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Posted
10 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

I know you're generally an idiot so I don't know why I'm asking, but what? Did you watch that Ohio State offense in the playoffs last season?

And I know you have a mental handicap and neg rep like a bitch cause you cant comprehend easy to digest information, so I'll make it easy for you. Calling a zone blitz with 30 seconds left in the half when everyone is expecting a screen from their own 25, resulting in the cheapest, untouched 75 yard TD to reclaim a lead before halftime instead of calling something safe that gets you to halftime was a fireable offense. 

Todd Orlando was done after 3rd and 17 against LSU, PK has this debacle.

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Posted

For those who are saying the rosary because allegedly Muschamp hasn't been a coordinator since the Return of the Spice Girls tour...

From Dawg Nation: https://dawnofthedawg.com/texas-gave-will-muschamp-something-georgia-couldn-t-offer

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Also: https://www.dawgnation.com/football/dawgnation-newsletter-let-fun-begin/2GSSNDGVIVANRDYL6GBF5TNJK4/

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Why he moved to defensive analyst.  I'm guessing Pavia made it so that he didn't need to keep watching his son at Vandy.

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Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, JBJ said:

No, but it's one of the easier measures to find about playcalling.  I think people just confuse sound defense with aggressive (they are usually opposites), or like hard-hitting LB aggression with defensive philosophy aggression.  Punching balls out and jumping passes aren't inherently indicative of an aggressive philosophy on defense.

Disagree 

 

both of those can lead to missed tackles and big gains by the offense. If you focus on making the sure tackle and bypassing the chance at an INT to make the sure tackle, you’ll be less likely to have a play slip by you, but also less likely to cause a turnover.

 

ETA: this is the decimal point dissension, so I will leave this part of the discussion at this point.

Edited by lilMAC25
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Posted

Also, this article from 2023 is excellent.  Very much worth the full read (text below): https://www.dawgscentral.com/blogs/entry/385-23-for-2023-11-will-muschamp/

#11 - Will Muschamp

Countless articles have been written on Georgia’s defensive brain trust over the last 2 years as the Bulldogs have risen to the top of the sport. Many of them have focused on Kirby Smart’s scheme in conjunction with his reluctance to concede that a defense must give up bunches of points in the modern era of college football. Many other articles have focused on UGA co-DC Glenn Schumann, one of the coaching industry’s biggest young stars. 

Not nearly enough people have given Will Muschamp the credit he deserves for helping design the Georgia defenses that have helped win back-to-back national titles… 

The national attention given to the UGA defense over the last two years has been rightfully earned.

The 2021 unit might be the best college defense we’ve seen since modern Spread and Zone-Read offenses have been adopted by nearly every team in the sport. UGA suffocated some of the best offenses in college football that season and held Alabama to 18 points in the national championship game in Indianapolis. 

The 2022 team came into the season with question marks across the board. 8 starters had departed for the NFL. Not just the talent of those players was gone. Perhaps more concerning was the leadership vacuum that could be created by losing all of those veteran defenders. Guys like Nakobe Dean and Lewis Cine knew UGA’s scheme so well that they functioned like coaches on the field. 

How would the Bulldogs replace all that? Just fine. UGA’s 2022 unit was the best scoring defense in the FBS during the regular season, allowing just 12.4 points per game. 

IMG_5021.jpeg

 

Back-to-back seasons like that is the type of thing that turns young coaches into rising stars. That is why there is a certain irony to the fact that Will Muschamp and Glenn Schumann are currently Georgia’s co-defensive coordinators.

20 years ago, Muschamp was a 32 year-old national championship winning coordinator at LSU for Nick Saban, a guy who many considered the greatest defensive coach in college football at the time.

Right now, Glenn Schumann is the 33 year-old national championship winning coordinator at UGA for Kirby Smart, a guy who many consider the greatest defensive coach in college football today.

Muschamp followed Saban to the NFL and spent a year as the assistant head coach of the Dolphins before coming back to college football as the Auburn DC in 2006. There he coordinated two straight defenses that ranked in the top ten nationally. 

In January of 2008, Muschamp became the highest paid assistant in the Big 12 when he was hired at Texas. Just 10 months later the Longhorns announced that Texas would be Mack Brown’s successor as head coach whenever he retired. Prior to that announcement, Muschamp had been connected to job openings at Tennessee, Auburn and Clemson. He had planned to interview with the Tigers during an upcoming bye week. Muschamp was one of the coaching industry’s rising stars and Texas doubled his salary and named him the head coach in waiting to keep him in Austin.

In 2023, UGA gave Glenn Schumann a raise to $2 million a year to keep him in Athens. His star is rising in much the same way that Muschamp’s once did.  

I want to be clear before we move forward… Schumann’s excellence has never been over exaggerated. The national media became fully aware of his gifts as UGA went on a historic two-year run and that praise is warranted. People close to the program have known for 5 years that Schumann would eventually find his way into this type of spotlight. There is a reason that the Eagles wanted to hire a 33 year-old who has never played or coached in the NFL as their defensive coordinator the offseason after they went to the Super Bowl. Spend 5 minutes talking with Schumann face-to-face and you will immediately realize that he is a brilliant guy. 

