Awwwww yeaaaaaaaah.If you've spent any time hanging out in the SEC blogosphere at all, you'll have no problem recognizing the dead-sexy visage above as belonging to Hey Jenny Slater's Doug Gillett, not only one of the Interweb's foremost Dawg bloggers but one of the funniest, best bloggers of the college football stripe out there, period. Even Yahoo!'s recognizing these days.
So it kicked a substantial amount of ass to get together with Doug (who's every bit as hawt in person as you'd expect) over the wonders of Internet messaging for a back-and-forth over this weekend's edition of the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry. This part is me grilling him on the Dawgs; my answers to Doug's queries are already up and available hyah. I'm in bold, he's in quotes. Enjoy.
So despite my best efforts to blot the stains of the last two years' meetings from my memory, there's no way around the fact the Dawgs absolutely plastered my Tigers the last couple of years. And now we're 4-5 and have an offense Mississippi St.'s fans think is mediocre. How confident are the Dawgs and their fans about this game, do you think? Any chance they could be OVERconfident please please please?
"Some of the fans are overconfident, but I don't think the more enlightened ones are, and I certainly don't think the players or coaches are, not after last week. I think there's a general recognition that the defense really has to step it up, particularly since it looks like Auburn could be running an offense very similar to what we saw from the Wildcats."
Well, similar in the sense that I guess both have young and slithery QBs, but if Auburn scores 38 points I suspect that immediately following the final whistle the ground will finally open up and swallow us all. That aside, UK did have some success, to say the least. How'd that happen and could you give us a read on how much Auburn can expect to repeat it?
"Well, I think part of it was the fact that Randall Cobb was starting for the first time and we didn't know quite what to expect from him -- I don't think anybody thought we'd be seeing a slightly modified version of the triple option up there. That said, if there were any major adjustments made once we knew what they were doing, I didn't see them.
"I would hope that now that we've kind of received our 'wake-up call' in that regard, we'll be better prepared against Kodi Burns and the Tigers, but in a weird way the Tigers' lack of an offensive identity might work to their advantage in some phases of the game: I can't speak for every Georgia fan out there, but I have no earthly idea WHAT kind of offense we're going to see on the Plains this weekend."
Well, generally speaking, the type will most likely be "bad." With guys like Rennie Curran around, though, I'm surprised things seem to be so slipshod on Georgia's side of the ball. What matchups was Kentucky exploiting? Where are those chinks in the Bulldogs' (sort of thin and cheap-looking) armor?
"I think the main matchup was 'crafty and talented' versus 'not particularly motivated.' But their O-line was controlling the line of scrimmage pretty well against our defensive front and leaving it up to our back seven to make most of the tackles. Granted, the early loss of Jeff Owens this season was a major blow to our defensive line, but there's still too much talent there for us to be getting handled the way we have been by some of the better teams on our schedule."
One of Auburn's main offensive weapons in the West Virginia game, in particular, was Burns escaping from the 'Eer pass rush and scrambling for first downs on third down. As I'm not expecting Auburn to get a ton of push--UK's success aside--there's probably going to be some third-and-longs. How have the UGA linebackers and safeties been in QB contain?
"Pretty decent -- there's a lot of speed back there, after all -- but we haven't faced all that many truly elite running QBs this year. Tebow, obviously, is the exception. We didn't let Mackenzi Adams run too wild on us, if memory serves, but that's the only one I can think of in recent weeks."
One last question about the defense--while Burns tossed a whole series of killer picks against Ole Miss, he did show some ability to burn the Rebels deep once they'd committed eight guys to stopping the run. Do you expect Martinez to sell out against Burns's running ability and do we have any shot at completing a few bombs against the Dawg secondary? Remember that our receivers are not especially threatening.
"Unfortunately, that's been a worry of mine. In theory, our secondary is talented enough that we should be OK in one-on-one situations, but we haven't picked off many balls this year -- I think one of our backup linebackers is second on the INTs list, which is crazy -- and too often we seem to chose "draw an interference flag" as Plan A on pass defense. I think we should be able to contain Auburn's passing game pretty well, but it all comes down to how motivated we are and whether we take the Tiger offense seriously (which is why all this "Ehh, Auburn's offense sucks, this'll be a slam-dunk" talk bugs me so much)."
Moving over to the other side of the ball, Matt Stafford looks like the future No. 1 draft pick we all expected at times and like freshman and/or keg-lifting Matt Stafford at others (Florida, 'Bama). Can you pinpoint what exactly has caused him to struggle when he's struggled?
