Anyone who’s watched Georgia’s defense this year has noticed broken coverages and pre-snap confusion. It’s no surprise then that on the subject of communication, the Georgia players and coaches don’t seem to be on the same page.

As it turns out, it gets loud at big college football games. The players are pointing to a need for improved pre-snap communication, claiming that hand and verbal signals don’t always make it through the entire unit.

“Our coaches always get on us about communicating in practice,” freshman cornerback Shaq Wiggins. “It’s different in a game than practice, a game is louder, so we hear most of the calls, and we learn the signals every day. But we just have to do a better job of communicating in the secondary.”

Todd Grantham isn’t buying the excuse. “That’s bull. Everybody knows the signals, they need to get ’em,” he insists. “I don’t know who was saying that but that’s part of your youth too, so they need to take it on themselves to get the call.”

It’s true that Georgia is young and inexperienced on defense, especially in the secondary. The pace and complexity of a major college defense has to have the heads of some of these newcomers spinning at times.

The thing is, communication was also identified as an issue by last season’s veteran and talent-laden defense.

Linebacker Christian Robinson also said poor communication is a problem….

…Jordan Jenkins said the communication problems are “one of the main things we’re trying to fix this week.”

“Everybody is guessing, well not guessing, but just some people don’t prepare well enough like some others do,” (Bacarri) Rambo said. “It’s just like they thought we were going to be in this call and one person said we’re going to be in this call, so everybody is on different pages.”

I expect that the defense will improve as the instincts of the newcomers improve and the game begins to slow down. Still, it’s going to take a bit more convincing to make me accept that the issues on defense are largely a factor of experience. This is just too much of the same stuff we heard last season. For one reason or another, both 2012 veterans and 2013 rookies are running into similar difficulties with the defensive calls.

I’m probably making this sound more dire than it is. LSU folks are talking about the same exact issues this week, and facing a good offense (or several of them as Georgia has) will make you question the very nature of your defense. If there’s one bright spot, it’s the universal agreement that Herrera is doing just fine getting the calls in and “is doing his part.” If you recall, this responsibility was one of the things that kept him from seeing more playing time last season.

Georgia’s Homecoming game against Appalachian State on November 9th has been announced as a 12:30 kickoff. The game will be broadcast by Atlanta’s WSB-TV.

If you’re outside of Atlanta, I imagine it will be like last season’s Georgia Southern game. WSB-TV will be the only standard television option, but the game should be available as part of ESPN’s Gameplan package and also available only at ESPN3 or the WatchESPN app.

Junior receiver Chris Conley has been a favorite since making some big catches against Florida as a freshman. He’s since become a student leader and represents the SEC on the NCAA Division Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Conley is now an experienced upperclassman and a starting receiver for the Georgia offense.

Follow this link to see a segment with Conley mic’d up on the practice field. You’ll get an idea of some of the receiver drills, see Coach Ball in action, and even see Conley mentoring younger receivers.

Georgia next home game (October 12 vs. Missouri) will kick off at noon and will be televised by ESPN. (Note that this is high noon and not the 12:21 SEC Network game.)

The complete October 12 TV schedule is here.

We’ve seen how fans and students can turn out for a big national late-afternoon game. We’ll need a great crowd again for this important SEC game even with the earliest possible start time.

Georgia football: the team with a long-snapper controversy.

Credit a letdown, looking ahead, the weather, or whatever works for you – not many of us expected North Texas to take possession of the ball in the third quarter with a chance to take the lead. It wasn’t a disaster and really wasn’t ever in danger of becoming another UAB game. The offense was moving the ball well enough and the defense was stingy enough that things came fairly easily, even as the rain grew steadier, once Georgia stopped shooting themselves in the foot.