But here’s the thing… So is Will Muschamp. If you look back on the articles that were published about Muschamp in the 2000’s you will read effusive praise for the man who had built dominant units at LSU, Auburn and Texas over the prior years. You will see him labeled as a “defensive guru” quite often. 

Muschamp became a head coach for the first time at Florida (2011-2014) and then for a second time at South Carolina (2016-2020). Neither tenure ended with the type of sustained success that many once thought they would. He did lead a Gators team that went 11-2 in 2012. That is the best record that a UF team has had since the Urban Meyer era. He also went 9-4 in 2017 at South Carolina, a place where, historically speaking, it is really damn hard to go 9-4.

The media found new rising assistants to laud in the decade between Muschamp’s hiring at Florida and the end of his tenure at South Carolina. During that time, Muschamp became a punching bag for some. There is a box that defensive coaches sometimes get put in. While offensive coaches get portrayed as savvy tacticians, defensive coaches are often made out to be somehow less sophisticated. Perhaps his fiery persona on the sidelines contributed to it, but somewhere along the way many began to paint Muschamp as a loud, clumsy man who lacked intelligence.

Talk to anyone who has worked with or for Will Muschamp and they will tell you that portrayal of Muschamp is way off-base. When he was fired at South Carolina there were people in the football offices who cried as if they had lost a family member. Secretaries and equipment staff spoke about the kind and thoughtful man who they would miss seeing at work everyday. Muschamp the person is the farthest thing from the labels that have been assigned to him. 

The coaching profession isn’t as simple as many make it out to be. Margins are thin. A play or two costs a team a game. That loss demoralizes the team and causes a season to spiral away. A penalty at one crucial juncture or a missed block at another can sometimes be the thing that a whole season turns on. That isn’t to say that there aren’t things Muschamp could have done differently or better. 

It is an acknowledgement of the fact that a career is filled with a great deal of minutiae and the difference between 4-8 and 8-4 at a place like South Carolina isn’t nearly as big as it seems. A coach’s tenure almost always ends poorly. Suddenly, that tenure must be eulogized in 280 characters on Twitter and 600 words on a dozen different websites. Somewhere in that process things get distilled to a type of black-and-white thinking where coaches become either smart/successful or dumb/unsuccessful. 

Despite all that has been said or written about him, Will Muschamp still has a brilliant football mind. It is the same one that he had when he was the 37 year-old defensive coordinator of the Texas Longhorns. It is the mind that had him labeled a “defensive guru” by the media members who sometimes serves as the sport’s kingmakers. 

Flashback to where Georgia was when Smart hired Muschamp after the 2020 season. The program was seen as one that couldn’t quite get over the hump. The media painted Kirby Smart as a guy who could recruit talent but not win with it. Many felt he was hindering his offenses. 

To make matters worse, UGA had just suffered a bad loss to Dan Mullen’s best Florida team in Jacksonville. UGA recruited blue-chip players all over its defense but had been carved up by Mullen’s offense. There was a large segment of the media who believed Smart wasn’t the best coach in his own division. 

Smart had taken UGA to within a play of the national title in 2017. He had been minutes from beating Alabama in 2018 but his defense faltered down the stretch when Jalen Hurts was inserted for an injured Tua Tagovailoa. Smart called a fake punt that ended in disaster and moments later Alabama took the lead. Smart’s 2019 team possessed the nation’s best defense and an anemic offense. That campaign was sunk by a loss at home to Muschamp’s South Carolina team when the Bulldogs were 21.5-point favorites. 

On the heels of that, Smart hired Muschamp as a defensive analyst in January of 2021. Remember what I said earlier? The margins are thin in this sport. Will Muschamp arrived in Athens armed with the experience of playing Smart’s football teams and coaching for nearly a decade in the SEC East. 

Smart coached the secondary under Muschamp at Valdosta State in 2000 when Will was the defensive coordinator. The two had the same job titles again at LSU in 2004. That past experience has given Smart and Muschamp a tight bond. They shared information for years while both were at different coaching stops and Muschamp described the two as “alike thinkers where football is concerned,” back in 2016 during Smart’s first SEC Media Days as the UGA head coach.

When Muschamp came aboard he immediately had Smart’s trust. Analysts are often charged with self scouting the team they work for. When Muschamp arrived he told Smart that Georgia needed to simplify its scheme. 

Will looked across the roster and saw blue-chip talent at every position. He recognized that Smart’s machine had recruited superior talent across the board, but felt like those athletes weren’t always being put into positions where they could just go play. 

Sources have mentioned that moment a few times over the last couple of years because it represented a philosophical shift in how Kirby Smart teams played defense.

Smart’s defense was built around pre-snap checks and matchups based on where a receiver, tight-end or running back might line up. Those checks confused UGA at times and could leave players scrambling as the offense snapped the ball. Exploiting those pre-snap switches and checks was part of the way that Florida was able to put up 38 first-half points in their 2020 win in Jacksonville. 

Georgia’s defense is now based on having the athleticism to match up without having to move around on defense. Athletes are good in space and the modern offense is all about putting the ball into space. Smart didn’t throw out all of UGA’s complicated pre-snap checks but it does run the simple stuff more often now. 

