Weekend of Chaos: A Brief Review

What a crazy weekend in college football! While I'd love to give my thoughts on all the chaos, I haven't had time to brush my hair in days so I'll just say this: as happy as I am that South Carolina lost (again) and pretty much knocked themselves out of contention for the SEC East (barring any more general college football chaos), can't say I'm too pleased with the fact that now our loss to them is no longer a quality loss.  Bummer. Also, kudos to the state of Mississippi.

Now on to the important stuff.  Had the privilege of traveling to the Classic City for the game Saturday, in the hopes of seeing a better outcome than I witnessed last year on my trip to Nashville (A- That absolutely wasn't targeting. B- That stupid ship horn sound haunted me for weeks after that trip.). Also got to have some good debates with the brother about the state of affairs when it comes to this team.  My thoughts, summarized:

The defense seemed to click earlier in the game this week. Leonard Floyd seemed to be back to his normal self, tallying a handful of tackles and a sack.  Devin Bowman (not to be confused with Rico Johnson) had a HUGE pick six. BUT there is still lots of room for improvement.  At times the defensive line got blown off the ball big time.  Secondary still isn't looking for the ball and is blowing coverage.  And Vanderbilt's quarterbacks had all day to throw. Kentucky's defense held Vandy's offense to 139 total yards, and we let them rack up over 300...

Welcome back, Malcolm Mitchell! While he only played sparingly in the first half, he did have a reception of 11 yards. He has been one of our top receivers for a few years now, but Hutson Mason hasn't had time to work with him much at all yet. 

Todd Gurley is invincible.  Todd Gurley now has the longest UGA rush of the season, the longest UGA kick return of the season, and the longest UGA pass of the season.  Yep, the best quarterback on our team is Todd Gurley, ladies and gentlemen.  He also leads the SEC in all kinds of rushing categories and can hurdle defenders like a boss.  I'm just gonna leave this here...

Really, though...can Gurley be our quarterback? Hutson Mason. Bless his heart. He definitely didn't live up to the hype he gave himself leading up to this game. Although, in his defense the wind was blowing about a billion miles per hour. Ask Colin Barber. Not fun. Anyway, Mason had been saying all week how this week he was gonna "let it rip," and instead he passed for 121 yards. I give credit where it's due, though, and he did throw two touchdowns to Conley. One of which (for 44 yards) wasn't half bad. However, if you take away that one long touchdown pass, he averaged about 4 yards per throw. Unfortunately, neither of our backup quarterbacks looked much better yesterday. Ramsey showed off how strong his arm is, but overthrew a lot of passes. I do like Richt's plan to use him more in the coming weeks, though, just because the kid needs experience. And I will say this, Hutson Mason has a great attitude. Bounced back after his interception (and his other near-pick in the 1st quarter), and had nothing negative at all to say about Ramsey getting more playing time. 

Miscellaneous:

• I listened to the game on my phone while I watched, and thought it was hilarious when the announcers said this: "You could actually hear Jeremy Pruitt yelling at Bowman through the referree's microphone." "I think section 137 row 58 could hear Jeremy Pruitt yelling at Bowman."   Must have been a good chat, because Bowman came through in a big way later in the game. 

• That stupid net in the endzone by the bridge still irritates me. 

Looking ahead:

This week in college football is huge, with the Mississippis playing Texas A&M and Auburn. (Go Mississipis!) But our game against Missouri will likely decide the SEC east. Coming into this part of the season where we play teams that are actually good, everyone is going to have to be on top of things. No more sluggish starts on defense, no more bad throws, no more mistakes.