"Well, getting down by three- or four-TD margins certainly didn't do him any favors, since he's a natural gunslinger and having a big deficit to make up only increases his propensity for trying to do too much and making ill-advised throws. In instances where we're still in the game and the ground game is clicking well, Stafford has been pretty solid. The only multiple-INT games he's had other than Alabama and Florida were Tennessee and Vandy, and the first one, at least, had to do with a few head-scratching play calls down inside the 20. So I'd look for Stafford to play pretty smart this weekend unless somehow the score just starts getting completely out of hand.
"Now that I've said that, of course, Auburn's going to return four punts for TDs and be up 28-0 at the end of the first quarter. You're welcome."
Sadly, that's about the most logical method for Auburn to take a 28-0 lead, and even that's fairly illogical since it requires Auburn to force four punts.
Moreno has seemed to have a fairly quiet season, Edwin Moses impressions aside. Is that more the line's struggles or just the massive deficits vs. UF/UA or has he just not been as explosive as he was last year?
"Having to abandon the run against Florida and 'Bama hurt him, of course, but I think defenses are just more prepared for him this time around. He's still had a good season -- went over 1,000 yards against Kentucky, making him the first Dawg since Herschel to go four figures in his first two years -- but I think opposing defenses are just more committed to stopping him than perhaps they were last year. The benefit for us, of course, is that that's opened things up for Stafford, who's having by far the best season of his career."
Damn you and your fancy-shmancy "balance" and fancy-schmancy "talent." Sigh. I honestly think the one place Auburn's defense might have an out-and-out advantage is up front, where we've got some quality guys coming back from injury and the Dwags have been hurtin' all year. What's the current status for the Dawg o-line? Any particular weak links?
"Our depth situation has gone from bad to worse -- Justin Anderson tweaked something last week and is out for Auburn (and perhaps Georgia Tech as well), leaving us with only seven O-linemen to rotate this weekend. That's gonna leave at least a few of them gassed by the time this thing gets into the fourth quarter, so while Stacy Searels has done a phenomenal job of coaching the line through some incredible adversity, we've got to be very, very careful against Auburn -- just because Stafford's jersey has been kept mostly clean this season doesn't mean he can afford to sit around back there and wait too long for a play to open up."
Between the line's lack of depth and the general edge towards that shakiness that seems to plague Stafford when UGA's played from behind (last week excepted, I suppose), does it make it even more important than usual for the Dawgs to get out early? Is Richt going to be looking for the proverbial knockout blow?
"I would think so, yeah, except that we jumped out to 14-0 on Kentucky in the blink of an eye last week and that didn't help us any. That just makes it all the more important that we stay focused and not take anything for granted on Saturday -- of course, if we do grab an early lead, it would really help if y'all could be sufficiently demoralized to just give up and let us roll the rest of the way."
This is where I wonder if the shadows of the past two seasons are going to cast their black, uh, shadows on the game--if Auburn does fall behind, especially the way so much of this season has gone, I wonder if they'll assume it's just '06 or '07 again and if not give up, then at least lose that confident edge they've got to have to hang with the Dawgs. It'll take more than effort, unfortunately, it'll take that extrasuperhuman effort Tubby's been so good at producing in these sorts of games over the years. Who knows if Auburn'll have it around this time or not.
One more question: the game's in Jordan-Hare. Are we still operating under the "road team always wins" assumption? Would you rather have this game in Athens or on the Plains?
"Having really come of age as a Georgia fan during the mid-to-late 1990s, when the 'home-field curse' was at its peak, I'd still rather have this one in Auburn. Keep in mind last year's home win was buoyed by the energy of the 'Blackout' atmosphere at Sanford Stadium, and I think it's safe to say we're not going to be whipping that out again for quite a while. Which is not to say that merely having the game in Auburn makes me rest easy about this one, but in a game that's going to be so intangible-heavy, it's something, I guess."
Oops, one more question: Why do you say it's "intangible-heavy"? I think the tangibleness of Stafford, Green, Moreno, Curran, etc. should play a pretty big role.
"Well, as a Georgia fan, I gotta say I'm worried about the motivation level on both sides. Part of me thinks a lot of the reason Georgia's defense was so slack last week in Kentucky was that we'd just gotten blown off the field in Jacksonville and our last chance at a national title was pretty much gone; right now we're just playing for bowl placement (Orlando or Tampa? oooh, the possibilities). Auburn, meanwhile, has not only pride on the line but also bowl eligibility, and they know they could salvage a rocky season by ending the season with a pair of shockers over top-10 teams (and a pair of historic arch-rivals to boot). Again, I'm hoping that the scare in Lexington will serve as a wake-up call for our guys, but they damn sure better be prepared to face a very motivated (or desperate; you say potato, I say po-tah-to) Auburn team in a few days."
Makes sense.
Major thanks again to Doug and if you're not reading Hey Jenny Slater, you really should be.
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