Ladies love the long ball

I mentioned my concern with Beck on throws to his right and Aaron Murray’s comments on the G-Day broadcast in my scrimmage observations post the other day. Well, one of my favorite beat writers Seth Emerson touched on this ($$) the other day:

Hey Seth, with the makeup of the wide receivers/tights being significantly different from the past couple of years with some key departures, what do you think the passing attack looks like? Kirby (Smart) seems to have all of the confidence in the world in Carson Beck, so do we see the deep ball come into play more? Beck seemed to struggle with it at the start of the season last year, but Arian Smith is still on the team and we added some large portal guys. — Ryan E.

The first instinct is to pooh-pooh the need to throw deep. Georgia ranked in the top 10 nationally last year in pass plays of 40-plus yards, 12th in passes of 30-plus yards and sixth in passes of 20-plus yards. But how much of that was relying on tight end Brock Bowers and company for yards-after-catch? A decent amount, actually. Let’s go to the advanced stats:

Per TruMedia, 53.7 percent of Beck’s passing yards came via yards-after-catch, the 27th-most in the nation.

Beck averaged 8.1 yards through the air — as in before the catch was or wasn’t made — which ranked 87th among the 133 quarterbacks with at least 150 attempts.

Per Pro Football Focus — look away, Kirby, noted PFF skeptic — 12.9 percent of Beck’s attempts were thrown with 20-plus air yards downfield, which ranked 107th. On those passes, he was 22-for-52 for 729 yards, with five touchdowns and two interceptions.

The takeaway being that Beck was pretty solid throwing the deep ball, but didn’t need to as much, and could do it more this year with the receivers at his disposal. But just throwing the deep ball more isn’t the right way to look at it, as Nick Saban would tell you. Recall, if you can bear it, how Saban decided after the first possession of the SEC championship to go two-high safety, essentially taking away the deep ball and forcing Georgia to win over the middle of the field and the run game. Saban correctly judged that Bowers and Ladd McConkey were too hobbled to make him pay. And Georgia’s run game and blocking also weren’t good enough.

The lesson is that having dynamic, deep receiving threats is only part of it. Georgia does have those guys. But will it have the running game to force defenses to respect it and play closer to the line? That’s a big question for me. Less of a question is whether Beck can do the other thing that Alabamatook away in that game, the outside, intermediate passes. Colbie Young’s presence and emergence this spring offer some hope. Rara Thomas being healthy should help too, and London Humphreys could be that guy, too. Oscar Delp and the other tight ends are also good enough to make the kind of plays in the middle to move the sticks.

And yes, Smith being a consistent deep threat would be huge, and he’s had a big spring. Fellow receiver Cole Speer, asked about Smith this week, just started smiling and threw his hands up: “He’s a dog, there’s not really much all you can say about it.”

We haven’t even mentioned Dillon Bell, Anthony Evans III, Michael Jackson III, freshman Nitro Tuggle and Sacovie White. … This is a dynamic and deep receiving corps. The question will be the running game, but it doesn’t need to be great. It just needs to be good enough to complement — and not hold back — the passing game.

Seth isn’t wrong about the complimentary nature of Georgia’s offense (and football in general), but completing 40% of your downfield passes tells me Beck has a little more polishing to do on that front. But hey, it’s good to have goals to push you over the summer.