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Greyson Lambert's third game for the Georgia Bulldogs was literally one for the record books. In going 24/25, his 96% completion percentage is a new record for passers with at least 20 attempts in a game.
These days, though, completing passes doesn't mean what it once did. High efficiency and relatively low risk passing attacks are proliferating, and it's not just the hyper spread teams who use a ton of screens. LSU's Brandon Harris is somehow completing 67.7% of his passes for just 4.7 yards per attempt. I didn't know that was possible.
So let's break down Lambert's 25 tosses by success rate to see how the Bulldog signal caller really fared against South Carolina.
Down | Distance | Yards | Success? |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 10 | 6 | Yes |
2 | 4 | 25 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 5 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 12 | Yes |
3 | 8 | 0 | No |
3 | 2 | 17 | Yes |
2 | 6 | 20 | Yes |
2 | 8 | 20 | Yes |
1 | 14 | 10 | Yes |
2 | 4 | 15 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 15 | Yes |
2 | 4 | 7 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 19 | Yes |
2 | 2 | 14 | Yes |
2 | 5 | 5 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 12 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 8 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 11 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 11 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 7 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 28 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 18 | Yes |
3 | 12 | 9 | No |
1 | 10 | 25 | Yes |
1 | 10 | 11 | Yes |
Not only was Lambert great at completing passes, but his passes got the job done for a success rate of 92%. This was a masterpiece of an effort between Brian Schottenheimer calling plays and Lambert and friends executing them.
While there are more of those dink and dunk passing teams around, there isn't one in Athens. Mark Richt may never have met a 3rd-and-long screen he didn't like, but the rest of his passing game is largely oriented to making gains the traditional way and not just putting the ball into space. Before starting on this post, I never had any doubt that the vast majority of these were going to be successes.
Georgia's passing game under Richt has always been oriented towards the kinds of passes that end up counting as successes when they're complete. That fact hasn't changed so far under Schottenheimer.