Getting to Know the Georgia Bulldogs with Dawn of the Dawg

With the opener against the Georgia Bulldogs now just a day away, we thought it would be a good idea to get to know the Bulldogs from a Georgia perspective. With that in mind, we spoke with Dawn of the Dawg editor Michael Collins, to get a better idea of what to expect on Saturday.

RTR: Georgia’s new starting QB, Hutson Mason, looked pretty good after Aaron Murray got hurt last year. He did struggle a bit in the Gator Bowl against Nebraska though, and the Corn Huskers probably had the best defense Mason faced. Any cause for concern there?

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DotD: No, not any real cause for concern. There were a number of factors that played into the Gator Bowl loss, but Mason will be fine this season. He’s a very similar quarterback to Murray and has had four seasons studying him as well as working with OC Mike Bobo. Like any new QB, he’ll have a learning curve but nowhere near what it would have been.

RTR: On a related note, with Mason stepping into Murray’s shoes and Todd Gurley healthy, should we expect to see Georgia running the ball a lot more this year? Or will Mason get to air it out as much as Murray did?

DotD: The mixture is going to be fairly even. They obviously want to get the ball into Gurley’s hands as much as possible, but that doesn’t always mean putting it into his gut. Bobo has been training former FB Quayvon Hicks as a hybrid TE/SB and plans to use him as much as possible. As the receivers get healthy, I think the passing game will open up, but Georgia will still be a run first team.

RTR: The perception that Georgia tends to be overhyped in the preseason seems to be pretty common among college football fans right now (outside of SEC territory, at least). This week, ESPN’s ACC blogger Andrea Adelson pointed out that the Bulldogs have failed to surpass their preseason ranking in five of the past six seasons and wrote, “The Bulldogs have almost become synonymous with unmet expectations.”

Do you think that line of criticism is fair?

DotD: Fair is subjective. Plenty of teams fall below where they are projected in the preseason (Texas and Oklahoma are prime examples), and Georgia can be included in that group. I’ve always felt preseason rankings are silly and rather pointless, but they fuel debate and give the talking heads material to push buttons. Nobody talks about the seasons where Georgia was ranked out of the top 20, but finished in the top 10 or higher.

RTR: Do you think Georgia is the favorite in the SEC East this year? How do they measure up against the SEC as a whole?

DotD: I think you could consider them co-favorites with South Carolina (Editor’s note: this interview took place prior to the beating South Carolina received against Texas A&M last night). Both teams are fairly evenly matched. Against the SEC as a whole, they’re in the top 3 or 4 I’d say. Hard to really gauge without knowing Alabama and LSU’s quarterback situations (which are yet to be sorted out).

RTR: Prediction time: Does Georgia get revenge over Clemson this year?

DotD: Absolutely. Not to throw cold water on the Clemson party, but the Tigers (while still a very good team) are going to have a difficult time replacing Boyd and Watkins. Georgia’s defense is young, but new DC Jeremy Pruitt has them playing well. The matchup against Georgia’s offense will swing this contest, outside of Beasley, the Tigers don’t have many playmakers to stop all the weapons that Georgia will throw at them. Clemson will make a game of it, but just not enough.

Thanks to Michael Collins for taking time out to to answer these. If you want to learn more about what Clemson is dealing with on Saturday, go check out Collins’ blog, Dawn of the Dawg.

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Getting to Know the Georgia Bulldogs with Dawn of the Dawg Editor Michael Collins

By Dan Kelley | Aug 29, 2014