Since that moment, UGA is 29-1 and has won two straight national titles. In each of those years their defenses have played at elite levels. 

That simplification was how a UGA team that replaced 8 starters opened its 2022 season giving up just 7 points against an Oregon offense that was one of the best in college football last season. 

Smart and the entire defensive staff worked together to perfect those schemes, but many believe Muschamp’s addition to the program was crucial to that shift in philosophy. With that context, Smart’s quotes after the 2021 Florida game where UGA shellacked the Gators and ended Dan Mullen’s tenure in Gainesville is all the more interesting.

"There’s no coach out there that you can out-coach recruiting. No coaching is going to out-coach players. Anybody will tell you our defense is good because we have good players."

Georgia always had good players. The Smart/Schumann/Muschamp brain trust has found new ways to maximize the talent of those players over the last 2 seasons. 

With Muschamp and Schumann in charge, Georgia has two “gurus” at the helm of its defense. After 2023 there is a good chance that Schumann will move on. Muschamp’s presence in the program will provide UGA with important continuity if and when that happens.

At 51 years old, Muschamp is still young but he has been blessed with the wisdom of experience in college football’s toughest league. Muschamp’s years in the SEC blessed him with wisdom that helped Smart take UGA to new heights. 

Smart’s last two defensive coordinators are in P5 jobs and Schumann will likely be in one soon. Maybe Muschamp could find himself in demand as a head coach again someday. Either way, there is something poetic about the fact that Smart hired his former boss and Muschamp then assisted Kirby in taking their alma mater to the pinnacle of the sport. 

Whatever the future holds, Muschamp seems content to be in Athens. He told reporters last August that he thinks he has the best job in America.

“I love my role. I told my wife the other day that I think I have the best job in America. At the end of the day, the room that I have I am honored to coach. To be in that room, to be at the University of Georgia, to see our future as we continue to unfold and move forward - I am really excited about it.”

For UGA to win a third consecutive title in 2023 then its talented defense must play at a high level. The sharp football mind of Will Muschamp will be ready to help it get there.

 

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Posted
38 minutes ago, JBJ said:

I don't think we have advanced stats from then, but no.  They had a dominant front 4.  Very low blitz rate, Cover 2.  Essentially, the last notable Cover 2 defense.

I don't view complexity and aggressiveness as necessarily meaning a high blitz rate. You can sit back in coverage while also doing a lot complexity to disguise the specific coverage or which 4 are coming. 

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Posted
17 hours ago, BigOrange1 said:

this is absolute insanity.  no one wants Muschamp as a head coach.

Now, now, now.   I am sure Oklahoma would fully support this.

Posted

To preface, I’m glad Muschamp is back in Austin and I think our front seven will greatly benefit from a more aggressive style. 

But all this talk that PK’s “bend-but-don’t-break” somehow kept the offense from flourishing is pure madness. Flourishing from what? More three and outs? False starts? Drops? We spent two thirds of the season watching our offense be completely inept and it was the defense that had to bail us out time and time again. Maybe having to play 80 snaps back to back weeks on the road to beat SEC bottom feeders in OT played a part in how the defense broke down at the end of the season? 

My main problem with this year’s defense was that we didn’t force nearly as many turnovers, but that can always be kind of a fluky stat. It didn’t necessarily turn into giving up a ton more points as we still were among the leaders in that stat.  I think Muschamp’s more aggressive style should hopefully force more turnovers in the future.

I’m willing to believe that Sark jumped at an opportunity to make one side of the ball better. Hopefully after the bowl game he’s as willing to jump at the same chance on his side of the ball. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, lilMAC25 said:

Disagree

both of those can lead to missed tackles and big gains by the offense. If you focus on making the sure tackle and bypassing the chance at an INT to make the sure tackle, you’ll be less likely to have a play slip by you, but also less likely to cause a turnover.

I would disagree that Muschamp will be more physical defense than a PK or tell his players to take dumb risks, and it's not what I meant by a "more complex defense with more aggression."

 

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

I don't view complexity and aggressiveness as necessarily meaning a high blitz rate. You can sit back in coverage while also doing a lot complexity to disguise the specific coverage or which 4 are coming. 

I think coverage is actually more telling for overall complexity, because it causes more ripples across a defense.

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Posted
19 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

And I know you have a mental handicap and neg rep like a bitch cause you cant comprehend easy to digest information, so I'll make it easy for you. Calling a zone blitz with 30 seconds left in the half when everyone is expecting a screen from their own 25, resulting in the cheapest, untouched 75 yard TD to reclaim a lead before halftime instead of calling something safe that gets you to halftime was a fireable offense. 

Todd Orlando was done after 3rd and 17 against LSU, PK has this debacle.

If everyone was expecting it, it would have never worked.  It was drastically different than the Orlando call.  One was terrible, the other overly criticized.

Posted
Just now, Had Enough said:

If everyone was expecting it, it would have never worked.  It was drastically different than the Orlando call.  One was terrible, the other overly criticized.