But there’s the rub. Georgia’s mistakes could be explained away as typical for the opponent and conditions if they were isolated to this game. Some were, others weren’t. The offensive line looked more like what we saw at Clemson than against South Carolina. Linebackers in pass coverage still scare you a little. Then there are some others:

• In all three games, Georgia has had a special teams mistake cost points. I don’t think we need to say much more.
• The Dawgs have had the first possession of the second half in all three games. They’ve had a net loss of nine yards on those three possessions, all of which ended with a three-and-out. The high point was a six-yard gain against South Carolina. The blocked punt by UNT was the cherry on top of a series that saw Murray bounce two passes to open receivers.
• We’ve also seen the second quarter become a bit of an adventure in all three games. The Dawgs have given up less than 20 total points in each of the first (17), third (17), and fourth (13) quarters, but they’ve given up a total of 42 second quarter points. Even in the Clemson game where Georgia only gave up 7 points, that was a stretch when the Dawgs missed a chance to build a lead and instead saw Clemson pull even.

I’ll stop dwelling on the negative because it shouldn’t overshadow some positive developments. It was just another day at the office for Aaron Murray. 400+ yards, over 70%, a slew of touchdown passes, and grumbling fans. Now Murray wasn’t as sharp as he was two weeks ago. The intercepted pass was forced, and he had another shaky pass into coverage intended for Lynch. There were some unforced errors like the short-hopped passes to start the second half. Still, with North Texas using their safeties in run support, Georgia’s senior quarterback had few problems carrying the offense to an extremely productive day.

Georgia’s offense handling a mid-major opponent didn’t surprise anyone. Could the defense? The Georgia defense put an emphatic stop to a streak of poor performances against the run and held the visitors to negative rushing yardage until garbage time. Chris Mayes did well on the inside in his first opportunity, but it was truly a team effort to stuff the run and create pressure. We saw our first interception and the first sack by an outside linebacker.

The defense had two important moments in the second half. Georgia had scored to re-take the lead at 28-21, but UNT responded with a 30-yard pass to the tailback and were in position to get some points back. There was fortunately some miscommunication on a pass play, but Tray Matthews had to make a really nice play on the errant pass in order to claim his first interception. The Dawgs preserved their lead, and the offense took over for another scoring drive that gave them some much-needed breathing room.

The second moment came a little later – early in the fourth quarter. Gurley fumbled, and UNT took over on Georgia’s 34 trailing by two scores with plenty of time left. Georgia’s defense stood firm, forced two incompletions, and actually drove UNT back a yard in three plays. The visitors lined up for a long field goal but ended up with an awful 12-yard pooch punt. That was the last serious challenge by the North Texas offense, and the Dawgs used the rest of the fourth quarter to put the game away.

There’s still a lot to work on before Georgia faces another SEC opponent. Third down defense was better (UNT was 4-of-16), but several of those conversions came on their lone scoring drive. Georgia was also fortunate that a couple of open seam passes and one wheel route in particular fell incomplete. But on the whole it was encouraging to see the defense gain confidence and make plays against an opponent with an experienced quarterback and an offense with couple of weapons. Floyd continues to get comfortable, and you could start to see things clicking for Harvey-Clemons and Matthews.

A few short points before we move on to bigger things this weekend…

• If there’s one thing to be disappointed in from Saturday, it’s that the way the game unfolded didn’t allow Georgia to pull the starters until very late. We saw a pretty good rotation along the defensive line, and Quincy Mauger saw time at safety early in the game. There was less of a rotation at linebacker. Wilson and Herrera played quite a bit at inside linebacker again, and we didn’t see much of Carter or Kimbrough. Carter’s most significant moment was an unfortunate one as he got out of his lane on UNT’s kickoff return touchdown.
• Special teams were generally poor, but I was encouraged to see Swann take a few more risks on his punt returns. The fair catch signal on his first and best return of the day was a mistake, but he did make some things happen on other returns.
• It was one of those days for the stadium operations crew too. Stats on the scoreboard were useless for much of the game, sound was in and out and sometimes WAY TOO LOUD, and of course the malfunctioning clock meant that we spent the last few minutes in heavy rain with narration by Penn Wagers.
• Wooten the ballthrowa! Wooten did several things well to make that trick play come off. He had to scoop up an underthrown pass that messed up the play’s timing, he had to avoid a UNT defender leaping at him, and he threw a nice-looking pass deep enough that Lynch could go up for it. There was interference on the play, but credit Lynch with a nice catch too.
• I’d like to see Reggie Davis, Justin Scott-Wesley, Chris Conley, and the receiver of your choice on a four verts route. (Also…it was only used as a decoy on a run play, but the sight of Davis coming on an end around got my attention.)
• Jenkins was active behind the line and was a big factor in Georgia’s pressure, but the lack of a sack has to be eating at him. I look for him to be very aggressive against LSU – and hopefully under control.

