The pick-six affliction

I’m a Georgia fan, so I can’t give a good answer for what happened in LSU’s other games, but I did notice a couple of things about UGA’s two pick sixes on Saturday. On the first, it initially appeared as though the #2 receiver on the left side was left uncovered, and Lee obviously saw this and was looking that way. However, UGA’s safety, CJ Byrd, inverted and covered down on the receiver moments before the snap, causing Lee’s eyes to go inside and stare down that receiver during the entire play. Gamble saw Lee’s eyes, and made a good jump on the ball to get the INT and TD. It was a bad mistake, by a young QB, but at least you could tell he was trying to go through his progression.

I believe the second of Gamble’s TDs was a combination of desperation by Lee, and UGA being in the right coverage at the right time. I’ll have to go back and look at the game, but I believe we were in one of our nickel packages (3-3-5 or 3-5-3, but I’m not sure). We were in an odd number coverage, so Gamble would go into a 2 seam drop if he were covered down a receiver, which he was. At about 15-20 yards the linebacker is supposed to break off coverage, and pass the receiver onto the safeties and look for any underneath routes. Lee threw to the seam receiver that Gamble was covering right as he was passing off coverage responsibility to the safety. This not only gave him a great jump on the ball, but it ensure that the nearest LSU player was behind him and very blockable. Had Lee, thrown the ball a little bit earlier or later, the ball would have fallen innocently to the turf.

I apologize for my long-winded explanation of everything, and I also apologize if anything seems horribly incoherent. It’s 2am in Athens right now. Anyway, best of luck Tigers. Ya’ll have a bright future ahead of you, and Lee will develop into an excellent QB once he learns to look off receivers and not force the ball.

GO DAWGS!