Munson opened the show mentioning UGA & Tech rallying to win, and lots of teams fighting and scratching to stay alive. Of course UK upsetting
LSU and Cal’s loss were mentioned. Bama and
Auburn had to rally in their games. Lots of other teams that lost Saturday got mentioned too.
“Old man injury” grabbed at the Dawgs again. If we’re not careful the guy from NJ will be sleepwalking in about 15 minutes. Munson says Richt has had to load up the roster with anyone who thinks he used to be a running back.
Richt is out of town at a speaking appearance…
Calls opened tonite with Bruce from Demorest, who asked the “water girl” question about pulling Caleb King’s redshirt. CMR said there is no plan. CMR hates to take a guy out of his redshirt season. If T. Brown would be out the whole year it might be different. CMR wants King to know he will have four full seasons.
Jason Johnson is a Sr. who is strong and tough. Also Shaun Chapas knows what to do at TB. We can also use Southerland in a one back set.
Jeremy in Memphis wants to get the guys in the trenches fired up for the
Florida game. He had 3 questions about the defense. First – we get turned in too easily, what about Jarius Wynn at DE? We did well blitzing LBs up the middle vs. Vandy – should be try that vs. Florida? What about the CBs playing tighter?
CMR – we’ve had some production at DE but don’t have the guys there we’ve had in the past. Wynn is a possible candidate for that. He’s in the rotation at interior DL. We’ve got to get more pressure off the edge. We did blitz a good bit this week. Some of the things that ended up springing were LB blitzes where we did different things. This was the first game we had a lot of success with it. CB – getting off jams and bailing out is common, in college and in the NFL. Robber coverages that use that are common. Also, people bail to cover 2 or 3 and include zone blitzes. If we always pressed, teams are sophisticated enough to figure it out. Show one thing and do another.
Steve in Boca Raton, FL thinks we’re a strong second half team. CMR isn’t sure that is true. We were this last game and showed some life the second half at Tenn. Our coaches do a good job of making adjustments. But sometimes it takes players just settling in and playing ball.
Eddie in Acworth reminded CMR there are two dates circled – Florida & GT. He really liked that fire CMR showed at the end of the Vandy game .. Munson joked CMR should’ve gotten called for a block in the back getting the guys off the Vandy logo.
CMR joked back he could not have gotten called for a block in the back since the officials had already left the field.
About the other stuff - the game ended & on the way to shake hands with Bobby Johnson, and he saw guys jump around on their star logo. CMR ran over and got after ‘em and said we ought to be glad we won the game. CMR apologized to Johnson, who told him not to worry about it. Since then, CMR has been told once Coutu made the kick, he just ran kind of towards the middle of the field and everyone ran to him.
Bob in Social Circle also wanted to compliment CMR on showing that fire and emotion. We’d love to see that fire and emotion transferred to the team lines up before we play Florida. CMR wondered (joking) if the caller wanted him to punch everyone out before the game. CMR said the players usually see that emotion in the privacy of the locker room. He always stayed calm because he was also calling the game (plays). He also does a better job of thinking straight when he stays calm. There have been times he’s raised all heck and it did no good, and sometimes he just talked to them calmly and they came out and played like gangbusters – like against VT last year when we were down 18 at the half.
Fred in Calhoun wonders why the SEC has just exploded with better teams just in the last 3-5 years. And, does CMR think the team has made the progress he hoped at the start of the year? CMR thinks the improvement in teams is because coaching staffs have stayed stable. Coach Brooks at UK is a good example. They wanted to run him out but the administration stuck with him. They ended up keeping Rich, they turned things around and now that was a great move. When coaches change, staffs changed, kids get confused and its tough. At FSU, the old offensive coaches wanted linemen to be bigger, then the new OL coach wanted it different. There are just good coaches and good players around this country.
Does CMR think we’ve made progress to this point? Yes. We just need to be able to play well on a consistent basis. We need good habits .. habits last longer than emotion does. We started out emotional but then the game settled down. Make sure fundamentals and habits are so good you’re gonna play well no matter how you feel.
