It’s unavoidable that Brian Schottenheimer will be compared with Mike Bobo. Hopefully the transition will go well, and we’ll only have to tune out the minority that is already hard at work dreaming up the clever equivalent of “Coach Booboo.” If things go less smoothly, you can already hear the Bulldog Hotline calls asking about this:

Brian Schottenheimer will most likely call plays from the field, Mark Richt says. Mike Bobo called from the press box the past few years.

— Seth Emerson (@SethEmersonAJC) July 27, 2015

Which player on offense could Georgia least afford to lose this season?

Yes, the discussion pretty much starts and stops with Nick Chubb. I’d put Malcolm Mitchell up there too.

But in terms of Georgia’s offensive identity, the running back position is still fairly deep. Productivity would reasonably fall without Chubb (knock wood), but I could see the approach remaining the same. I’m thinking more in terms of which players the coaches need in order to run what they want to run.

We’ve read more this offseason about the possible role of the tight end in Brian Schottenheimer’s offense. The Dawgs targeted big, tall targets in the 2016 recruiting class including Garrett Walston and Charlie Woerner, and they might be back in the picture for the nation’s top HS tight end, Isaac Nauta. Georgia is placing an emphasis on the position in recruiting, and Schottenheimer won’t waste much time involving the current tight ends in his offense. With that in mind, I tend to focus in on Jay Rome.

Rome, now a senior, was as much a part of that heralded 2011 class as Malcolm Mitchell or Ray Drew. Rome made an impact right away as a freshman with 11 catches, 152 yards, and touchdowns against both Tech and Alabama. But that promising freshman campaign remains his most productive. Much like Mitchell, another key veteran in 2015, injuries have derailed Rome’s attempts to top that freshman season. And again like Mitchell, Rome is as healthy as he’s been. More important, Rome’s had time to regain the conditioning and strength that were missing last year in the wake of his injury.

With a healthy and conditioned Rome, Georgia is deep at tight end. He and Blazevich have starting experience. Jordan Davis has paid his dues and showed at G-Day that he won’t be lost in the new offense. Jackson Harris might be a true freshman, but he was an early enrollee who went through spring and was among the top 10 high school tight ends a year ago. Quayvon Hicks(*) is now in his second season at the position. It’s not hard to imagine some effective multiple TE combinations from that group.

Without Rome, the picture changes. The position becomes much younger. Though Hicks and Davis are upperclassmen, they’re very much unproven. Harris is a true freshman. Blazevich had a fantastic freshman season but is still only entering his second season. Can he carry a position from which much more is expected this season? There is still depth, but you start to wonder if the group behind Blazevich is ready for a multiple tight end look to be a regular and dependable part of Georgia’s offensive approach. With Rome, you’re much more comfortable with a younger or less-experienced player being used situationally.

For their own sakes, I really hope Rome, Mitchell, and also Keith Marshall can put their injuries and frustrations behind them and enjoy some personal success as seniors. If Georgia plans on using the tight end position to compensate for a thin group of receivers and a newcomer at quarterback, it would be much more difficult, if not impossible, without a healthy Jay Rome.

(*) – Hicks. Barrels of ink and enough bytes to fill a server farm were spilled last August with the news that Hicks was moving to H-back. Oh, the possibilities. I don’t think many of us expected he’d have fewer receptions as an H-back than he did in 2013 as a fullback. Maybe I’m still numb from his adventures on the kick return team, but Hicks is another player who can really change his legacy at Georgia with a productive senior year.

Like a lot of you, I spent some of the holiday weekend enjoying Georgia’s takeover of the SEC Network. I have a DVR backlog now that should clear up just in time for the season.

One of the featured games was the 2005 SEC Championship – Georgia’s first game against Les Miles and the second SEC title in four years. The Tigers were slight favorites and the higher-ranked team, but Georgia jumped on LSU with a couple of D.J. Shockley bombs to Sean Bailey. Georgia’s defense knocked Jamarcus Russell out of the game, and Tim Jennings sealed the win with a late pick six. It was a great win that salvaged a season disrupted by the midseason injury to Shockley.

While Shockley was the focus of that team both in terms of leadership and performance, Georgia’s running game took a bit of a back seat. It was a transitional period between dominant feature backs: Musa Smith left after 2002, and Knowshon Moreno made his debut in 2007. The 2005 running game was a tailback-by-committee with four players (Shockley included) getting at least 65 rushing attempts. Thomas Brown, Danny Ware, and Kregg Lumpkin made up the trio getting most of the carries with Brown leading the way in both attempts and yardage.

These were good backs. You had a three-star Rivals.com prospect (Ware), a four-star (Brown), and even a five-star (Lumpkin). All three eventually spent time on an NFL roster. All three had at least 1,500 career rushing yards at Georgia. Brown finished his career as one of Georgia’s top 10 backs in career attempts and yardage.

It was still a period of Georgia football where you were left wanting more from the running game. The committee approach wasn’t bad, but neither was it greater than the sum of its parts. It wasn’t obvious until 2007 when Moreno (with substantial help from Brown) reminded us what a running game operating at a high level looked like. The 2005 running game, including Shockley, put up 2,108 yards. That total increased by over 500 yards in 2007 without a mobile quarterback (never mind 3,352 rushing yards in 2014). The trio of Brown, Lumpkin, and Ware put up 1,563 yards in 2005. Nick Chubb alone had 1,594 last season.

