I'm not going to say its defiantly the weakest unit in the Mark
Richt era, but I'm positive that it belongs in the conversation. The concern about Georgia's Defensive ends only grew on Saturday in Columbia and made me wonder if this is the worst unit we have seen in the past 8 seasons. There has been a wealth of talent at every position under
Richt. QB play has been extraordinary,
RB's have always been solid,
TE's include Ben Watson and Leonard Pope,
LB's have
always been
play makers,
DT's have been great, the secondary has produced a number of NFL players and Georgia has had arguably the best back to back kicker combination in the country with
Bennet and
Coutu. The
OL has been above average for the most part and the
WR corps has been good enough.
The two units that I might compare with this year's
DE's are the 2006 Wide Receivers, and the 2003 Offensive Line. Both struggled mightily. David Greene was no where near the QB he was in 2002 and a lot of that had to do with his protection. The 2006
WR's couldn't catch
anyones ball on a consistent basis, not just Stafford's. But I think I might lean to the
DE's of 2008 right now. I might be a little hard on this group based on the fact that Georgia was
pre-season # 1 but we are a far, far, far cry from the likes of Pollack, Johnson, Moses, Thompson, and Howard. The primary role of a DE at the college level is to get pressure on the QB. Battle is the most experienced ( was out vs. South Carolina) but I would say he is more of a run stopper than a get after the QB guy.
Lomax saw very little time last year and was not effective at all. Wynn is a
JUCO that has played little significant football. He is bigger than the others but that leads me to think he's not as adept to being a pass rusher.
Dobbs has become
everyone's sweetheart after his TD against Central Michigan. He does play extremely hard and doesn't seem to take any plays off. However, he was 3rd on the depth chart coming out of fall camp and made 1 tackle all of last year which came against Hawaii on the Kickoff team. Houston is extremely ripe but looks more like a Marcus Howard than a Charles Johnson which could mean more playing time for him in the near future. I'm sure these guys could break through and they are going to have to if Georgia wants to reach their lofty expectations for 2008. Marcus Howard recorded 9.5 of his 10.5 sacks last year after the Tennessee game. Hopefully someone will make similar strides. My point is that all of these guys are good enough players to be playing on a great Georgia football team. But for this team to be a champion of any kind, someone or all of them are going to have to get a lot better in a hurry.
