This why Kirby doesn’t scare me.

[Atlanta917]

That would be like me stating Lane Kiffin developed a ton of talent here because he had Eric Berry who won an award. And looking at his numbers Baker really wasnt all that good the year he won, actually he prob should have won it the year before instead. He might have won the award but so did Rodrigo Blakenship and I would take Cimiglia over him any day of the week and his chokeness.

Also just to correct you St Helen led UGA to their best season in his second season which was 13-1 in 2002(smart finished 13-2 in 2017 after getting his crap pushed in by Auburn 40-17, very hard to beat the same team twice in the same year as LSU learned with one of Bama's titles). Every other year after that was pretty dang good, but still no NC hmmmmm. Looks like history might just repeat itself.

Rodrigo has hit a 55 yarder in the playoffs... lol he's easily been best kicker in the SEC in a long time. Kickers that never kick in pressure situations often have it easier, not sure how many pressure kicks Cimiglia has had to deal with you.

Also, don't need correcting. Smart made it to the natty his second year, while Richt never made it in 15 years. I doubt anyone would try to say a meaningless BCS bowl is more important than the national championship. On top of that, Smart beat more ranked teams and more top 10 teams in 2017 than Richt did in 2002. As for Auburn, didn't UGA wipe the floor with them when it mattered? You can bring up history if you want, but it has no bearing on the present. If it did Notre Dame and GT would still be relevant. Smart has had UGA in playoff contention 3 out of the 4 years he's been at UGA and has a 7-4 record against top 10 opponents. Richt is currently unemployed because the game passed him by. Its certainly possible Smart could fall off like Richt, but we won't know until we get a bigger sample size.

 

[cgrish]

I actually think Smart and Pruitt are very similar. Both are elite defensive minds and elite recruiters. I think both need to follow Orgeron and upgrade their offense to become truly elite. Spread offenses have more snowball potential and bully ball just isn’t as effective as it once was. I could see Pruitt changing first since he’s hungrier than Smart.

This is exactly what I have been saying. I hope Pruitt sees this, I don't care if kirby does or not lol

 

[Atlanta917]

Baker played in 11 games his True Fresh year but most was on special teams so he for sure was developed from a 3 star corner. I see UT with Pruitt doing some of the same.

If he had any starts on defense, that would be development. Taking a special teams player and turning them into a 1st round draft pick and thorpe award winner is development. I will give credit to Pruitt for spotting Baker though.

 

[Atlanta917]

This is exactly what I have been saying. I hope Pruitt sees this, I don't care if kirby does or not lol

I think Pruitt may see it before Smart. Smart has had a taste of success and could fall into a trap of trying to recreate it with the same formula. Pruitt could be more willing to try and find a new solution since he's still looking for it. It took Orgeron years to update his offense, but the results were incredible when he finally did. Will be interesting to see if LSU can retain that success once Brady leaves.

 

[cgrish]

Rodrigo has hit a 55 yarder in the playoffs... lol he's easily been best kicker in the SEC in a long time. Kickers that never kick in pressure situations often have it easier, not sure how many pressure kicks Cimiglia has had to deal with you.

Also, don't need correcting. Smart made it to the natty his second year, while Richt never made it in 15 years. I doubt anyone would try to say a meaningless BCS bowl is more important than the national championship. On top of that, Smart beat more ranked teams and more top 10 teams in 2017 than Richt did in 2002. As for Auburn, didn't UGA wipe the floor with them when it mattered? You can bring up history if you want, but it has no bearing on the present. If it did Notre Dame and GT would still be relevant. Smart has had UGA in playoff contention 3 out of the 4 years he's been at UGA and has a 7-4 record against top 10 opponents. Richt is currently unemployed because the game passed him by. Its certainly possible Smart could fall off like Richt, but we won't know until we get a bigger sample size.

Imo Kirby will fall off also if he don't change his offensive game plan. We will see.