As I watched that great 2005 game and that group of capable tailbacks, my mind wandered to the present and to, of all things, Georgia’s outside linebackers. Again we have a highly-recruited group with obvious talent and pro potential that seems to be on the cusp of something more. Certainly there have been moments of individual brilliance, but there have also been several games where the outside linebackers have been non-factors or even weaknesses.

It raised some eyebrows in the spring when Lindy’s quoted an anonymous SEC coach who said,

I think those two guys at outside linebacker (Leonard Floyd, Jordan Jenkins) are talented, but not superstars. I think they are a product of the recruiting machine and hype.

While our first instinct is to get defensive about a quote like that, I admit I see where it’s coming from. The last bit about recruiting hype is inflammatory, but the “talented but not superstars” line hits a little too close to home.

Jenkins appeared to be the heir apparent to Jarvis Jones after a standout 2012 Florida game. His tackles have increased each year, but his sack totals haven’t. Floyd contributed right away as a freshman, but his numbers stayed level in his second season. Carter made the most of his time as a true freshman playing behind more experienced players, and he’s testing the creativity of the coaches as they try to get all of these talented linebackers on the field.

There have been injuries along the way, and Floyd especially was derailed by a shoulder injury towards the end of last season. That injury had a silver lining: selfishly, we are glad to see Floyd back for another year. It also opened the door for Carter to see much more playing time during the bowl game, and he didn’t disappoint. The players have also been used in different roles. Jenkins has drifted towards more of a traditional 4-3 defensive end role, leading one NFL scout to want to see more out of him as an edge rusher. Floyd has been that edge rusher, but he’s also been versatile enough to drop back into the difficult star position at times. He’s listed as both an outside and inside linebacker on the preseason depth chart.  Carter hasn’t had time to settle into much of a defined role, and he’s been lined up all over the place to cause mayhem in the pass rush.

Seth Emerson put it well last week when he concluded that “Jenkins and Floyd have to hear the time ticking on their chance to become stars.” They’re gifted players with certain NFL futures – the shoulder injury is probably the only thing that kept Floyd from entering the 2015 draft. We’re not going to get into ESPN “elite” territory by trying to define exactly what would meet Emerson’s definition of a star player, but Jarvis Jones and his 155 tackles and 28 sacks over two seasons wasn’t that long ago. That followed Justin Houston’s 10 sacks and 18.5 tackles for loss in 2010.

Even ignoring specific numbers, a high standard was in place for the outside linebacker position, and all three of Georgia’s current OLB standouts have shown the ability to play to that standard. With Carter gaining experience, Floyd healthy, and Jenkins stepping into the leadership role of a senior, each is in a place for production to skyrocket and, more importantly, for the unit as a whole to carry an improving defense.

With SEC Media Days underway this week, news about the 2015 season is starting to trickle out.  Marc Weiszer has a photo of Georgia’s 2015 preseason depth chart.

UGA preseason depth chart: Kublanow 1st team center, Wynn LG. Top fullback Christian Payne. Floyd also at ILB. pic.twitter.com/AmFv7sMk3U

— Marc Weiszer (@marcweiszer) July 13, 2015

Of note:

• Of the freshmen and transfers, only the early enrollees are listed. So you’ll see Jackson Harris but not Trenton Thompson or Greyson Lambert.
• Ramsey as the first quarterback listed (Weiszer noted that it was not co-#1s).
• Kublanow starting at center, Wynn starting at guard.
• Isaiah McKenzie as a starting WR.
• Aaron Davis holding onto a starting CB spot. 

Not too many suprises – this is basically the post-spring depth chart and consistent with the little bit of news since then.  The newcomers haven’t shaken things up yet, and we know better than to chisel these things in stone before the season opener.  Still, it sets the pole position for some of the more interesting positional battles that will unfold over the next six weeks.   

It was mentioned almost as an afterthought at Saturday’s Countdown to Kickoff event in Athens: “Oh, yeah.  Uga IX will be retiring this year.  Here’s his likely successor.”

Details of the relatively low-key announcement were soon reported.  Uga IX, formerly known as Russ, will hand over mascot duties at some point during the 2015 season.  The successor hasn’t been determined yet, but there is a pool of three candidates.  At Saturday’s event, fans got to meet Que, a two-year-old grandson of Uga IX, and Que was observed to see how he’d handle crowds and the heat.  It wasn’t mentioned whether the other candidates would get a similar tryout, but Picture Day in August would be one possible opportunity.  

[Click here for a gallery of pictures of Que from UGASports.com]

At over 11 years of age, Uga IX has had some health issues and is in the later years of the lifespan of an average bulldog.  Russ served as an interim mascot beginning in 2009 between Uga VII and VIII, and he resumed interim duties after Uga VIII died in 2011.  He was promoted to Uga IX in 2012 and has served as mascot since.   

The date of the transition wasn’t announced either.  Sonny Seiler indicated that it would likely happen later in the season after the weather cools. But that brings up a very important question:

@RadiNabulsi what if we are undefeated at that point?

— Robert Wolfe (@DawgFan__1980) July 11, 2015

The SEC Network is giving each school a day to take over the network, and Georgia’s turn will be on Friday July 3rd. Kick off the holiday weekend with 24 hours of nonstop Georgia programming.

Here’s the schedule.

There’s a lot of football of course but also a significant men’s and women’s basketball game. I would have liked to have seen some baseball (1990 CWS win? Keppinger’s Coastal Carolina game in 2001?), but they can only work with the video they can get. At any rate, the DVR will be busy on Friday.