‘Hotline’ chatter on the shotgun and UGA’s red zone blues

Should Mike Bobo be trying something other than the shotgun in the red zone? (AJC File)

I caught most of Mark Richt’s segment of “Bulldog Hotline” Monday night and some of Hondo and the all stars, and a theme that kept cropping up in comments from callers was concern over Georgia’s ineffectiveness in the red zone and especially when in the shotgun formation.

Richt noted correctly that Georgia uses the shotgun elsewhere on the field, not just in the red zone, and said he’d have to go back and watch some film to see whether the shotgun has really been responsible for the Dogs’ problems down close to the goal line.

I’m hoping that wasn’t just a sop to the caller and that Richt really does plan on taking a look at what’s going wrong for the Dogs in the red zone, where they’ve been more times than any other SEC team (20 trips so far this season in conference games) but have gotten touchdowns only 10 times. With the fallback to attempting a field goal no longer a sure thing with Blair Walsh, that’s going to be especially problematic as the level of competition rises down the stretch.

Certainly, there are times the shotgun works well, especially when there’s a lot of field ahead and Isaiah Crowell is at tailback. He likes space.

But Mike Bobo’s penchant for switching gears once he hits the red zone and abandoning what got him there has been a recurring complaint the past few seasons. Yes, as Richt noted Monday night, you have less room to work with the closer you get to the end zone. But it’s pretty obvious what Georgia’s doing down there isn’t as effective as what it’s doing between the 20s.

So what do you think? Are you like the “Hotline” callers who think the Dogs should dump the shotgun and stick to working out of the I-formation once they get in the red zone, or do you see some other solution?

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