It’s official. GameDay is headed between the hedges for #LSUvsUGA! #GetUp4GameDay pic.twitter.com/FJKlVAtaYS

— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) September 22, 2013

It’s official – for the second time in four games, ESPN Gameday will broadcast from the site of a Georgia game. It’s Gameday’s first visit to Athens since 2008 and the third in the history of the program.

Dawg fans tend to be a little(?!) angst-y when it comes to Gameday, but that might be with good reason. The Dawgs are 0-2 when Gameday visits Athens and 3-12 overall when its game is featured. But after navigating the first two weeks of the season, another big game and the national spotlight should be nothing new for this team. Let’s put on a great show and play ball.

The NFL is increasing the price of its most expensive Super Bowl tickets in order to “close the gap between the face value of the ticket and its true value as reflected on the secondary market.” You can see why they’d want to do this: if a $1,250 ticket is going to end up fetching aver $2,500 on the secondary market, why not try to capture some of that difference in the primary market?

Thanks to the online secondary marketplace, we’re getting a much better and transparent sense of the true value of a ticket. Some are worth almost half of face value (if that). Others sell for many times the original asking price. As schools continue to partner with these secondary brokers, they should be gathering quite a bit of data about the demand for their tickets.

In a day when schools are squeezing all of the money they can out of their football programs, will they use this data to adjust future prices? Differential ticket pricing is already done at this level, but it’s still somewhat crude. Several of our opponents already place Georgia in a premium tier. More attractive opponents create higher demand, and prices are set higher. But how much higher? If we know that a visit from Alabama brings resale prices to over $200, why stop at a premium price of $90? Of course you have to balance maximizing revenue with selling out the stadium (not necessarily the same thing), but you’ll at least start with a more precise idea of what the price should be.

Any tinkering with ticket prices will be a slow process. You have an entrenched fan base used to a certain system, and there will be a negative reaction if too much is done too soon – especially if similar adjustments aren’t made at the bottom end of the scale for less-attractive games. But as the data builds and schools get an exact picture of the demand for their tickets, it will be very tempting to transfer those premiums from the secondary markets into the coffers of the teams. As with the NFL and the Super Bowl, I’d expect this to start with the CFB playoff where the potential gap between primary and secondary markets is the highest. Just don’t be surprised to see it from individual conferences and schools down the road.

Georgia fans probably felt a little helpless watching Spurrier target a few inexperienced or weak spots in the Georgia defense on Saturday. Fortunately, Spurrier wasn’t the only coach who had done his homework. As Gamecock (and former Bulldog) beat writer Josh Kendall reports, “Mike Bobo told (Blackledge) last week that Georgia had an advantage due to the new linebackers’ relative lack of experience and size.”

What lack of size? While the South Carolina defensive line is stout, the Gamecock linebackers are, on average, over 25 pounds lighter than the unit that shut down Georgia’s running game a year ago in Columbia.

In 2012, when South Carolina’s starting linebackers weighed an average of 239.7 pounds, Georgia rushed for 115 yards.
On Saturday, when the Gamecocks’ starting linebackers weighed an average of 213.7 pounds, the Bulldogs rushed for 227 yards and whipped South Carolina 41-30.

Follow the link for some more good observations from Josh.

Georgia’s September 21 game against North Texas will start at 12:21 p.m. Your local SEC Network affiliate will have the broadcast. Fans in the Atlanta market will find the game on Peachtree TV as usual. SEC Network affiliates in other markets can be found here.

For the complete slate of September 21 SEC start times, use this link. Florida/Tennessee is the 3:30 CBS game of the week.

Sometimes after a loss we’ll get a comment from a coach claiming that the plan was sound but that the execution was lacking.  Go back to the 2007 loss to South Carolina, and Mark Richt deflected criticism of Mike Bobo by saying, "I think we had plenty of opportunities to score touchdowns. We’ve got to execute." Other times it’s the plan that’s lacking.  A timid attack in Columbia last year didn’t do much to stem the Gamecocks’ explosive start.