No, everyone knew this was the playcall if it wasnt going to be a qb kneel

Posted
Looked like a Zone Blitz / Fire Blitz... Which I don't recall seeing a lot of under PK. 
So, actually, you do hope to see more of it, and I think you will.
I think PKs philosophy is more about covering than pressuring.
"Don't get beat"
But that means a mobile QB (which is all of them) can move around enough to create time, which creates space. 
It's why 3rd and PK exists. It's why we say the front and the back didn't match. The back played off and the front didn't bring extra bodies, but simulated pressure with 2 DL. Show 5 and bring two. Why? QBs can see and adjust to even if the OL doesn't see it right away. Too much time.
Muschamp is going to bring pressure and trust the back to cover for a short period. Watch... Our DBs are going to look like they can cover again on 3rd down. Crossers will win from time to time, but will also turn into pics more often.
 
 

3rd and PK? Nah. Sark is Mr 3 and Out. PK’s defenses got beat when his defenses wore down from being under pressure so much when they had to save our ass.

We usually did a good job of containing scrambling QBs and obliterated Mateer and Reed. Better than most Ds.

The misalignment of the backend is obviously related to Akina, who was a really bad hire, in addition to the two other secondary coaches. Why 3? because reasons.

PK was the best coach on the team and we fired his ass. Hope he heads back to the west coast. Dont want him beating the shit out of Sarks frontrunner offense.
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Posted
46 minutes ago, markstanco said:

Time for the lip reading translations all over again

willmuschamp-muschamp.gif

I’m deaf, so I’ve spent most of my life lip reading. I’ve worked with government agencies on this sort of thing.. Will says, “I love you and I want you to succeed. After the game, I want to hear your truth about what happened.“

 

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Posted
8 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:


3rd and PK? Nah. Sark is Mr 3 and Out. PK’s defenses got beat when his defenses wore down from being under pressure so much when they had to save our ass.

We usually did a good job of containing scrambling QBs and obliterated Mateer and Reed. Better than most Ds.

The misalignment of the backend is obviously related to Akina, who was a really bad hire, in addition to the two other secondary coaches. Why 3? because reasons.

PK was the best coach on the team and we fired his ass. Hope he heads back to the west coast. Dont want him beating the shit out of Sarks frontrunner offense.

Florida was the game that really aggravated me. That was terrible game plan and one that ignored what how the prior 2 teams dismantled them.

If there is a hole in PK's ability as a DC, it is his ability to coordinate the entire defense. He has been reliant on strong secondary coaches. That can add volatility to his results. There is a reason most DC come from a secondary or linebacker background. 

 

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Posted
9 minutes ago, Daichee Bell said:

I’m deaf, so I’ve spent most of my life lip reading. I’ve worked with government agencies on this sort of thing.. Will says, “I love you and I want you to succeed. After the game, I want to hear your truth about what happened.“

 

After the beginning teeth grind, I see him saying "I want you to eat me"

Posted
14 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

No, everyone knew this was the playcall if it wasnt going to be a qb kneel

In order for a screen to work, the defenders have to be caught unaware.  No matter the defensive play call.  Blitz or not it’ll come down to play recognition.

Posted
Just now, Had Enough said:

In order for a screen to work, the defenders have to be caught unaware.  No matter the defensive play call.  Blitz or not it’ll come down to play recognition.

...and youre still wrong

Posted
Florida was the game that really aggravated me. That was terrible game plan and one that ignored what how the prior 2 teams dismantled them.
If there is a hole in PK's ability as a DC, it is his ability to coordinate the entire defense. He has been reliant on strong secondary coaches. That can add volatility to his results. There is a reason most DC come from a secondary or linebacker background. 
 

Well yeah he needs good secondary coaches. It’s why it was bad that he inherited secondary coaches before he got here. And, im assuming Akina was a last minute comfort hire, possibly foisted upon him.

I dont like the disrespect or optics of firing PK, who saved our asses time and again during the Sark era.

If Banks and Flood are retained in their present positions, then to me thats a bad sign because those motherfuckers are average at best and liabilities at worst.
Posted
45 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

I know you're generally an idiot so I don't know why I'm asking, but

 

45 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

And I know you have a mental handicap and neg rep like a bitch cause you cant comprehend easy to digest information, so I'll make it easy for you

 

With this back & forth, I feel like I am back at Thanksgiving with my wife's family.

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Posted

I don't belong in a detailed conversation about defensive strategy. I will note my problem with PK was our defense protecting a lead and wanting to run the clock out. Too many games suddenly became close because we changed what we were doing. It's the whole stupid victory defense rigamorole. 

I'll also note the Surliness of applauding a good move like hire Muschamp while complaining that it wasn't the move desired in another area.

Great DC hire! Should've been a new OC!

Axes get ground to dust here.

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Posted
42 minutes ago, texasdago said:

Also, this article from 2023 is excellent.  Very much worth the full read (text below): https://www.dawgscentral.com/blogs/entry/385-23-for-2023-11-will-muschamp/

#11 - Will Muschamp

Countless articles have been written on Georgia’s defensive brain trust over the last 2 years as the Bulldogs have risen to the top of the sport. Many of them have focused on Kirby Smart’s scheme in conjunction with his reluctance to concede that a defense must give up bunches of points in the modern era of college football. Many other articles have focused on UGA co-DC Glenn Schumann, one of the coaching industry’s biggest young stars. 

Not nearly enough people have given Will Muschamp the credit he deserves for helping design the Georgia defenses that have helped win back-to-back national titles… 

The national attention given to the UGA defense over the last two years has been rightfully earned.

