4 Hard Downs: Upset City, Spot Drops Suck & Life Behind The LOS

Covering grass for what? Be aggressive, Closing in on Thanksgiving means tidying up the freezer for ingredients

A day late because my kid was out of school, again. Veterans’ Day is a great holiday and shout out to my dad, my uncle, my aunt, my grandma and grandpa and great uncle for being Veterans of the Armed Forces.

However, I looked at the school calendar and buddy there is 1 week out of this month’s school calendar they have a full 5-day week of school.

Yes, I have this printed in my office and know the code for each day

Early release on 30th of October (not pictured), Monday and Tuesday off for parent teacher conferences and election day. Veterans’ Day. First full week of school in November. Thanksgiving 3 days off.

I’m not complaining, I’m just saying. Although, when it is myself and the munchkin, we get shit done. Yesterday we cleaned the freezer out and consolidated things so that we are ready for Thanksgiving. We got space and grace to get after it for THE BEST HOLIDAY OF THE YEAR!!!

Go ahead and SPOT THE BALL!!!

1st Down: Disruption Disrupts The Playoff Picture

I’m not going to pile on Carson Beck. I’ve made my case about how I feel about him clear via the UDPod, and no point in belaboring that. Let’s celebrate Ole Miss for what they were able to do:

-5 Sacks
-5 Pressures
-9 Tackles For Loss
-4 Forced Fumbles
-2 Fumbles Recovered
-1 Interception

That’s a game. That is a hell of a game to be more exact. The offense was good for Lane Kiffin, including a hobbled hero performance from Jaxon Dart. However, the defense was the star of the show.

Not the biggest group of guys, but the Landsharks were swimming. They made themselves skinny. They punched out the football. They broke up passes. They tackled well.

This group held Georgia to 59 yards on 33 carries (Yes, I know sacks count against them in that number) to the tune of 1.79 per carry. The speed at which they got to the QB between hurries and sacks, which led to Beck seeing ghosts limited the Dawgs to 6 yards per passing attempt and only 186 yards through the air.

Give this defense and defensive coordinator Pete Golding their flowers. They kept Ole Miss in the playoff hunt. Now, with Florida and Mississippi State left on the schedule this team might be in an amazing spot to miss the SEC Championship Game but get into the playoff. Or between A&M-Texas and UGA-Tennessee, maybe they get to show up in Atlanta.

More on this in The Format.

2nd Down: It All Falls Down

Iowa State is down bad. Georgia ain’t Georgia’ing like they have been Georgia’ing in recent years. Perhaps, with the Dawgs, it is an Icarus situation where they flew so close to the sun they ended up in the mud. For Iowa State, it seems a lot more like a pine box derby where you only hand-tightened the screws and the wheels fall off.

If you get either of those finely crafted metaphors, you get it.

Georgia’s offensive line isn’t imposing or, at times, capable. Iowa State seems like a Rubik’s Cube that has been solved and now has a youtube video for everyone else to just follow the instructions thanks to their last four games; 2 wins and 2 losses.

Tonight is going to be interesting. I expect the committee doesn’t have much room to respect Iowa State. The key, tonight will be how much leeway they give a Georgia team with 2 SEC losses and a win over Texas.

We’ll find out together.

3rd Down: Spot Drops Suck Shit

Here is a spot drop:

If you’re covering nothing, what are you doing? Just showing up in film the next day to say you got to your landmark? But you didn’t actually impact the play until you make a tackle on the guy between zones who made the catch? At best.

Pattern Matching is important in today’s football because unlike in decades ago, the route tree is incredibly expansive and easily changed. Sight adjust. Option routes. Game-to-game changes by WRs and QBs to create spacing against zone coverage. There is so much more out there, running to a spot worked really well in the 70s, 80s and even into the 90s.

It doesn’t work now. Maybe we have to change how we teach football; which Nick Saban helped along the way for sure. Hell, even Iowa pattern matches, so when you see spot dropping it is a clear sign someone doesn’t know what their doing.

4th Down: Freezer Clear Out

At first I said “Clean Out” and then realized there is still some debris in there that, quite honestly hanging out with a 6 year old all day didn’t let me get done. That being said, I have space for more turkeys, eliminated some of the stuff I was “rainy day” saving that I would never use and realized we are about to have fried calimari very soon.

Possibly fried calimari with some of the squid ink pasta that is in there.

Part of Thanksgiving is being prepared.

I am now prepared to house the birds I require while they are on sale. I am now prepared to make these weird daiquiris that someone might want. I am also now prepared to tell my kid pick a popsicle but until these are gone we aren’t going just to get mango when you have watermelon, strawberry and tangerine.

Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.

Cheers!!!