 

[Bigorangefaninga]

Smartt signed a whopping 5 players from the state of Georgia this year (so far) and they are in line for a Top 3 class again. They are recruiting at a level Richt never approached and recruiting a different kind of athlete. Much more physical and fast.

If you want to say a coach is an idiot who's teams have outscored us 122-26 the past three years go ahead, but you sound just as stupid and pathetic and UK and UGA fans do/did when Fulmer completely owned them. How about let's be remotely competitive with Smart before we say he is trash.

stupid would be saying that we shouldnt be getting beat by them since they havent had a recruiting class outside the top 20 in 15 years. So yes you would sound STUPID! The place recruits itself. Dooley won a NC there and he wasnt that good a coach! So yes if you think just because he has beaten UT (although he is 3-1 against UT not undefeated when he snatched a loss from the jaws of a win since they were up on UT to point Dobbs shouldnt have been able to hail mary a win). So yes he is 3-1 against UT wow, whats his record against the best the SEC has to offer? you know LSU, Auburn and Bama? You know the ones he needs to actually beat to win a NC.

 

[Atlanta917]

Imo Kirby will fall off also if he don't change his offensive game plan. We will see.

I absolutely agree. It says a lot that Saban moved away from bully ball. He won multiple championships that way and was easily the best at developing players for that system, but even he realized it wasn't practical any more. As the rules have changed to favor offense the old cliche about "defense travels" has become less and less true. Passing offenses travel now and teams without them are far more liable to be upset by teams with lesser talent. In a ball control game teams get less possessions, so the game becomes more volatile. Things like muffed punts or pick sixes become the difference between winning and losing. Just look at the UGA USC game. If you're interested about it I'd recommend checking out the "college football nerds" youtube channel. I think in the UGA LSU SECC preview they talk about how spread offenses go nuclear at a certain yards per play number while pro style offenses see a much more level increase in scoring.

 

[Bigorangefaninga]

Rodrigo has hit a 55 yarder in the playoffs... lol he's easily been best kicker in the SEC in a long time. Kickers that never kick in pressure situations often have it easier, not sure how many pressure kicks Cimiglia has had to deal with you.

Also, don't need correcting. Smart made it to the natty his second year, while Richt never made it in 15 years. I doubt anyone would try to say a meaningless BCS bowl is more important than the national championship. On top of that, Smart beat more ranked teams and more top 10 teams in 2017 than Richt did in 2002. As for Auburn, didn't UGA wipe the floor with them when it mattered? You can bring up history if you want, but it has no bearing on the present. If it did Notre Dame and GT would still be relevant. Smart has had UGA in playoff contention 3 out of the 4 years he's been at UGA and has a 7-4 record against top 10 opponents. Richt is currently unemployed because the game passed him by. Its certainly possible Smart could fall off like Richt, but we won't know until we get a bigger sample size.

Well record wise you WOULD be WRONG, so yes you are corrected and different times and different places. UGA got beat by Florida in Jax 20-13. They won the east AND won the SEC that year beating Arky 30-3. IF there was a playoff UGA makes it being the SEC champ and would have went on to play either OSU or Miami. WHILE Kirby got punked by Auburn 40-17 and won the SEC by beating Auburn in the SEC Championship. That was a really screwed up season because no one was undefeated as Bama made the playoffs and won it all as the 4 seed and UGA was 3 seed, so if no 4 team playoff they dont even make the playoffs so they would have played in a meaningless bowl game like Richts 2nd season. So dont play that stupid game with me. if the BCS still existed UGA wouldnt have played for a NC would have been Oklahoma and Clemson!

Oh also did Rodrigo hit that 55 yarder this year in the playoffs? Because I am pretty sure him missing a chipshot is the reason they arent in the playoffs this season. I mean that USC game was served on a silver platter to them, USC misses a chipshop and UGA just has to hit and and BING.

