Rethinking Georgia's Pass Rush Problems

As noted in my previous post, I think our lack of a pass rush is going to be a major issue of concern against some of our upcoming opponents (I'm looking at you, ASU).

Last year, aside from an all-out offensive 180 where Knowshon came into his own and our receivers figured out they could catch the deep ball, our defense was the key to turning around our season.

A lot of that had to do with the utter embarrassment we felt after getting walloped by Tennessee last year and how we needed to make adjustments to start putting opposing QBs on their backs more often.

Mark Richt is a smart man.  He knows that our lack of a pass rush is a problem right now, and he's stated that we're going to have to find ways to fix it.

However, given a couple of days to rethink Saturday, I've run across a couple of other blog posts and articles that I think you should check out.

1) To begin, PWD notes the lack of the pass rush, but admits that anytime your opponent only scores seven points, your defensive scheme is a rousing success.

I'll be honest: I can't disagree with him there.  While I still think this is some of the "same song, different dance" routine with Willie Martinez that we see every year, you really can't argue with seven points in four quarters and only 18 yards rushing for the game.

Also worth noting and reading are the Offensive and Defensive miscues (scroll down some) that he tallies up for us.  Those stats had to be exhausting to put up.  Very good work done there by Paul.

2) The Good Senator tends to share my sentiment about the pass rush problems more than PWD does, but he does have a great post up about UNLV's gameplan to upset Arizona State.  If there's a bright side to not getting to the QB enough, that is it.

3) There have been some really great articles from UGASports.com regarding Richt's thoughts and some of the players' thoughts on the pass rush.  Unfortunately, those articles are for subscribers only.

However, as a side note, I subscribed to UGASports.com in February (I think), and I've been nothing but happy with it.  I'm not pimping those guys or anything, but I do think they put out a great product for the money. 

Going forward, it looks like the "pass rush is going to kill us" thoughts are going to stick around in one form or another.  However, the last time the fans were down on this team, it was because we had gotten our doors blown off by UT.

The good news is that we're still undefeated, we recognize our weaknesses, and every week is another chance to don a skimpy bathing suit for this beauty contest we call the BCS. 

Personally, I might be overly optimistic here, but I think you're going to see one fired up Dawg team on Saturday.  Only time will tell though.

Until next time kids. 

Be safe.