Musical Palate Cleanser, Ramblin Man edition.

RIP, legend. In my late teens, when life threw me some curve balls and I got a little angsty, the Allman Brothers Band became my shining light. Along with my new pals from UGA, I followed the ABB around the southeast, to concerts and festivals that made my heart beam. Although the band was full of uber-talented egos and misfits, Dickey Betts spoke to me most through his glorious blues riffs that I still hum along to even today. So it was with a heavy heart when I heard about his passing. With only Jaimoe left among the living from the original band, and his own slowing down of late, I realized that this was the end of hearing the original band play live again. There are so many wonderful songs and jams that Dickey wrote and played over 5 decades, but my favorite that never failed to get me going was “Les Brers in A Minor” from the Eat A Peach album. Enjoy (and sorry Universal made it impossible to embed the video, but click through to YouTube).

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.

Observations from deep in the heart, G-Day Edition

This is my first post here at the new gathering spot, so I’ve kept it simple and got a little help from jpmcdonough, who has been delighting us with his recent posts and happened to be in Athens for the scrimmage. So this will be a combined live/broadcast review of the game, which perhaps we can repeat during the season, if you all enjoy it more than the separated Observations and Second Glance posts from the sorely missed Senator and others. Without further ado:

• Beck clearly throws more accurately to his left than right. Murray commented on the ESPN+ broadcast that he struggled last year with post patterns, but if anything I only recall that being the case on deep posts, because he loves throwing to medium inward breaking routes. He and Gunner do continue to struggle with their deep passing accuracy.
• Beck seems to favor Bell, Lovett and Thomas, and I don’t blame him. Those guys run great routes, get open and catch the ball well. Seems like Georgia has at least 3 more decent options behind them in Young, Jackson and Smith. That said, there wasn’t consistent separation by the receivers, which is something to pay attention to going forward.
• Young at 6’4” 220 is really inviting for short yardage and goal line plays.
• Who let the Tennessee groundskeepers into Sanford stadium? The field looked like trash to me from the TV. And the new hedges need some fortifying.
• No one is skipping leg day – all the guys looked pretty ripped. RodRob is a beast and will create some business decisions in the open field. 
• Speaking of RodRob, he ran well, as did Etienne, and they look to be nice compliments in the running and passing game. Probably the best duo since Cook and White in 2021. Etienne hasn’t been there long and the plays were vanilla, but he showed some elusiveness and speed to the edges that Bobo will find useful.
• Bobo seemed to go after Aguero a lot but he was glued to his guy and only great throws seemed to beat him. He’s going to be a nice slot corner. Everette and Humphrey both played well in coverage too. Having 2 solid outside corners will be important for this defense. Having 3 is a luxury.
• On the Mykel INT, Greene seemed to get lazy on his block. But the play was still very athletic.
• Freshmen musings: Chris Cole is a freak, seems taller than his high school film showed and has super long arms; almost Adam Anderson-like. (Let’s hope the comparisons end there.) KJ Bolden and Ellis Robinson are going to be stars. And maybe as early as this year. Wow, are they athletic and smart looking players for kids that could be preparing for prom. Jaden Redell is a beast – can’t wait to see him develop as a blocker and learn the offense. Sacovie White (other than his drop) and Nitro Tuggle look promising. On the other hand, I’m not sure Chauncey Bowens is a SEC back.
• Raise your hand if you had to clean your shorts after Tate Ratledge rolled up on Beck’s leg. Wonder how long Kirby and Bobo discussed Beck sitting out the rest of the scrimmage. No one would have blamed them.
• Along those lines, it’s difficult to tell if the OL is that good or the DL is that bad, but pass pro was stable and run blocking not so much. Given that it’s the spring game, and that the defense saw a lot of running plays, perhaps the DL knew when the running plays were coming because not much was open between the tackles.
• There was a lot of intensity from the defense. Maybe they heard the criticism?
• Gunner seems like he’s made a leap from the bowl game. He knew where he wanted to go with the ball and threw with strength and confidence. His line allowed more pressure than Beck’s early on but he stayed in the pocket and completed some nice balls. That’s a relief, even if he’s still a long way from Beck’s level of play.
• Speaking of Beck, he definitely has played better but I think he’ll develop more rapport with the receivers over the summer.
• Delp seemed to look uninspired (it’s a spring game, after all), but Luckie played well and always seemed to be in space when needed.
• My biggest concern for the team remains the DL play. They started slow but played inspired later. McLeod and Hall in particular look like they’re coming on. The young edge guys on the second team defense also pressed Gunner’s pocket on numerous passes and there were good pressures on both QBs even with vanilla defensive calls. Fingers crossed. Mykel played incredible and might be the best player on defense. He threw a 240 lb RodRob like a rag doll.
• How good are the ILBs? My goodness. Jalon Walker is the 3rd guy in and he could be all-SEC.
• Love that they left the starters in so long and manipulated the clock and down/distance to create end-of-game experience for both sides. 
• Amazing catch by Lovett – can a spring game catch make the Sportscenter Top 10? It should. Also gave the DB some trash talk after the catch, which is fun to see in this environment.
• All in all, no major injuries, the team looks really talented and they played with intensity, which was entertaining for fans. And we got to watch the second round of the Masters, which was also entertaining. What did I miss?