ATHENS — After another uneven performance on Saturday night, Greyson Lambert summed up his first season at Georgia as “rollercoaster.” A day later his coach agreed.
“It’s been up and down. No doubt,” Mark Richt said on his Sunday media teleconference. “It’s pretty obvious to see that there’s been some really spectacular moments and some not-so-spectacular. It’s kind of part of the process sometimes. Even though he’s a veteran quarterback he’s brand new to this system, brand new to Georgia, and brand new to the SEC. A lot of firsts for him.
“But overall, he’s worked hard for us. He’s put himself in a position to play. It’s been a little bit up and down but I’d say that’s pretty much true of most everybody on the team.”
Lambert, a junior, transferred to Georgia in July, after one season as Virginia’s starter. His numbers at Georgia are much better: His pass efficiency rating is 182.3, versus 115.74 last season. And while he’s averaging almost the same amount of passing yards (182.3 this season, one more yard than last year), he’s only thrown two interceptions, after 11 at Virginia.
But Lambert has been lucky, with about a half-dozen errant passes going off defender’s hands. The inconsistency has been on display the past couple games, going from great throws, including several critical third-down completions against Missouri, to other bad misses.
Georgia’s offense, the strength of the team in past years, didn’t reach the end zone in Saturday’s 9-6 win, the first time that’s happened in five seasons. Now the Bulldogs have two weeks to work on things before the showdown with Florida, which will likely either end the Bulldogs’ SEC East hopes, or save the season.
When asked if the offensive fixes need to be anything drastic, or minor, Richt took a deep breath.
“Oh, man. It goes down to the basics,” he said.
That means blocking better, Richt said, adding that’s about more than the five offensive linemen. The blocking on the edge has been a general problem this year, especially receivers on bubble screens in Saturday night’s game. It was something the Bulldogs worked hard on last week in practice but couldn’t execute with consistency in the game because the receivers couldn’t clear space.
“It’s hard to be consistent unless you block well. So it really all starts with that,” Richt said, then added more items to the to-do list: And then obviously there’s some route-running that could be more crisp. There’s some balls that could be placed better.”
The one thing going well, Richt pointed out, was receivers were catching the ball well. When the ball gets there.