I am still feeling the effects of the Arkansas hangover. Boy, was my prediction for the game off—way off. There will be no grading of the game, we won, but, boy, were we ever exposed.

I stood for the defense following the Carolina game. I credited Garcia. On Saturday night, we witnessed Ryan Mallett, who is about as mobile as a circus clown on stilts, escape the pressure and throw it over the top—repeatedly! Now, it is just time to accept that our defense is a liability that must be mitigated.

I have but a few pieces of advice regarding the defense—and no—one of them is not firing Willie Martinez.

We are playing great against the run, so how about we coach Bryan Evans to just forget about run support. From this day forward Bryan, your only job is to be the deepest player on the field; nobody gets behind you.

Let the President rush the passer.

Cornelius Washington needs more reps. He is the pass rush, at least as far as we have seen this year. A back-side corner blitz may also be appropriate from time to time.

Branden and Brandon, you guys are going to be great, but you have to find the football. Prince, you are better than that.

The talent is there on defense; we will get better. We have to.

In the mean time, we have to acknowledge our shortcomings and protect ourselves from them. As good as Joe Cox looked throwing it around to AJ Green and his understudies, we have got to play a little ball control offense.

They old adage says you have to run the ball and stop the run. I think we do both good enough to be in every ball game. I imagine getting Mike Bobo to stop throwing the ball is a kin to making a junkie go cold turkey. Neither is going to be too happy about it.

Having AJ Green on your offense is like having an unopened bottle of Crown Royal. Sometimes you have to save your best for special occasions.

We need to protect our defense. The most effective way is to keep them on the sidelines. We have to get back to running the ball and eating clock. We need to exercise some patience. I do not mean Lane Kiffin patience, we have to win the game.

Cox has a great game, no doubt about it, but there is no way we can expect that same kind of performance against Tennessee, LSU, Florida or Auburn. I do not expect it against Arizona State.

With targets like AJ, Orson Charles, Tavarres King, and the reliable Michael Moore the inclination to throw the ball all over the place is great. It certainly is exciting to watch, but the goal is to win the game and the risk-reward ratio just doesn't make it prudent.

By running the ball and eating clock, we wear down the opposing defense. Ultimately, this will lead to our opponent attempting to establish a running game to rest their defense.

This plays into our strength, stopping the run. As talented as our offense is, getting into a shootout does not play to our strength due to our deficiencies against the pass, even if the time of possession is even.

We should deploy a smash-mouth running game, with play action passing to keep the defense honest. If we continue to wear the opponent down and dictate the pace, our defense will will benefit. This has been the blue print Mark Richt has utilized throughout his time in Athens.

Let's get back to it and give the defense time to rest and improve.