On Saturday we saw what happens when a good plan is executed well.  Georgia’s plan certainly tipped its cap to the abilities of Jadeveon Clowney* – the passes were usually quick and short, and runs often went away from him. But any plan would have failed without good blocking, tough running, accurate throws, and big catches.  The execution we saw from the Georgia offense was what we had hoped for and expected from such a loaded and experience unit. It was a high level of performance from everyone from the backs to the line to the quarterback to the receivers.  And it’s a good thing – this was a battle between two very good teams that came down to inches in the fourth quarter.  Georgia had very little room for error when it had the ball, and fortunately the errors were few.

* – The Clowney backlash has been something to behold.  I get why fans relish getting the best of someone like Clowney – sticking it to Tebow was one of the joys of the 2007 Florida win, after all. But Georgia’s success had a lot more to do with the rest of the defense than it had to do with a sub-par performance from a great player.  Georgia was magnificent at frustrating him, and other teams will try to do the same until the rest of the defense can respond.  That doesn’t diminish Clowney as a player or pro prospect, but it does show why the Heisman was never going to happen.

Any talk about Georgia’s execution starts with Murray. He set the tone on the opening series.  With Clowney hanging on to him, Murray was somehow able to launch a pass in the general direction of Michael Bennett.  It wasn’t, and it couldn’t have been, right on the money, but it was a strong response by a quarterback who was supposed to be in fear of the guy hanging off of him. Murray’s stats – even with the drops – were as good as it gets, and his numbers through two games are even ahead of last season’s pace.  As important, he avoided any kind of mistake that could have turned such a close game.

When I heard that Murray had watched the Clemson film six or seven times, I was a little worried about the psychology major.  Was he overthinking things? When you’re so analytical and obsessed with perfection, it can be easy to press, and that can lead to some of the mistakes and early jitters we’ve seen.  South Carolina’s pass rush might’ve been a blessing for Murray in that he didn’t have much time to think.  The plan called for a large helping of slants, passes to the backs, and other plays that showed that Georgia’s offense was very aware of timing.  Some of Murray’s most successful passes – the first lob to Bennett, the touchdown to Gurley, and the last toss to Justin Scott-Wesley – were improvised or rushed.  Murray’s talent and instincts are just fine, and he turned them loose in one of the best performances of the year.

More from a bright and sunny home opener:

• Was anyone else surprised that Spurrier ended the game eating two timeouts?
• The trend of booing injured players is on the rise, and I’m disappointed that it showed up at Sanford Stadium yesterday.  It wasn’t to the degree that we saw at Clemson last week, but it was there.  It’s ridiculous that we had to spend time last Sunday producing video evidence of a legitimate injury. Whether or not these stoppages are meant to slow momentum, the benefit of the doubt used to be with the injured player.  It needs to be that way again. 
• The wonderful closing drive meant that the defense never had to take the field after its crucial goal-line stop, so we won’t know for a while whether it’s going to mark a turning point for the defense.  South Carolina found success with that speed option from their opening drive, and they kept going back to it.  It’s the play that they scored on early in the fourth quarter. In fact, Herrera had a chance to stop the pitch on that scoring play and couldn’t complete the tackle.  After Ray Drew’s stop on third down just inches short of the goal line, the Dawgs were ready, and South Carolina went to the well one too many times.  Shaw was met immediately by Jenkins and forced the quick pitch.  Herrera was up to the job this time and slowed Mike Davis long enough for Wilson and several other defenders to finish the job. 
• Speaking of Herrera and Wilson, what a test for them.  You had a tough runner in Davis, an elusive quarterback to contain, and Wilson in particular was picked on almost as much in the passing game as Langley was.  But they had enough left in the tank to suck it up for the big stop. The next few weeks will be about developing depth across the board, but few positions could use depth as much as inside linebacker.  It’s a big three weeks for Kimbrough and Carter.
• And on Langley, be patient with him.  He’s out there for a reason, and he’ll continue to learn and improve.  It’s said that offensive line and cornerback are two of the toughest positions for freshmen, and we saw a master probing the weak spots of Georgia’s defense yesterday.  
• Jordan Jenkins through two games has six solo tackles, two tackles for loss, and zero sacks. Is that representative of Georgia’s pass rush so far?
• I could go overboard gushing about Gurley, Hicks, and the rest of the backs.  It’s enough to say that, with Murray and the backs, Georgia is deploying an NFL backfield in the college game.
• I wasn’t down on Marshall after the Clemson game, but his impact was limited.  You can’t say that about this game.  Keith reminded us of what he can do running the ball, but his speed on those swing passes was magical.  What a weapon.
• All hail Sol.  The third-quarter sun saved Georgia at least once.
• The Dawgs were a little better at third downs in this game (6-14 vs. 4-14 a week ago). Georgia’s success at sustaining drives was helped by two fourth down conversions.  That early 4th-and-13 pass to Scott-Wesley was both important and outstanding.
• With Morgan available going forward, you wonder if we make the same call on 4th-and-13 from the opponent’s 31. I hope so.
• South Carolina got zero points directly from its defense or special teams (excepting placekicks of course).  They had the short field thanks to the botched punt, but that’s as much help as Georgia gave them.  It’s been a few years since that’s happened. Georgia forced the game’s only turnover, but it came at an important time in the third quarter.  It stopped a promising Gamecock drive and led to a field goal that put Georgia out in front for good.
• The game day experience was generally pretty good.  The ticket scanning made for a logjam at entry, and I hope people keep that in mind for the LSU game.  The only big disappointment was that the score came down off the scoreboard immediately after the game.  If ever you wanted a few shots at a scoreboard picture, this was the game.
• And the crowd.  Wow.  Even with the problems at the gates, the fans showed up.  The second quarter rally by the visitors put a damper on things, but the fans had an impact through the end of the game.  It helped that the Dawgs, as they did at Clemson, were outstanding at answering scores. 

What a difference a week makes.  That’s not just a comment on the progress made since the Clemson loss.  It’s also a reminder that with 10 games still left, each win has to be earned all over again. 

Snap out of it, Dawg fans. There’s still this funk hanging over a lot of us, and that’s not what we need on Saturday. If you saw the game last year in Columbia you know how a home crowd can contribute to steamrolling an opponent. I can’t remember the coaches and players ever being this persistent about asking for a good crowd on Saturday. You can tell what this game means to them, and I hope it means enough to us to put aside the post-Clemson blues and do what we can from the Dawg Walk through pregame through all four quarters.

Countering Clowney

A great player like Clowney is disruptive by nature, so it’s foolish just to go about things as if he’s just another defensive end. At the same time, focusing too much on an individual can keep you on the defensive and take you out of plays that might find success against parts of the defense that are less strong. You can’t play scared. There was that whole subplot a few weeks ago about which quarterbacks played scared against Clowney. “Scared” is a loaded term. What happens is that a quarterback – an entire offense, even – becomes so aware of a player that you rush things or throw out entire elements of your playbook. Short, quick passes are fine, but do you entirely give up on the vertical game? (See “asinine sideline swing screen.”) The diversity of what Georgia can do on offense is one of its strengths; becoming a predictable draw or screen offense makes the field more compact and can even make things easier for the player you’re so worried about.

Last week, Georgia was a disappointing 4-of-14 on third down. It didn’t help that nine of those 14 third down attempts came with at least five yards to go. If you want to lessen the impact of a dominant defensive end, limiting obvious passing situations is a good place to start. Georgia has to be more effective on first and second down and either avoid third downs or make the distance as manageable as possible. The barrage of ineffective counter draws last week set up some nice play-action possibilities (especially the long reception by Hicks), but is it worth the numerous long-yardage situations if you’re only going to set up one or two plays out of it?

In the end, there is no play that doesn’t depend on blocking and execution. Georgia can call up the most brilliant scheme to counter the South Carolina defensive line, but it won’t matter without a better effort from the line.