The 2021 unit might be the best college defense we’ve seen since modern Spread and Zone-Read offenses have been adopted by nearly every team in the sport. UGA suffocated some of the best offenses in college football that season and held Alabama to 18 points in the national championship game in Indianapolis. 

The 2022 team came into the season with question marks across the board. 8 starters had departed for the NFL. Not just the talent of those players was gone. Perhaps more concerning was the leadership vacuum that could be created by losing all of those veteran defenders. Guys like Nakobe Dean and Lewis Cine knew UGA’s scheme so well that they functioned like coaches on the field. 

How would the Bulldogs replace all that? Just fine. UGA’s 2022 unit was the best scoring defense in the FBS during the regular season, allowing just 12.4 points per game. 

IMG_5021.jpeg

 

Back-to-back seasons like that is the type of thing that turns young coaches into rising stars. That is why there is a certain irony to the fact that Will Muschamp and Glenn Schumann are currently Georgia’s co-defensive coordinators.

20 years ago, Muschamp was a 32 year-old national championship winning coordinator at LSU for Nick Saban, a guy who many considered the greatest defensive coach in college football at the time.

Right now, Glenn Schumann is the 33 year-old national championship winning coordinator at UGA for Kirby Smart, a guy who many consider the greatest defensive coach in college football today.

Muschamp followed Saban to the NFL and spent a year as the assistant head coach of the Dolphins before coming back to college football as the Auburn DC in 2006. There he coordinated two straight defenses that ranked in the top ten nationally. 

In January of 2008, Muschamp became the highest paid assistant in the Big 12 when he was hired at Texas. Just 10 months later the Longhorns announced that Texas would be Mack Brown’s successor as head coach whenever he retired. Prior to that announcement, Muschamp had been connected to job openings at Tennessee, Auburn and Clemson. He had planned to interview with the Tigers during an upcoming bye week. Muschamp was one of the coaching industry’s rising stars and Texas doubled his salary and named him the head coach in waiting to keep him in Austin.

In 2023, UGA gave Glenn Schumann a raise to $2 million a year to keep him in Athens. His star is rising in much the same way that Muschamp’s once did.  

I want to be clear before we move forward… Schumann’s excellence has never been over exaggerated. The national media became fully aware of his gifts as UGA went on a historic two-year run and that praise is warranted. People close to the program have known for 5 years that Schumann would eventually find his way into this type of spotlight. There is a reason that the Eagles wanted to hire a 33 year-old who has never played or coached in the NFL as their defensive coordinator the offseason after they went to the Super Bowl. Spend 5 minutes talking with Schumann face-to-face and you will immediately realize that he is a brilliant guy. 

But here’s the thing… So is Will Muschamp. If you look back on the articles that were published about Muschamp in the 2000’s you will read effusive praise for the man who had built dominant units at LSU, Auburn and Texas over the prior years. You will see him labeled as a “defensive guru” quite often. 

Muschamp became a head coach for the first time at Florida (2011-2014) and then for a second time at South Carolina (2016-2020). Neither tenure ended with the type of sustained success that many once thought they would. He did lead a Gators team that went 11-2 in 2012. That is the best record that a UF team has had since the Urban Meyer era. He also went 9-4 in 2017 at South Carolina, a place where, historically speaking, it is really damn hard to go 9-4.

The media found new rising assistants to laud in the decade between Muschamp’s hiring at Florida and the end of his tenure at South Carolina. During that time, Muschamp became a punching bag for some. There is a box that defensive coaches sometimes get put in. While offensive coaches get portrayed as savvy tacticians, defensive coaches are often made out to be somehow less sophisticated. Perhaps his fiery persona on the sidelines contributed to it, but somewhere along the way many began to paint Muschamp as a loud, clumsy man who lacked intelligence.

Talk to anyone who has worked with or for Will Muschamp and they will tell you that portrayal of Muschamp is way off-base. When he was fired at South Carolina there were people in the football offices who cried as if they had lost a family member. Secretaries and equipment staff spoke about the kind and thoughtful man who they would miss seeing at work everyday. Muschamp the person is the farthest thing from the labels that have been assigned to him. 

The coaching profession isn’t as simple as many make it out to be. Margins are thin. A play or two costs a team a game. That loss demoralizes the team and causes a season to spiral away. A penalty at one crucial juncture or a missed block at another can sometimes be the thing that a whole season turns on. That isn’t to say that there aren’t things Muschamp could have done differently or better. 

It is an acknowledgement of the fact that a career is filled with a great deal of minutiae and the difference between 4-8 and 8-4 at a place like South Carolina isn’t nearly as big as it seems. A coach’s tenure almost always ends poorly. Suddenly, that tenure must be eulogized in 280 characters on Twitter and 600 words on a dozen different websites. Somewhere in that process things get distilled to a type of black-and-white thinking where coaches become either smart/successful or dumb/unsuccessful. 

Despite all that has been said or written about him, Will Muschamp still has a brilliant football mind. It is the same one that he had when he was the 37 year-old defensive coordinator of the Texas Longhorns. It is the mind that had him labeled a “defensive guru” by the media members who sometimes serves as the sport’s kingmakers. 

