What Kirby Smart said about OC James Coley, offense after Kentucky struggles
It wasn’t pretty, but Georgia moved to 6-1 on the season with a 21-0 win over Kentucky on Saturday. The win keeps everything intact for a UGA squad that controls its own destiny in the SEC East. Considering the SEC champion has made the College Football Playoff every season, it’s fair to say that every goal is still on the table for the Bulldogs.
While defeating UK was an important win (as far as staying on track in the division), some Dawgs fans weren’t happy with how Kirby Smart’s squad won. The game, obviously affected by all the rain from Tropical Storm Nestor, was tied 0-0 at the half with Georgia having not crossed the 50-yard line on offense. QB Jake Fromm finished the day 9-of-12 passing for just 35 yards. The Bulldogs finished with 270 yards of total offense thanks to the ground game. Some fans were unhappy with the offense and booed during the game. It led to questions from the media about the Georgia offense and play-caller James Coley in Smart’s postgame press conference.
While Coley isn’t very popular with fans, Smart says he’s pleased with the first-year play-caller.
“Very pleased today, I thought we were extremely patient on offense and in tough conditions,” Smart said. “And, we’ve got more explosive plays than we did last year at this time, with three wide receivers that are in the NFL.”
Smart isn’t worried about how Fromm and the offense look heading into the final month of the regular season.
“I’m not concerned,” Smart said. “I feel really good about what our offense does. I feel good about Jake. To judge it based on that game is just not very smart. It’s hard to judge anything in that game. You can’t evaluate that. What you’ve got to evaluate is what is your heart, what is your courage, what is your love of the game. Think about those wideouts in that game. That’s for the love of the game is what’s that for. George Pickens, Kearis Jackson, those guys going out there and block. That’s for the love of the game.
“You evaluate things based on what’s going on around them. What’s going on around them is a tough environment. I could have told you two days ago we weren’t going to go out there and throw it for 200 yards in those conditions. We had to put a plan together to give us the best chance to be successful. I thought we did a good job.”
But wasn’t Coley a “huge” upgrade over Chaney? You guys complained about Chaney last year and now complain about his upgrade. What gives?
If you saw the play calls, you’d understand. Or should I say call, not calls. Since they love to run it up the middle over and over with no gain.
There’s little imagination, and sometimes just no sense, to Coley’s play calls. Here’s one example from the first quarter last night: UGA’s facing 3rd-and-4. So naturally, Coley calls a 3-yard out to Pickens at the sideline, which is run to perfection. The result is 4th-and-1.
I then wonder out loud to my grandson as to why we’re sitting in the driving rain to watch such nonsense. Why run a 3-yard route when you need 4 yards? If the receiver is catching it while going out of bounds, then he has no chance to turn upfield to gain any more yards.
Classic example of a young player making a rookie mistake.
No, Chaney was not let go because Coley was an upgrade. Chaney was let go because high ups on the team did not care for Chaney interacted with the players. Nothing was ever good enough.
Chaney and Coley are the Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme. Don’t confuse our enthusiasm to rid UGA of Chaney as thinking Coley would be the next Bill Walsh.
We did not however assume that it could get any worse than it was…
Only matters what Kirby thinks. Shouldn’t you be commenting on your own articles?
It’s been said this is an open forum and it’s only a simple question not a troll job so no need to get snarky or mad
Oh sure, he’s definitely “pleased”.
Coley’s coaching for his job from here on out and everybody knows it, regardless of whether or not Kirby says so in public.
There’s a lot of “Coach speak” in that. CKS has to say those things publicly.
“Coley was let go???”
Um, wasn’t he hired away by Tennessee for more money?
Sorry. Make that Chaney.
Of course. People have no idea what they are talking about.
I think Kirby wanted to keep him but not for the amount that Tenn was willing to pay.
I’m gonna go ahead and say it because it’s been a worry I’ve had bubbling deep down…
Fromm was carried by Sony, Chubb, Roquan, Javon, Lorenzo, and Davin. The current group of players is great but they can’t erase his inefficiencies like those guys could. We had 3 5 star QBs and we probably kept the worst of the 3 because he had a significant advantage over the other 2.
Yeah Justin Fields never had a chance at Georgia..I mean when Georgia used him last year it was almost insult to him really..I mean they only used him as running about, never gave him chance to make things happen with his arm…we all new he wasn’t gonna pass and so did the opposing defense..ohh and then the idiotic fake against Bama…you know the one that was the players fault…not the head coach who has never made a bad call…it’s just those dang players..
Yeah Justin Fields never had a chance at Georgia..I mean when Georgia used him last year it was almost insult to him really..I mean they only used him as running qb, never gave him chance to make things happen with his arm…we all new he wasn’t gonna pass and so did the opposing defense..ohh and then the idiotic fake against Bama…you know the one that was the players fault…not the head coach who has never made a bad call…it’s just those dang players..