 

[Atlanta917]

Well record wise you WOULD be WRONG, so yes you are corrected and different times and different places. UGA got beat by Florida in Jax 20-13. They won the east AND won the SEC that year beating Arky 30-3. IF there was a playoff UGA makes it being the SEC champ and would have went on to play either OSU or Miami. WHILE Kirby got punked by Auburn 40-17 and won the SEC by beating Auburn in the SEC Championship. That was a really screwed up season because no one was undefeated as Bama made the playoffs and won it all as the 4 seed and UGA was 3 seed, so if no 4 team playoff they dont even make the playoffs so they would have played in a meaningless bowl game like Richts 2nd season. So dont play that stupid game with me. if the BCS still existed UGA wouldnt have played for a NC would have been Oklahoma and Clemson!

But there was no playoff and Richt didn't make the natty, simple as that. On top of that Smart beat more ranked teams and more top 10 teams. He also punked Auburn in the SECC game. You're the only one playing a stupid game acting like a BCS game is more important than the national championship. We don't know where the BCS would've had UGA ranked at the end of the 2017 season, so it's impossible to know. I do know Richt was winless in play-in games that led to the natty while Smart is 1-0 in them. Oh, and didn't Richt have the playoffs at UGA and Miami? How did that work out again? I'm also fairly sure Richt didn't win the east 3 consecutive times either. I like Richt. He did a good job at UGA and set up Smart for success when he arrived. Richt's issue wasn't his first four seasons. If he was able to keep up that success I have no doubt he'd still be employed somewhere today.

At this point lets just agree to disagree. Its clear we both have different opinions and neither of us will change the other's mind. Posting nothing would be more constructive than us posting the same thing back to each other over and over again.

 

[rikberry31]

This moronic posts sounds just as stupid as KY fans when they try and trash talk UT football and also how pathetic UGA fans sounded in the 90's. Kirby has outscored us by almost 100 points the last three years. How about lets come within 4 TD's of him before saying his pathetic.

Also, I'm assuming if Kirby is so bad then Pruitt should be able to beat him soon and if not, then you are saying CJP isn't the right man for not being able to beat such a terrible coach?

I’m pretty confident UT’ coaching staff with similar talent would take cre of business against Kirby and Co. On paper UGA has as good of depth and talent as anyone in the country and they don’t play like it. Heck give Pruitt the talent level Kirby inherited from Richt and he’d whip the current Dogs.

 

[Bigun]

stupid would be saying that we shouldnt be getting beat by them since they havent had a recruiting class outside the top 20 in 15 years. So yes you would sound STUPID! The place recruits itself. Dooley won a NC there and he wasnt that good a coach! So yes if you think just because he has beaten UT (although he is 3-1 against UT not undefeated when he snatched a loss from the jaws of a win since they were up on UT to point Dobbs shouldnt have been able to hail mary a win). So yes he is 3-1 against UT wow, whats his record against the best the SEC has to offer? you know LSU, Auburn and Bama? You know the ones he needs to actually beat to win a NC.

I mean he's dominated the East pretty much as much as you can since his time here. Lost once SEC East game since 2017 and before this year only trailed against SEC East teams for a total of around 5 minutes. Not many people beat Saban. Only two coaches in the SEC have beaten him. Ogre and Malzhan.

You can keep putting down Kirby if you want, and I don't like they guy, but Kirby is very much like Fulmer is so far in his career.

 

[rikberry31]

In the NFL? Eason. In UGA’s offense? Fromm. Again, how their game translates to the NFL is irrelevant when talking about how each would do in college at UGA. You’re changing the entire argument when talking about the NFL. That’s like saying Tom Brady would be a better college QB than Tebow in Urban Meyer’s offense because Brady was a better NFL QB. Different players handle the jump to the NFL differently. Multiple heisman winning QB’s had mediocre nfl careers because their game didn’t translate, but that doesn’t diminish what they did in college.

You are correct success in college doesn’t correlate to NFL success. But qbs that become NFL qbs were all good college qbs. If Eason is a better NFL prospect he’s a better qb, simple as that. If Eason and Fromm both were on the UGA sideline now, you would send in Fromm?

 

[rikberry31]

Not really dodging the question. Drafted QB's are such a mixed bag.

