Monday After Season Thoughts

A couple of thoughts running through my brain late last night, and a few things I took a glance at:

• Mizzou was easily the worst 11-1 team in the nation, and the worst division champ since 2010 South Carolina.  They really weren't ready for the bright lights and it showed.  Dawgs or Cocks would have put up much more of a fight.  Them's the breaks.  They won the games they had to.

• I can't force myself to believe that Auburn's offense will be a lasting juggernaut for one reason:  The NFL.  We look at it and say, "Gosh, why doesn't my team do that?  They're killing people."  But no NFL GM is thinking that, which means a few things.  1.  It can be stopped.  The best and brightest offensive minds in the world still think Peyton, Brady and Breeze and precision passing is the way to go, which means they think it's the hardest to stop.  Football is cyclical.  Every team Auburn plays will be seeking a new way to stop it.  It only takes one and the rest copy cat.  The ACC spent a couple years figuring out Tech, now the best teams have.  Maybe Malzahn will turn out to be the smartest guy in the room.  Me thinks the NFL has the smartest guys.  Do you think Saban won't research all off-season how to stop it?  Do you think all those coaches don't talk?  2.  Recruiting.  They're going to have a hard time recruiting top-shelf WR, which ends up being a losing game down the road.  Bottom line is I don't want to go where I'm not going to get thrown the ball.  The ocassional bomb won't satisfy the desires of the AJ Green recruits of the world, which will hurt their talent pool.  Cam notwithstanding, it's not a system to get in the NFL as a QB, and if I can't get in the NFL, then why do I want to come?  Over the long-haul, it begins to have an effect.  Maybe there are more Cam Newtons and Nick Marshalls out there than I realize.  There's a lot of Khiel Fraziers, who is shorter than Cam and a step slower than Marshall.  Those attributes make all the difference.  Turns out Tech has had a hard time finding another Josh Nesbitt.  3.  That offense, much like Tech's, will never be combined with a good defense.  Based on what Malzhan will try to recruit at QB, what scout teamer will give them a look in practice to mimic Hutson Mason?  Exactly. 

• My daddy always said about a great game of golf that the tendency is to think about what you could have done, like you mised that 5 footer and fluffed that one into the water.  You always forget that you holed in one from 30 yards away, hit the best drive of your life and had one bounce off a tree into the middle of the fairway.  Auburn would be wise to be mindful of that.  UGA could well be 6-6 this year, and you are what you are.  But that team is dangerously close to being 8-4, and legitimately should be 9-3.  Don't know what that means for next year.  But, eventually the luck runs out and the ball bounces the other way.  It just does.

• Speaking of luck, since the advent of the SECCG, here are the teams that finished the game with 1 or zero losses and played for the NC:  1992 Bama (12-0), 1995 Florida (12-0), 1996 Florida (11-1), 1997 Tennessee (11-1…played in Bowl Coalition Champ. Vs. Nebraska), 1998 Tennessee (12-0), 2003 LSU (12-1), 2006 Florida (11-1), 2007 LSU (11-2…outlier!), 2008 Florida (12-1), 2009 Bama (13-0), 2010 Auburn (13-0), 2011 LSU (13-0), 2012 Bama (12-1).  Of course, the real outliers there are 2002 UGA at 12-1 and 2004 Auburn at 12-0.  Hard to say Mark Richt didn't do what a lot of others have done in his first 2 years.  Bottom line is ain't many people running through unscathed.  Urbs never did.  Miles did and lost the title game.  Spurrier never did all the way through.  That's unlucky when you look at the whole bunch.

• Tre Mason was fantastic Saturday night.  He had 46 for 304.  That's 6.61/carry.  Didn't it seem like he was running wild the entire game?  Wrap your head around this.  Gurley's career is 6.25/carry.  Mason's career is 5.7/carry.  I'm serious when I say this:  maybe we should just hand him the ball more.  Including receiving, he's at around 7.5/touch.  Do you realize he had 12 carries for 154 yards in Clemson?  That's a ridiculous 12 yards/carry.  I know, I know…the 75 yard run.  Take that out and he's at 11 carries for 79, which is 7.2/carry.  Soak that in.  If Gurley had the space Mason had it would be like a video game.  Let's hope the kid stays healthy and we can give it to him 20-25 times/game, maybe more.  We've got to figure out a way to get him the ball more.  In an alternate universe in heaven, I just want to see what would have happened had we run a screen pass to him on the last play vs Auburn.  People would have said it was a terrible call.  No play to that kid is a bad call.

• Finally, and thanks to the Counselor for getting my mind on this.  1966 (Kirby Moore from Dothan, AL) was the last UGA QB who didn't come from the state of Georgia to win an SEC title.  Since then we had Mike Cavan in '68 from Thomaston, Ray Goff (Moultrie) & Andy Johnson (Athens) in '76, Belue and Lastinger from Valdosta in '80-'82.  Greene from Snellville in '02 and Shockley from College Park in '05.  We've signed some pretty good out of state kids.  Signing Stafford was a no-brainer.  Same with Murray.  It's a stat, so it is what it is.  You can't really get around what it says.  It's been nearly 50 years since it happened.  Hutson's from Marietta.  Just Sayin'.

Go Dawgs!