Flashback to where Georgia was when Smart hired Muschamp after the 2020 season. The program was seen as one that couldn’t quite get over the hump. The media painted Kirby Smart as a guy who could recruit talent but not win with it. Many felt he was hindering his offenses. 

To make matters worse, UGA had just suffered a bad loss to Dan Mullen’s best Florida team in Jacksonville. UGA recruited blue-chip players all over its defense but had been carved up by Mullen’s offense. There was a large segment of the media who believed Smart wasn’t the best coach in his own division. 

Smart had taken UGA to within a play of the national title in 2017. He had been minutes from beating Alabama in 2018 but his defense faltered down the stretch when Jalen Hurts was inserted for an injured Tua Tagovailoa. Smart called a fake punt that ended in disaster and moments later Alabama took the lead. Smart’s 2019 team possessed the nation’s best defense and an anemic offense. That campaign was sunk by a loss at home to Muschamp’s South Carolina team when the Bulldogs were 21.5-point favorites. 

On the heels of that, Smart hired Muschamp as a defensive analyst in January of 2021. Remember what I said earlier? The margins are thin in this sport. Will Muschamp arrived in Athens armed with the experience of playing Smart’s football teams and coaching for nearly a decade in the SEC East. 

Smart coached the secondary under Muschamp at Valdosta State in 2000 when Will was the defensive coordinator. The two had the same job titles again at LSU in 2004. That past experience has given Smart and Muschamp a tight bond. They shared information for years while both were at different coaching stops and Muschamp described the two as “alike thinkers where football is concerned,” back in 2016 during Smart’s first SEC Media Days as the UGA head coach.

When Muschamp came aboard he immediately had Smart’s trust. Analysts are often charged with self scouting the team they work for. When Muschamp arrived he told Smart that Georgia needed to simplify its scheme. 

Will looked across the roster and saw blue-chip talent at every position. He recognized that Smart’s machine had recruited superior talent across the board, but felt like those athletes weren’t always being put into positions where they could just go play. 

Sources have mentioned that moment a few times over the last couple of years because it represented a philosophical shift in how Kirby Smart teams played defense.

Smart’s defense was built around pre-snap checks and matchups based on where a receiver, tight-end or running back might line up. Those checks confused UGA at times and could leave players scrambling as the offense snapped the ball. Exploiting those pre-snap switches and checks was part of the way that Florida was able to put up 38 first-half points in their 2020 win in Jacksonville. 

Georgia’s defense is now based on having the athleticism to match up without having to move around on defense. Athletes are good in space and the modern offense is all about putting the ball into space. Smart didn’t throw out all of UGA’s complicated pre-snap checks but it does run the simple stuff more often now. 

Since that moment, UGA is 29-1 and has won two straight national titles. In each of those years their defenses have played at elite levels. 

That simplification was how a UGA team that replaced 8 starters opened its 2022 season giving up just 7 points against an Oregon offense that was one of the best in college football last season. 

Smart and the entire defensive staff worked together to perfect those schemes, but many believe Muschamp’s addition to the program was crucial to that shift in philosophy. With that context, Smart’s quotes after the 2021 Florida game where UGA shellacked the Gators and ended Dan Mullen’s tenure in Gainesville is all the more interesting.

"There’s no coach out there that you can out-coach recruiting. No coaching is going to out-coach players. Anybody will tell you our defense is good because we have good players."

Georgia always had good players. The Smart/Schumann/Muschamp brain trust has found new ways to maximize the talent of those players over the last 2 seasons. 

With Muschamp and Schumann in charge, Georgia has two “gurus” at the helm of its defense. After 2023 there is a good chance that Schumann will move on. Muschamp’s presence in the program will provide UGA with important continuity if and when that happens.

At 51 years old, Muschamp is still young but he has been blessed with the wisdom of experience in college football’s toughest league. Muschamp’s years in the SEC blessed him with wisdom that helped Smart take UGA to new heights. 

Smart’s last two defensive coordinators are in P5 jobs and Schumann will likely be in one soon. Maybe Muschamp could find himself in demand as a head coach again someday. Either way, there is something poetic about the fact that Smart hired his former boss and Muschamp then assisted Kirby in taking their alma mater to the pinnacle of the sport. 

Whatever the future holds, Muschamp seems content to be in Athens. He told reporters last August that he thinks he has the best job in America.

“I love my role. I told my wife the other day that I think I have the best job in America. At the end of the day, the room that I have I am honored to coach. To be in that room, to be at the University of Georgia, to see our future as we continue to unfold and move forward - I am really excited about it.”

For UGA to win a third consecutive title in 2023 then its talented defense must play at a high level. The sharp football mind of Will Muschamp will be ready to help it get there.

 


“When Muschamp came aboard he immediately had Smart’s trust. Analysts are often charged with self scouting the team they work for. When Muschamp arrived he told Smart that Georgia needed to simplify its scheme. 

Will looked across the roster and saw blue-chip talent at every position. He recognized that Smart’s machine had recruited superior talent across the board, but felt like those athletes weren’t always being put into positions where they could just go play.”