Scott in Jefferson said they had a great trip and highly recommends it. Against Bama, we elected to sit on a lead. This week, we sat on 3 timeouts before halftime. CMR said what happens sometimes is you have to make a determination how things are going. Given how the momentum was going this game, we did not have a good return, they had timeouts too, and if we have two incompletes they would have time to score again. We were not executing well enough. It was CMR’s decision, not Bobo’s. We decided to run once and if we broke it a bit, we’d go into the two-minute drill.
Barry in Tupelo, MS is concerned our run defense is not as successful the last year or two. CMR agrees we have not been as strong. The front 7 hasn’t been quite as dominating. We had guys who made more plays back in the day. Our front four is doing a pretty good job. And we were making more vicious tackles a few years ago. It’s a matter of everyone tightening the screws, fitting better with our LBs, being there at the moment of truth and really striking people. The good news was the second half against Vandy we did a good job of that.
Carl in Bainbridge asked about Darryl Gamble and what about stopping Tebow. Darryl is only a redshirt freshmen. In camp we did not think he was playing as physical as we’d like. About 2-3 games into the season he really started to get physical so we’ve given him more of an opportunity. Next game with Miller and Washington coming he may not get as many reps, but he’s really moving in the right direction.
Can you stop Tebow? It really is tough. When your QB can run, its tough. When you put a safety in the box, you can outnumber the run game. But if the QB runs well, you have to put a safety down just to even it up. Plus, he can throw the ball like everyone has now seen. Fans were hoping he couldn’t throw, but now they know he can.
Scott in Grayson is glad to get out of Nashville with a win. Is Moreno totally healthy? Scott noticed Moreno came off once after a block favoring his arm, like a separation .. but hopefully it was just a burner. Did Auburn lay a blueprint for us with all the twists they used that just stoned Tebow and clogged his running lanes?
CMR – Moreno did get a little stinger. Ron Courson said it bothered him some during the game but he shook it off and finished strong. And he was lifting with the team today. We will be studying what Auburn did against Florida and will implement as many things they did as we can based on our personnel. If we can find a tidbit here and there that will make a difference we’ll install it. It is common to study every game of an upcoming opponent.
Mark in Winterville noted the TV crew said something about Stafford throwing a bit late sometimes. CMR said there were a couple of deep balls he let go a little too late. There was one time he threw a little late where we wanted him to drop, give a pump fake to an inside WR. He made the fake then recoiled and threw. That was to make a DB play a middle receiver. That wasn’t so much late as it should have been thrown a little more upfield. A lot of times commentators can sense what you’re trying to do but sometimes they don’t know.
Clay asked about Tripp Chandler, who’s now playing his tail off .. and pointed out that big catch he made where he took a big hit, hung on, and bounced up a la Moreno. What about Aron White? CMR said Aron is beginning to grow. He weighed 212 when he got here. He’s very talented and is now in the 220-225 range. The goal to be a full time player is to get the blocking and receiving down. If he doesn’t get big enough for TE we’ll probably use him as an inside receiver.
Morgan in Lexington wonders when Stafford is missing receivers, is he that much better than the other QBs? What about Joe Cox? What positions does CMR think we need to recruit?
Cox does know the system and practices extremely well and CMR isn’t sure he shouldn’t get to play anyway. These games have been so tight we haven’t wanted to make the move. Joe’s a talented guy, a sharp guy. He’s a good football player and CMR wishes we could play him more.
As for recruiting, we have a bunch of commitments and the class is just about full. We could take another RB, at least one OT, two if possible. DE, DT are about done. If there’s a great player out there, we’ve just got to get him. We need another safety in this class too.
Bill in Valdosta remembered CMR saying we would see Joe Cox some. When Greene and Shockley were there, we used two QBs even though lots of people didn’t agree with it, and we ended up with two great QBs. CMR said he wouldn’t sit there on the air and make a promise he couldn’t keep. Joe is a good football player. We wouldn’t be shocked if he got in there just because he deserved to play.
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