Screens

Georgia threw the ball to its running backs a few times last week. There was the brilliant play-action catch and rumble by Hicks. Murray checked down to Gurley on the very first play. Marshall made a nice catch on a swing pass. But Georgia, for whatever reason, still struggles to execute the screen pass. It might just be my own confirmation bias, but I just don’t think of the screen as a play Georgia runs well. The Dawgs had a couple of well-timed screens go awry at Clemson. Gurley was set up with blockers and a lot of open field ahead, but Murray’s pass was tipped and nearly intercepted. Georgia later ran the mirror image of the famous Nebraska inside screen to Conley, but Murray had to sidestep and ended up making an inaccurate throw for an incompletion.

Murray’s height is always going to come up. I’m sure that can be a factor, but even Joe Flacco at 6’6″ is going to have a tough time seeing over a leaping 6’4″ defensive end only a few feet away. A well-executed screen is a balance between holding the defensive pressure long enough for the play to develop and then releasing in time to trap the pressure behind the play. If you wait too long to release, there are no blockers for the receiver, and the receiver is likely to be caught in a traffic jam near the line of scrimmage. If you release too soon, you give a quick defender like Clowney a clear path to the quarterback before the quarterback can even drop back. That leads to unpleasant outcomes like this:

Yes, the coup de grace of the 2011 loss to South Carolina came when Clowney blew up an attempted screen. We know that screens can be great ways to counter aggressive defenses. I’m just hesitant to go all-in with screens in this game because 1) Georgia has problems executing them, 2) you’re playing with fire when you invite a speedy rusher into the backfield, and 3) is South Carolina’s defense all that aggressive? By that, I mean their defensive line is good enough that they can get the pressure they need with just the front four. Watch these last two videos from their UNC game. Sacks from simple straight-ahead four-man rushes. Not even a stunt to be found.

That strength along the line creates a big luxury for the defense. You can drop everyone else into coverage and be fairly certain that you’ll get enough pressure if you can cover just competently for a few seconds. So even if you’re able to get off a screen behind that line, know that you’ll still have seven defenders behind the line to deal with. This goes back to what I was saying about how playing scared can make you do things contrary to what you might do best. A screen is a logical counter to a good pass rush, but does it attack the weaknesses of the South Carolina defense? Or does the very presence of Clowney bait Georgia into doing something they don’t do all that well? Is a win against Clowney necessarily a win for the offense?

Catastrophe

Forget the debate over Murray for a second. Going back to 2005, South Carolina’s defense and special teams has put points on the board against Georgia seven times. We remember the crushing fumble and fake punt in the 2011 game, but there was also an interception return in there too. It goes without saying that Georgia has to avoid not only crippling turnovers but also the special teams miscues that helped to sink them last week (and last year in Columbia). We also know that it’s not just the direct scores that hurt you. Ealey’s fumble from the SC 3 in 2010 ended Georgia’s best chance to get back in that game. An early Murray INT last season ended Georgia’s only trip into South Carolina territory until late in the second quarter.

There’s the flip side – what can Georgia do to create turnovers and points? South Carolina is fairly stingy with the ball. Shaw only threw seven interceptions in 2012, two of which came playing from behind in the 4th quarter at LSU. In their three-game losing streak to South Carolina, the Dawgs have forced three turnovers – 1 in 2010 and 2 in 2011 – but they’ve done little with those opportunities. A Garcia fumble in 2010 led to a long Georgia drive, but the drive ended on Georgia’s own fumble. Garcia was intercepted twice in 2011 and had a rough first half, but Georgia failed to take control of the game when they had momentum. The kind of opportunity that we saw in the muffed fumble recovery at Clemson have to be cashed in on in games like this.

But before Georgia worries about converting opportunities, they have to create them. Georgia’s lone takeaway last week came on a muffed punt. The defense didn’t have many chances to create turnovers and didn’t come away with any. Grantham’s “biggest complaint to the players was a lack of turnovers.” You wonder if Georgia is going to go with a higher risk/reward approach on Saturday.

Other

• With Mitchell out for Georgia, I expect South Carolina to focus on Gurley. That means some dense coverage in the short and intermediate passes until Georgia can establish some kind of deep threat. I’d be happy to see an early shot or two, even if unsuccessful, to show some attempt at a vertical passing game. If the SC linebackers are going to help against the run, this is an opportunity for Lynch to have a bigger impact than he had a week ago.
• While Murray can be “wild in the strike zone” even as he’s completing passes, that’s fine with me. He just could really use a good, confidence-building start. The early pick in Columbia last year deflated the offense, and it took a while to recover.
• I like Georgia’s matchups against South Carolina’s receivers – as long as they keep those receivers from getting behind them. South Carolina tested Georgia deep just a couple of times last year. The Bulldog defensive backs had good chances to break up those passes (or even intercept them), but they lost the one-on-one battle each time. Hopefully Georgia’s safeties do better this time around.