^^THAT is what we need^^

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Posted

I thought PK did a pretty fantastic job in Austin with a few glaring weaknesses.  I think those weaknesses would have continued to hold us back against the better teams.  His bend but don't break style of defense works great against most everyone when you have a talent advantage.  We had the talent advantage in all but a couple of games a year, the games we typically lost.  Georgia consistently beat his ass because they didn't have to be perfect, they could consistently move the ball against him even if things didn't go perfect.  Against a team like Georgia you need to be able to move then backwards, not just hold the line.  PK was never going to put them in tough positions because he was too conservative to do so.  Muschamp should be much better at this.

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Posted

I believe PK told Sark if he went off to rehab for a month, again, PK would be gone when Sark got back. Sark said "You're gone now... Boom! Motherfucker!"

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Posted
1 minute ago, StassneyHorn said:

...and youre still wrong

From my general experience with the game, I’d prefer larger, fatter guys to have to chase me around the field attempting to block me.  That was always to my advantage.  That’s a screen play.  If I read it sooner rather than later, the play was likely dead.  2nd and 3rd level defenders don’t keep dropping after they’ve read screen.  If you “know” it’s coming, then it makes blocking the defender incredibly difficult as you get caught between setting up the play and blocking the man.

At least that’s my line of thinking.

Posted
8 minutes ago, Codaxx said:

Florida was the game that really aggravated me. That was terrible game plan and one that ignored what how the prior 2 teams dismantled them.

If there is a hole in PK's ability as a DC, it is his ability to coordinate the entire defense. He has been reliant on strong secondary coaches. That can add volatility to his results. There is a reason most DC come from a secondary or linebacker background. 

 

I've been perplexed by our struggles in the secondary during his tenure. PK has done an amazing job of building a defense that can stop the run without committing bodies to the box. In theory, that should mean we weren't sacrificing the integrity of our coverage to stop the run and have provided better results in the secondary. And his general philosophy of just running the base defense should have meant that guys had a ton of experience in knowing their assignments. But really, outside of last year, our coverage was often a weakness. He seemed to really need a ton of experience in the secondary for the coverages to work well. Maybe it was the separation we had between the backend and frontend of the defense. Maybe it was the yearly changing of the base coverage. But it is a bit strange. 

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Posted

I seem to recall K-State just running the same play over and over against WM's defense and only bothered to throw the ball 3 times that game.   This feels like penny wise pound foolish.

Posted
4 minutes ago, txhorns said:

I thought PK did a pretty fantastic job in Austin with a few glaring weaknesses.  I think those weaknesses would have continued to hold us back against the better teams.  His bend but don't break style of defense works great against most everyone when you have a talent advantage.  We had the talent advantage in all but a couple of games a year, the games we typically lost.  Georgia consistently beat his ass because they didn't have to be perfect, they could consistently move the ball against him even if things didn't go perfect.  Against a team like Georgia you need to be able to move then backwards, not just hold the line.  PK was never going to put them in tough positions because he was too conservative to do so.  Muschamp should be much better at this.

Georgia was at home and went for it on 4th and 1 from their own 35 up 14-10.  Then later that same drive, 4th and 5 and we jumped.  Followed up with an onside kick.  And by the way that 4th and 1 was a tackle over throw to the flat, likely a play they haven’t run all season.  That’s not exactly dominating a team.  Nothing consistently there used to beat his ass.

Last year, the offense was poor in game 1 and couldn’t finish drives in game 2.

Posted
1 minute ago, Nivek said:

I seem to recall K-State just running the same play over and over against WM's defense and only bothered to throw the ball 3 times that game.   This feels like penny wise pound foolish.

2010 game?

Bad example. That team was beyond broken and had quit on the season after losing to ISU at home.

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Posted

This is a GREAT hire and BAD letting go. Reminds me of that time I had this hot brunette gf with a big ass and nice C cups and we were going together for several years. then this hot blonde with big D cups but a smaller ass came over and wanted some. then they both wanted some together with me and i had to choose. but instead I went with both at the same time. . . then you know, i woke up and you know with sploog all over my pants. it was the worst expereience I had at a Home Depot ever. I will tell you.  

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I've been perplexed by our struggles in the secondary during his tenure. PK has done an amazing job of building a defense that can stop the run without committing bodies to the box. In theory, that should mean we weren't sacrificing the integrity of our coverage to stop the run and have provided better results in the secondary. And his general philosophy of just running the base defense should have meant that guys had a ton of experience in knowing their assignments. But really, outside of last year, our coverage was often a weakness. He seemed to really need a ton of experience in the secondary for the coverages to work well. Maybe it was the separation we had between the backend and frontend of the defense. Maybe it was the yearly changing of the base coverage. But it is a bit strange. 

This was his achilles heal for sure, hence the "3rd and PK" on the game threads, especially when I was a long yardage situation.    It could be 3&10, 3&20, even 3&30 for crying out loud and it felt like a first down was very possible if not likely in several situations.      It became predictable how an opposing offense would try to get the first down from long yardage .  I think many of us thought bringing in Akina despite him being at the end of his career likely would help fix this, but that was wrong.  And this might be where Sark decided to make a move as the season progressed

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Posted
Just now, USNALonghorn said:

2010 game?

Bad example. That team was beyond broken and had quit on the season after losing to ISU at home.

