First question from Munson to CMR was that TE Colorado kept throwing to. Richt said CU did a nice job of shifts and play actions, especially the naked bootleg. Early in the game, their QB came out real cleam. Later, when we got in the QB’s face he was able to drop it off. We eventually got more pressure on that play and they went away from it.
Their RB made a couple of our guys miss in space a few times. Space is the enemy of a defense with a shifty back like that.
When I suggested people didn’t heed the coaches’ warning, CMR said he could almost understand why. But it turned out that Colorado was just as dangerous as the coaches feared.
The play selection was no different when Cox was in the game as it was when Stafford was in the game. We give the young QBs some options to check off at the line. A more experienced QB would have more options to see what things look like at the line and change the play if needed. Sometimes we call a play and if we guess wrong on the defense it doesn’t look too good. Plays that weren’t working early on worked better later in the game when we ran those against a different look on defense.
Barron in Athens joked about almost having heart attack. CMR laughed and said he almost did too. We’re planning on redshirting Moreno; CMR says we’re really going to love him. Great speed, balance and agility. We were afraid we would have a hard time getting him work with the 3 backs we already have.
There seems to be a delay for Munson tonite, though CMR is picking up the calls fine.
David in Grayson said his wife almost had to call 911. Coach VH told Richt today working out that he felt pretty beat up after Saturday. What do we expect from Ole Miss and Brent Schaeffer? David also tossed out that Corso says we can’t win on the road with a frosh QB. CMR isn’t sure Schaeffer will be the Ole Miss QB; they pulled him and went with their second team guy late in their game last week. Wake Forest only threw 5 times. On the other hand, Missouri passed the ball well and won. Can we put a hat on the right guy, everyone block hard, and the backs read it right? It doesn’t seem difficult but that’s why you play the games.
Terry in Lincolnton asked about Katharyn – she’s doing great and CMR says she may be in the best shape of her life. She’s getting ready for the 3-day breast cancer walk coming up soon.
Did it occur to us that Colorado might take a safety late in the game? CMR said one of the coaches suggested they might. When you do that you kick from the 20 instead of the 35. If they thought they could punt better from the 20 and cover it better, then its not a bad idea. If we were in that situation, we would have punted unless backed all the way up, since we practice covering with our gunners.
Jill in Hoschton wondered about taking a delay of game penalty when we didn’t have the right personnel instead of wasting a time out. Afterwards, Coutu went to CMR and said to just take the penalty next time. Sometimes, its just a knee jerk reaction. We have a wingman not on the field. If we take the delay in the coaches’ minds but we had gone ahead and tried the kick (and got it blocked) we would have been in big trouble. Gordon Ely-Kelso could’ve just called for the snap without knowing we were going to just take the penalty. It would have been the saddest thing the whole day.
Brent in Adrian again mentioned how tough a day it was. He asked about Thomas Flowers being out of the picture this year. What about Flowers helping out with breaking down film. Oh, his wife wants to know if CMR or Munson got to pet Ralphie.
CMR said we try hard to keep the injured players involved. Its hard. Some guys think their worth is if they’re healthy and on the field. The coaches want them to know they’re important all the time. They still participate in segment meetings, study hall, tutoring, etc. Neither got a chance to pet Ralphie. Munson said he would’ve liked to. CMR wasn’t too thrilled about wanting to pet the buffalo.
Girard in Athens noticed Brandon Miller got a good number of snaps in the 2nd half. Also, what about Dannell Ellerbe? One thing CMR enjoys about the D is we’re doing a great job rotating people.
Jeremy in Memphis wants to encourage all UGA fans to come over for the Ole Miss game. Hopefully the team will be ready because he thinks Ole Miss will really be ready. He notes Memphis and Missouri both ran the spread and simply picked Ole Miss apart. CMR says you kind of have to do what you do. We’ve got good TEs and backs and want to utilize them. Once you spread out what Mizzou did, you’re at the mercy of your passing game and the QB run.
We figure Ole Miss will want to get their TE more involved after they see what Colorado did.
Bruce in Hartwell mentioned he’d heard CMR on the Jim Rome show earlier and just had to bring up the stories about if Coker got run out in Miami. CMR said again Georgia is where he wants to be. Ever since he decided to come, he knew that was it. CMR said he could not imagine walking into a team meeting room and telling the players he had a better place to be. CMR has lots of respect for Miami, its his alma mater. Funny thing – if you were going to fire CMR and this staff, you could have done it at the end of the 3rd qtr., but it’s a 60 minute game. He also brought up how good a record Coker has.
Michael in Dewey Rose asked about Joe T. Also, what about Blake Barnes? Joe T actually got a few reps in practice today and its obvious he isn’t ready to play yet. We hope he’s ready to start practicing next Monday. Blake Barnes is handling the lack of attention extremely well. Richt understands how that feels from his playing days at Miami backing up Jim Kelly.
Roger in Marietta asked if Cox saw different coverages once we got Lumpkin going running the ball? CMR doesn’t know why it went the way it did. Maybe CU played conservatively on defense. We called other routes earlier in the day where Milner was the primary route but it wasn’t there. Suddenly we called those plays with Cox and there he was open in the flat. On the last play, they expected to get a LB right over top of him and cover him anywhere on the field. As it turned out, we happened to be in the perfect protection against their max blitz on that play. On the coaches film, that pass was the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen.
Chris in Augusta wonders if we’ll be more aggressive play calling. Talking to Stafford, CMR said the more he & Cox can handle, we can get out of the guessing game. It’s kind of a “check with me” thing with a few choices depending on the defense’s look. The young QBs can handle some of it. But it isn’t like it was with DJ last year and Greene before that.
Defensively, its hard to say what’s best. Colorado didn’t pressure us early on but they did a good job of stymieing us. The big plays came when they tried to bring more pressure. CMR and Martinez like to mix pressure and coverages.
Austin in Flowery Branch thinks Stafford played good under the circumstances since the OL wasn’t playing good. The OL seemed to get more motivated when Cox went in. What about kicking FGs in the 4th qtr.? The defense is playing very well. CMR went for the 4th down when we had 0 points was he wasn’t sure how many more times we’d be down there. Kick a FG and you still need two scores. If we make it there, we’d only need one more score. Otherwise, we would need two scores no matter what.
The defense is playing well led by LBs who have lived through lots of experiences. They know what to expect and understand the game because of it.
Joe in Athens mentioned Nick Jones pulling everyone together when things were going bad in the 3rd qtr. CMR agrees Nick is our leader on offense. CMR also talked about the character education and leadership training. Jones has bought into it hook, line and sinker. It really showed under adversity.
Ken (car phone) asked which QB would start or how it would go. CMR feels both ought to play. Both are young, talented, smart guys who deserve it. We won’t decide who will start until later in the week but count on both playing.
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