Eason has more physical talent by a pretty wide margin IMO.

I still wouldn't draft either though. I'd take someone else. I don't think Fromm has the physical talent to be a good NFL QB. I'd be concerned about Eason between the ears.

If Fromm can’t throw the deep out he isn’t going to do much in the NFL.

 

[Bigun]

I’m pretty confident UT’ coaching staff with similar talent would take cre of business against Kirby and Co. On paper UGA has as good of depth and talent as anyone in the country and they don’t play like it. Heck give Pruitt the talent level Kirby inherited from Richt and he’d whip the current Dogs.

Based on what exactly? With less talent he has lost by 26 and 29 points to Kirby. UGA has beaten the Vols worse than ever other SEC school.

 

[Atlanta917]

You are correct success in college doesn’t correlate to NFL success. But qbs that become NFL qbs were all good college qbs. If Eason is a better NFL prospect he’s a better qb, simple as that. If Eason and Fromm both were on the UGA sideline now, you would send in Fromm?

That's not how this works. Tebow was a much better college QB than Tom Brady and Brady was the much better NFL QB. I'd take Tebow in college over Brady in college just like I'd take Fromm's freshman year over Eason's. You also ignore the fact that Eason got hurt and that's why he lost his job. Smart didn't just randomly bench him. Fromm came in, took over, and led his team to the playoffs. At no point did Eason give UGA a better chance to win.

 

[ptcarter]

Hindsight.....I live close to Athens and know the town. Eason was Favre in Atlanta all party no work. Kirby should never have even recruited Fields. He just didn't fit. Kirby chose the right guy and neither issue has hurt recruiting. The bigger black mark is Fromm's regression.

Don't you think Fromm's regression = Fields fit (in Hindsight). No matter what "system" UGA's offense uses, Fields would have done much better. I'm not saying anyone could see Fromm stinking it up down the stretch this season. Some of that due to lack of talent at WR. Still, I think Fields as QB rather than Fromm get's much more mileage.

Bottom line, we will never really know, will we?

 

[Atlanta917]

You are correct success in college doesn’t correlate to NFL success. But qbs that become NFL qbs were all good college qbs. If Eason is a better NFL prospect he’s a better qb, simple as that. If Eason and Fromm both were on the UGA sideline now, you would send in Fromm?

These are career numbers for 2 Big 10 QB's. Which would you rather have leading your team?
QB A
61.9%, 4773 yards, 7.5 ypa, 30/17
3 rushing touchdowns
QB B
62.7%, 5720 yards, 8.5 ypa, 54/13
1168 rushing yards, 14 touchdowns

 

[SpookyAction]

I expect GTech to start getting more elite homegrown talent with the new modern offensive plan. That will put more pressure on all teams at the Atlanta trough, including us, but especially UGA.

 

[rikberry31]

I also think his pre snap reads are better than his arm. If I’m honest, I have no idea what to make of Fromm. I’ve seen him make NFL level throws and I’ve seen him struggle with the deep ball for 3 years. While the WR’s caused more issues than I thought, ppl shoving all the blame on them are blind. He missed multiple open receivers in the SECC. Either Fromm regressed from year 1 and year 2 or Hardman, wims, holloman, Ridley, and Nauta made him look better than he actually was.

For Fromm to have success he need some things. 1. Running game to allow play action. 2. A possession receiver and/or pass catching back as checkdowns. 3. Big aggressive wideouts that win 50-50 balls to make up for his lack of deep accuracy.
Teams defending Fromm, stuff the run and cover short routes.

 

[Atlanta917]

For Fromm to have success he need some things. 1. Running game to allow play action. 2. A possession receiver and/or pass catching back as checkdowns. 3. Big aggressive wideouts that win 50-50 balls to make up for his lack of deep accuracy.
Teams defending Fromm, stuff the run and cover short routes.

