Georgia’s Greyson Lambert working to improve consistency

ATHENS -- Greyson Lambert knows he played an inconsistent game against Tennessee. He’d complete a nice pass on one play and throw the next in the dirt. Lambert singled out the incompletion thrown to running back Sony Michel on a slant in the fourth quarter as one he has to be better on.

But when it came to Lambert’s deep ball, it looked good throughout the entire afternoon in Georgia’s 38-31 loss to the Volunteers.

Both of his touchdown throws came from longer than 20 yards, with Malcolm Mitchell catching a 28-yarder and Reggie Davis grabbing a 48-yarder. Lambert threw a perfect ball that would have gone for a 56-yard touchdown to Davis near the four-minute mark of the fourth quarter, but the junior receiver dropped it.

While he wasn’t pleased with his overall performance, Lambert has at least one thing to build on.

“Throughout practice, a lot of things have to come together,” Lambert said. “Whether that’s the defense that’s playing, we feel like we might be able to exploit this over this. It kind of depends on the opponent and game plan.”

Lambert did seem to settle in during the second half after starting 5-of-13 throwing the ball. His day ended 15-of-32 for 279 yards and two touchdowns. With an average of 18.6 yards per completion, Lambert’s success mostly came on downfield passes.

In addition to the aforementioned three passes, Lambert nearly connected on two other deep balls to Davis and Terry Godwin that just missed. Offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer said this aspect of Lambert’s game was encouraging to see.

“One of the things that stands out to us is his ability to throw the deep ball,” Schottenheimer said. “Even the couple he missed, they were right there and had a chance. He felt good, moved well in the pocket. I think he can use that as momentum. I think he got into a groove a little bit in that game. He’s had a good week of practice this week. We just want to try and keep him consistent and get him off to good starts. I was proud of the way he performed in the second half.”

Davis, who Lambert targeted quite a bit against Tennessee, was impressed with Lambert’s accuracy when throwing long.

“If you give me a scale of one to 10, I’m going to give it a 10,” Davis said. “He did his thing.”

The flip side, however, is the fact Lambert struggled on short and intermediate passes. With Georgia facing 38 situations of third-and-7 or longer, Lambert hasn’t exactly been in position to succeed in this area.

Schottenheimer spoke with Lambert about getting some “streaks of completions,” regardless of how they happen.

“If we get the ball in one of our guy’s hands, they have a chance to make something happen, whether it’s a checkdown, going through your progression or a deep ball,” Lambert said.

Lambert has the deep ball going for him, but he understands he needs everything around him to get back to where it was when he went 24-of-25 against South Carolina.

“If I don’t get them the ball, that’s definitely on me,” Lambert said. “When it comes to the offense, I’m the one who touches the ball every play. I have to make sure we’re in the right plays at the right time, right checks, getting the ball in their hands.”

This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 11:27 PM with the headline "Georgia’s Greyson Lambert working to improve consistency ."