It’s a good thing that receiver is probably Georgia’s deepest position.  Junior receiver Malcolm Mitchell tore his ACL on an awkward landing while celebrating Todd Gurley’s early touchdown run at Clemson.  Mitchell will need surgery and will miss the rest of the 2013 season.  He’ll almost surely qualify for a medical redshirt and still have two years’ of eligibility remaining.  Mitchell will also be qualified to enter the NFL draft following this season, so it’s also a (small) possibility that we’ve seen the last of this talented athlete at Georgia.

The Dawgs had to adjust to the loss of two receivers to knee injuries in 2012, and they’re right back in a similar situation.  Mitchell brought both the deep threat and the explosiveness to turn nearly any catch into a score.  Georgia must piece together those attributes from the depth of the position.  The emergence of Justin Scott-Wesley on Saturday is much more important now – his speed can be useful to stretch the field.  True freshman Reggie Davis was a borderline redshirt candidate, but he’s also likely to get a chance to use his speed on deep routes.

Mitchell was also a dependable target that Murray looked to when trying to sustain drives.  Michael Bennett displayed sure hands on some errant passes at Clemson, and he’ll likely be a favored target now.  Georgia will also add JUCO receiver Jonathan Rumph to the mix, and Rumph’s size will make him a tough matchup for most secondaries.   

Mitchell started Saturday’s game as the kick returner, and Scott-Wesley stepped into that role once Mitchell left the game.  He didn’t get a chance to return any kicks, and we appreciated his restraint to stay in the end zone and take the field position rather than risk a short return.  We’ll have to see if Richt will stick with Scott-Wesley back there or if Gurley or another player will be the permanent replacement for Mitchell.

We wish Malcolm Mitchell the best in his recovery, and we hope to see him back on the field for the 2014 opener.

I really enjoyed this conversation with Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell about the upcoming season over at Grantland. If only most of our fans had this kind of informed and level-headed approach to the team, program, and season.

We learned last week about the new plan to scan tickets entering Sanford Stadium this year, and Tyler had news about improvements and deals coming to concessions for several sports.

The school has put together a release announcing these and some other changes you’ll see on football Saturdays this year. There’s nothing revolutionary here (no new tailgating policy, for example), but some nice, small enhancements.

Oh, there is one thing that will affect a lot of fans: the Dawg Walk is officially moved back to 1 hour and 50 minutes before kickoff. It used to be 90 minutes prior to kickoff, but that had been sliding lately. Now it’s official. If you want to see and participate in the Dawg Walk, be down at the Tate Plaza 2 hours before kickoff. (That means that the first Dawg Walk of the season will start at 2:40 p.m. for the South Carolina game.)

The other changes include:

• A hotline to assist with parking and directions (active only during home football dates.)
• New ticket scanning procedures for fans and students.
• Concessions deals and locations of vendors in Sanford Stadium. They also claim that the “number of hawkers/vendors has been increased significantly,” so it should be easier to get a drink from your seat.
• Misting stations at three locations. These will be in place for at least the first three home games.
• Closed-Captioned boards have been installed to help both the hearing-impaired and those of us who wondered what the heck the ref just said.

There are a few other little things, so click through to check them out.

You can find the complete list here. It raised eyebrows for Murray to be named first team over returning quarterbacks who won the Heisman or the national title, but it’s an entirely defensible decision.

Georgia’s preseason all-SEC players (according to the coaches):

• Aaron Murray, 1st team QB
• Todd Gurley, 1st team RB
• Arthur Lynch, 1st team TE
• Chris Burnette, 2nd team OL
• Jordan Jenkins, 2nd team LB
• Damian Swann, 2nd team DB
• Keith Marshall, 3rd team RB
• Malcolm Mitchell, 3rd team WR