Having a run game helps every QB though. So does having WR's that are able to win 50/50 balls. Like I said earlier, I am unsure of where to project Fromm. What I am sure about is that Fromm had a better freshman campaign than Eason and that Eason wouldn't have done any better in 2018. I'm fairly confident Eason will have a better NFL career, but I don't think Eason is the college playmaker you're making him out to be. I'll also say Eason was a class act while at UGA. He didn't pout or make a scene when things didn't go his way and carried UGA as best as he could his freshman year. It was nice to see a kid putting the team before himself and I'll root for him in the NFL.

 

[Bigorangefaninga]

But there was no playoff and Richt didn't make the natty, simple as that. On top of that Smart beat more ranked teams and more top 10 teams. He also punked Auburn in the SECC game. You're the only one playing a stupid game acting like a BCS game is more important than the national championship. We don't know where the BCS would've had UGA ranked at the end of the 2017 season, so it's impossible to know. I do know Richt was winless in play-in games that led to the natty while Smart is 1-0 in them. Oh, and didn't Richt have the playoffs at UGA and Miami? How did that work out again? I'm also fairly sure Richt didn't win the east 3 consecutive times either. I like Richt. He did a good job at UGA and set up Smart for success when he arrived. Richt's issue wasn't his first four seasons. If he was able to keep up that success I have no doubt he'd still be employed somewhere today.

LOL, so moving the line from winning a NC and having the better record to having to play in a playoff game that didnt exist? Seriously are you special? Also yeah Kirby beat Auburn in the SEC championship game, but he got beat like a rented mule during the season to the point that if it was still BCS he would have not been one of the final 2 teams left. So again please tell me when Kirby and UGA won their NC?

 

[rikberry31]

These are career numbers for 2 Big 10 QB's. Which would you rather have leading your team?
QB A
61.9%, 4773 yards, 7.5 ypa, 30/17
3 rushing touchdowns
QB B
62.7%, 5720 yards, 8.5 ypa, 54/13
1168 rushing yards, 14 touchdowns

We are speaking different languages. You speak stats I’m talking talent and tools. Raw statistics alone are not a true measuring stick of the value of a particular player. So much of stats are supporting cast dependent. Stats are the past the don’t predict the future.
I contend UGA would be better with Eason because he’s a better qb. Put a bigger motor in a hot rod and it goes faster. We agree to disagree.

 

[Atlanta917]

We are speaking different languages. You speak stats I’m talking talent and tools. Raw statistics alone are not a true measuring stick of the value of a particular player. So much of stats are supporting cast dependent. Stats are the past the don’t predict the future.
I contend UGA would be better with Eason because he’s a better qb. Put a bigger motor in a hot rod and it goes faster. We agree to disagree.

I can respect that.

 

[Atlanta917]

LOL, so moving the line from winning a NC and having the better record to having to play in a playoff game that didnt exist? Seriously are you special? Also yeah Kirby beat Auburn in the SEC championship game, but he got beat like a rented mule during the season to the point that if it was still BCS he would have not been one of the final 2 teams left. So again please tell me when Kirby and UGA won their NC?

Kirby made it to the natty, Richt did not. Richt had 15 years to make it and had the playoffs for a few of those years and still couldn't make it. Auburn did stomp UGA, but then UGA stomped Auburn when it mattered. If the BCS was still around UGA would have benefited from stomping the number 2 team at that time. You think the BCS is more important, I think the natty is. Again, agree to disagree.

 

[rikberry31]

Having a run game helps every QB though. So does having WR's that are able to win 50/50 balls. Like I said earlier, I am unsure of where to project Fromm. What I am sure about is that Fromm had a better freshman campaign than Eason and that Eason wouldn't have done any better in 2018. I'm fairly confident Eason will have a better NFL career, but I don't think Eason is the college playmaker you're making him out to be. I'll also say Eason was a class act while at UGA. He didn't pout or make a scene when things didn't go his way and carried UGA as best as he could his freshman year. It was nice to see a kid putting the team before himself and I'll root for him in the NFL.

UGA was much more talented in 2017 than 16.