Having the team quit on you is poor coaching, either in recruiting or motivating, and in scheme.  It was a jarring defensive failure.  

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

This was his achilles heal for sure, hence the "3rd and PK" on the game threads, especially when I was a long yardage situation.    It could be 3&10, 3&20, even 3&30 for crying out loud and it felt like a first down was very possible if not likely in several situations.      It became predictable how an opposing offense would try to get the first down from long yardage .  I think many of us thought bringing in Akina despite him being at the end of his career likely would help fix this, but that was wrong.  And this might be where Sark decided to make a move as the season progressed

And yet in 2023 our 3rd down defense was #2 in the country.  I think #8 in 2024.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Had Enough said:

And yet in 2023 our 3rd down defense was #2 in the country.  I think #8 in 2024.

This is surly. 
 

Wins are losses and losses are fireable offense. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, Shaddie said:

This is surly. 
 

Wins are losses and losses are fireable offense. 

That Dr Pepper commercial where they put the coach on the hot seat because they gave up 24 points, and he's like, "But we won," and they're like, "Not by enough!"

Yeah, that's us.

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Nivek said:

Having the team quit on you is poor coaching, either in recruiting or motivating, and in scheme.  It was a jarring defensive failure.  

Dude, that season was Mack, not Muschamp. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Eskimohorn said:


3rd and PK? Nah. Sark is Mr 3 and Out. PK’s defenses got beat when his defenses wore down from being under pressure so much when they had to save our ass.

We usually did a good job of containing scrambling QBs and obliterated Mateer and Reed. Better than most Ds.

The misalignment of the backend is obviously related to Akina, who was a really bad hire, in addition to the two other secondary coaches. Why 3? because reasons.

PK was the best coach on the team and we fired his ass. Hope he heads back to the west coast. Dont want him beating the shit out of Sarks frontrunner offense.

PK’s D lost the Florida game. Dominated from the kick. Two double digit drives for TDs set the tone. Awful on 3rd down. 
 

Couldn't blame the offense in the first half because they never had the ball. 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Dude, that season was Mack, not Muschamp. 

Exactly.  Mack tried to shove a power running SEC-offense down Greg Davis's throat, after an erosion of talent on the offensive line and skill positions.  Our defense wasn't a world beater like the year before.  But our new offense was abysmal, and Mack was in full FYPM mode by that time.  

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Posted

No one knows how this is going to work out.  But two things we can infer from PK's firing:

  1. Any coach at Texas can be fired.  Perform at the highest level or be prepared to move along.
  2. We aren't standing pat with the cards we've had against Georgia the past couple years.  We understand that what we had wasn't going to deliver championships, and thus changes needed to be made.

Neither of those are bad things.  Muschamp could be a net negative, who the hell knows at this point?  But I think it's a good thing we aren't settling for being just pretty good until we enter Kirby Smart's BDSM torture dungeon wearing leather chaps and a gimp mask.

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Posted
1 minute ago, South Austin said:

Exactly.  Mack tried to shove a power running SEC-offense down Greg Davis's throat, after an erosion of talent on the offensive line and skill positions.  Our defense wasn't a world beater like the year before.  But our new offense was abysmal, and Mack was in full FYPM mode by that time.  

The absolute abrupt offensive system change without the coaching or personnel to run it was such a red flag. That GG led offense, a QB ideal for the spread, kept handing the defense horrible field position almost every game. It’s a wonder that Muschamp defense didn’t break a lot sooner 

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Js1 said:

The absolute abrupt offensive system change without the coaching or personnel to run it was such a red flag. That GG led offense, a QB ideal for the spread, kept handing the defense horrible field position almost every game. It’s a wonder that Muschamp defense didn’t break a lot sooner 

I remember my dad and I were at the Spring Game in 2010, and after watching our running backs repeatedly run into the offensive line at the line of scrimmage, I looked at my dad and say, "Oh boy." 

Mack tried to overcorrect after losing to Alabama in the title game.  If we had a competent SEC-style running attack in the 2009 season, we still probably would've lost that game because we lost one of our best QBs in history in the first offensive series, and we just couldn't rush our way out of that unfortunate situation. 

As much grief as Greg Davis got during his tenure in Austin, I always felt like he was the scape goat for 2010.  Mack's fuckery with the offense tanked our season and made Muschamp's job a fucking nightmare.

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Posted
29 minutes ago, Nivek said:

Having the team quit on you is poor coaching, either in recruiting or motivating, and in scheme.  It was a jarring defensive failure.  

It takes some serious lack of awareness to blame that season on the defense. 

Ever played a team sport or a team project where half the team just didn't do jack shit ? Eventually it wears on you, and you quit. No one is immune. 

The reason that happened was because Mack Brown panicked after the Bama game, learned all the wrong fucking lessons, and destroyed the offensive side on the ball. 

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Posted
8 hours ago, NBHorn7 said:

I was sitting almost dead even on this hit. Westbrooks was a human missile, and he had others like this like the one he put on McElroy in Collie the year before.

Pound for pound nobody hit harder than he did.

The important thing is that Randy Kinder can find a place to lay down. Keith Jackson was the best in his heyday.

 

I was a student for that game, the building shook after that hit.

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