Coach Doug Mathews
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This trip to Athens was going to be difficult regardless of what happened last week against Florida. Georgia is clearly the top Dawg in the east and one of the top five teams in all of college football this young season. However after last Saturday’s loss to the Gators this game affords this 2018 Volunteer team an opportunity to show that last week was not representative of where this team is right now and where it is heading. Over my 20 year coaching career I unfortunately had to endure a couple of games just like last week’s Florida game. In most of them, if not all, I personally did a bad job of helping the players I was responsible for both prepare for and play the game…..both as a position coach and also as a coordinator. It ain’t a lot of fun to walk off your home turf knowing you let down some of the best fans in college football. But it happens and it will happen again at some point as long as we play football in the Southeastern conference. I am pretty sure I know this about this staff and players……they can’t wait for Saturday to roll around and get the bad taste out of the mouth from a subpar performance.
I have rewritten this “Talk” a couple of times, being tempted to get into why Jeremy Pruitt was hired. It really ticks me off to hear some of the talk coming out of certain parts of our great fan base….but I then come back to the fact that the great majority of that fan base understands the road ahead, understands why a change was made at the top and understands there will not only be bumps in the road but quite possibly some deep potholes. Coach Pruitt was Phillip Fulmer’s first and only choice……that’s plenty good enough for me.
Florida lessons are pretty simple….six turnovers overshadow most of the good that happened in the game and there was some clear improvement. When an opponent starts drives inside our 30 yard line as many times as we punt in a game…..we’re in trouble. When we take a safety, when we fumble a sure touchdown through the end zone for a touchback, when our quarterback gets hit more than a Joe Frazier opponent…..we’re in trouble.
Now Georgia…….The best chance to keep this game close is pretty simple. We simply must give the ball back to Georgia via a kick…..either a kickoff or a punt. And we are good in both these areas of the kicking game. That of course means few if any turnovers. Offensively we simply must get two things into our play calling: misdirection and throws deep. From a defensive play caller’s standpoint if an offense does not threaten your secondary deep and if an offense always runs in the direction the back first starts…..well it makes it very easy to call defensive signals. Counter plays, reverses, bootlegs from the quarterback that start one way and come back the other…..that makes defenders think and thinking makes a defense play slower. You can’t throw short if you won’t throw deep! Hopefully these two points were covered in the lessons from the Florida game.
Defensively…good field position, Georgia in their end of the field, gives us a chance. Make them go the long way…..ten or more plays if they are to score. Not putting our corners in too many man coverage situations is probably the game plan but those times when we are forced to play man the corners simply have to play better. Lastly when a take away situation comes our way we must make the play.
Georgia wants to run the ball and throw play action pass off those runs…..our secondary must understand their job is playing pass first and then the run. Get ball carriers on the ground and play another down.
We will “Talk” next week!