Initial Thoughts: Game 8 - Georgia

The Okefenokee Oar stays with the Gators! 18 out of 21 victories for the good guys, meaning that since I've been alive, Georgia has only beaten the Gators a grand total of 7 times, with 4 of those coming before Spurrier arrived.

You can watch the CBS highlights, recap, interviews here with Urban Meyer and game hero Chas Henry. Urban Meyer calls it a "program win" and Chas Henry claims "I knew I was going to make it." Fantastic stuff. But make sure to have a bottle of Pepto-Bismol handy as you are watching the highlights.

Game MVP's were, on offense: Trey Burton, on defense: Will Hill, and special teams: Chas Henry.

The offense:

How great is it to watch a game in which the dive play is used sparingly (for the most part) and Gators score over 30 points? I think it is just awesome. Almost leaves you without speech. The OL continues to struggle in pass protection, but it's blocking for the running game was much much better. Though the OL was bailed out of sack against them due to a false start penalty on themselves, but that looks slightly better in stat book. The running game ran wild, and the passing game still leaves stuff to be desired, but hey, at least it appears positive steps were taken during the bye week.

As for the QB play, Brantley did okay, and Trey Burton was perfect. John Brantley finished 16/25 for 193 yards and an INT. Though I will contend to the day I die, that the INT was solely on Omarius Hines. Hines gave up on the play, jogged the route when he was "in" the play, and allowed the ball to be intercepted. Hines roughly gave about a 2% effort total on that play. Trey Burton was prefect to the tune of 2/2 for 26 yards.

The RB play was exponentially better than what we have seen the past few weeks. QB/RB/WR/TE everything man Trey Burton finished with 110 yards on 17 carries for 2 TD, with one of them a nice 51 yard scamper late in the game. Chris Rainey ended up with 84 yards on 16 carries with 1 TD. Which was a nice return game for him coming off of a team suspension for "the incident" and he even had a nice return on a kick-off. Jeffery Demps had totals of 38 yards on 9 carries for 1 TD as well. Though nothing spectacular out of Demps, it was nice to see him get a TD.

The WR and TE play, again, leaves much to be desired. As stated above, nobody caught a TD pass, but Hines finished as the leader with 4 catches for 50 yards, Frankie Hammond Jr had 3 catches for 46 yards (including the second most intimidating play of the game with the pose and ball flip), Demps had 2 catches for 43 yards, Deonte Thompson had 2 catches (and no drops) for 36 yards, Burton had 5 catches for 35 yards and Chris Rainey finishes up the WR play with 2 catches for a grand total of 9 yards. Deonte Thompson made probably his toughest catch ever, as he had to leap over a defender, while coming back for the ball.

The defense:

Hello, Will Hill, it's nice to see you. Aside from blowing some coverage (or was it the scheme), Will Hill showed us his best Major Wright, Reggie Nelson and Lawrence Wright impression on Georgia WR Durham, knocks him out of the game and causes him to begin to cough up blood.

3 INT's total by the defense, which were 2 by Will Hill and 1 by Janoris Jenkins on the first play of the game. Will Hill also had one on a two point conversion, but I guess those don't count for the season stats. Will Hill's second INT nearly ended the game, but he stepped out of bounds inside the five yard line in OT.

Jon Bostic and Ahmad Black each picked up a sack, in what was another disappointing performance by the DL. Do the Gators even employ a DL or are they just going to rely on pressure from the LB's and safeties for pressure? Hopefully the DL can pick it up.

Also of note, this is the 3rd time in 4 games in which the defense has given up 31 or more points. And it's not surprising the Gators have lost 2 of those 31 plus points given up games. If you expect to win games like that, you've either a) have to be even luckier than Les Miles, or b) have an offense like Oregon's. The Gators aren't that lucky, and don't have 1/3 the offense of Oregon, so they better get their act together otherwise losses against South Carolina and Florida State aren't out of the question.

The special teams:

On kick-off returns, Chris Rainey handled the duties, and finished with 148 yards on 6 returns with a long of 45. That averages out to 24.7 yards per return and that isn't bad at all. Not great, but not terrible either. It is said that if you start past your own 30 yard line, you're in good shape, and Rainey's averages are pretty close to that, considering that college kick-offs hardly go into the end-zone

Chas Henry continues to be the team MVP with his performances. Henry finished 2/3 on FG's including the game-winning 37 yard FG in OT. 4/4 on extra points as a bonus. As for the punting, another fantastic game for Chas Henry as he finished with 6 punts for an average of 46.8 yards including 1 touch-back and 2 inside the 20. Another fantastic performance for a guy that before a few games ago, hadn't kicked a FG since high school. 

Overall:

The performance of certain players was outstanding (looking at you Chas Henry and Will Hill) and the performance of certain players leaves much to be desired (looking at you OL, Hines, Bostic and DL). But one could write something like that after every game, just change the names here and there and you've got it. It was good to see the changes in the offense (Jordan Reed as the short yardage runner), less dive plays, and heck, even a few deep passes. All area's in which improvement was vastly needed.

While it's great to get the victory, the fact that the Gators allowed Georgia to come back from a 21-7 deficit has to be concerning, especially with South Carolina two weeks away, and Florida State not that far off either.

All in all, about a C+, B- type of game in which the offense stepped up when needed, as did the defense to an extent.

The game next week starts at 12:21 and is on the SEC Network and ESPN3.com

In all kinds of weather.....

Go Gators!