FBS). LSU’s defense is ranked 59th in the same category, allowing 4.36 points.

The Dawgs rank 18th in success rate between the 21 and 30-yard line (51% conversion) and 9th between the 11 and 20-yard line (58%). Most of their scoring plays so far this season have come from those distances. They haven’t been too hot inside the 10 (42%), but there haven’t been very many opportunities — their efficacy at the goal line remains to be seen.

On the other side, the Tigers rank 81st in success rate allowed between the 21 and 30 (45%), and 86th between the 11 and 20 (42%).

Dawgs get the nod here from the statistical perspective.

From a strategy perspective, I’d still give it to them. With the speed they have out of the slot and backfield and size they can place on the outside, it will be difficult for LSU to matchup in the red zone.

When LSU is on offense: LSU is getting 4.82 points per scoring opportunity (53rd in FBS) whereas the Dawgs D is allowing only 3.76 (22nd). Indeed, bend don’t break comes through here as well.

Between the 21 and 30, LSU ranks 39th with a 48% success rate. The Dawgs rank 5th, allowing the necessary yardage only 25% of the time. Between the 11 and the 20, LSU has a 36% success rate (90th in FBS) and the Dawgs are giving it up 63% of the time (128th). First and goal is a push with both teams performing poorly.

If they can keep them out beyond the 20, the arrow goes to the Dawgs. If not, anybody’s guess.

Final Thoughts

Great teams get tested. The 2017 Georgia Bulldogs were a great team that got their world rocked in Auburn, Alabama in November before winning the SEC title and the Rose Bowl and December and January. The 2018 Dawgs haven’t yet had that opportunity and maybe this weekend in Death Valley is it.

I liked what CKS had to say after Jeremiah Holloman dropped the ball before making it into the endzone in Columbia.

“It’s just a disrespect for the ball and your teammates.”

Indeed — JJ is a great player and I’m sure felt terrible, but you can appreciate the greater point. There are rough edges around this year’s team that haven’t yet been ironed out. Unforced errors have thwarted potential scoring opportunities, handicapped field position, and resulted in points for opponents. Sometimes it takes getting punched in the mouth for the message to sink in.

A road test in week 7 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana will promise plenty of those.

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I like to grade games before they happen as either games we should expect to win, or games in which we’ll need to compete like hell (where a win is anything but certain). Even in a losing effort, if they play a great game it’s still something to be proud of. If this Dawgs team had played perfect (perfect up to the understood skill level of the team to this point) football coming into Saturday I wouldn’t have a problem labeling this a game you could expect to win.

But they haven’t yet and they have to go to Baton Rouge. There’s a part of me that’s hoping this game plays out tighter than I think it will. I’m hopeful the Dawgs will struggle a little bit against a worthy opponent so that they’re all forced to compete at a level they haven’t had to touch yet.

I’m putting this one in the “compete like hell” category.

Glory, glory!