Sunday's Chop Blocked Thoughts

I had a dream Coach Grantham punched Lionel Ritchie in the nose. The win came just as ugly as we've come to expect in Nashville.

• In many ways this reminded me of the Ole Miss game, where an inferior team uses well executed trick plays and takes advantage of poor special teams play to stay in the game.
• I'm glad Coach Richt loves Isaiah Crowell. I don't know what the kid did to deserve so much love as to sit for the first quarter. But I hope his teammates straighten his head for him. We're inches from the top of the SEC East. We can't have our starting tailback on the sidelines unless the defense is on the field.
• As soon as I heard Crowell would be sitting at the start of the game any thoughts of us running away with this one went out the window.
• Hello Marlon Brown! Seems as if Vandy's secondary forgot he was even on the roster.
• For the 4th consecutive week I think the offensive line continues to get better.
• Murray had the kind of game we've been waiting for. Over 300 yards, 3 TDs.
• I had heard we were working out of the "wildcat" a little in practice Wednesday. I thought we'd see it in Jax first. But perhaps we were just giving Muschamp something to think about.
• Defensively we were brilliant at times and completely off our game at others. Unlike previous weeks we didn't successfully make adjustments to what our opponent was doing to hurt us most. Vandy continually gashed us on big runs, to the tune of 200 yards.
• The defense did their job on 3rd downs, holding Vandy to 33%. But the Commodores were 2-2 on 4th down...so...
• ...special teams. Ugh.
• I guess having a bye week after their worst game (which is saying something) can be a good thing. But there is obviously much to work on.
• Walsh was 4-6 and the misses weren't exactly chip shots (50, 42). But we're past the point where if and when the game is on the line that you just casually trust he'll make it for you. Way past the point. That's one thing for me as a fan. It's a much bigger deal for Coach Richt when that situation presents itself.
• The rest of the special teams' play was a comedy of errors. Except that I wasn't laughing. 
• As for this - 

• Some are going to talk about how Grantham needs to just chill dude. In fact, Richt said about as much after the game. However, if someone comes up to my kid and calls them out I'm going to react in much the same way. James Franklin was clearly over the line in yelling at Shawn Williams and Grantham was just pushing him back to his place.
• The larger story is that the referees let this game go early. If you're going to call Kwame for throwing a punch then you have to call them for all the chop blocks.
• This game didn't have the blatant cluster #$@! of a "non fumble" review that the Tennessee game did. But it was the worst officiated game I've seen in a long time.
• And that's saying a lot as well.

Thanks to those of you that hung around yesterday for the live blog. It's a officially a bye week. But there's much to work on for the team, and much to discuss in the Dawgosphere. Let's get busy shall we...