W
Wes Mitchell
Guest
After reviewing portions of Georgia's games with Notre Dame, Florida and Mississippi State, here are some thoughts...
** This is easily as talented a team as South Carolina will face this year. There's a reason these guys are undefeated through eight games and you can tell that Georgia has stacked all of those highly rated recruiting classes on top of each other when you watch the way this team moves. Athletically, they're impressive across the board.
** I was as critical of the Kirby Smart hire as anyone, but you can see stark differences in this football team in Year 2 compared to just last year. Much like you see that type of progress from Carolina, Georgia appears to be much more multiple on both offense and defense than they were last season. It makes them far more difficult to prepare for.
** Georgia has a veteran linebacking corps and that's the heart of their defense. Those guys are big, physical and fast with great length. Roquan Smith, an inside backer who covers a ton of ground, is probably their best and is a former five-star prospect. As is Lorenzo Carter, who is probably their best pass-rusher and that considered Carolina momentary.
This unit plays like an Alabama defense and they rally to the football. I'm not sure they quite have the level of talent in the secondary that you see from Nick Saban's defenses, but they're well coaches and play aggressively. Carolina's receivers will have to be strong with the football, because even when their DBs are beat, they do a great job of ripping the football out.
One thing they do an excellent job of is mixing and disguising coverages. Most of the time, when reading a defense pre-snap, the first key a quarterback focuses on is whether there's one high safety or two high safeties. Georgia does a good job of waiting to the last second to drop that safety down into the box making it appear like one when it's really the other.
Jake Bentley talked this week about how meticulous an offense has to be in trying to key in on what they're trying to do. I can see why from watching the games since they give so many looks. They'll use three and four down-linemen looks and they'll mix between man coverage, zone coverage and matchup zone, which is Saban's bread and butter. Matchup zone will appear to be zone at the snap, but then they'll read the patterns that the offense is using (takes a lot of film prep to prepare) and it basically becomes man coverage.
One interesting element to me is that both Will Muschamp and Smart come from the Saban tree, so if anyone can recognize the various rules and keys from Smart's defense, and thus a way to exploit it, it's going to be Muschamp. Kurt Roper and the offensive staff are going to have to throw the kitchen sink at them and try to find a way to generate explosive plays, which is something this defense hasn't allowed much of all year. They're tops in the SEC in 10+ yard plays allowed.
Surprisingly, the one weakness of this defense is that they haven't gotten a ton of sacks. I would have thought differently just watching them play with the athletes they have up front. Those athletes do, however, do a great job of getting off blocks and causing havoc against the run. The hole closes fast against them.
** Whether or not Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm can throw the football seems to be an interesting discussion each week. I can tell you that without a doubt he can. Fromm hasn't been asked to do much within the framework of the offense, but that doesn't mean he can't. Fromm has been extremely accurate with what he has been asked to do, though, and does a good job of putting the ball where his receivers can run after the catch or where only they can make the catch on contested throws. The second a team sells completely out for the run, Georgia will hit playaction for big plays down the field.
** This offense may seem simple on the surface, but dig deeper and it's far from it. They may run the ball a lot, but they run it from a multitude of looks and they're actually in the shotgun a lot more than you might expect. Georgia will go under center and will use their fullback or two-tight end looks, but they'll also spread it out in the shotgun and let their talented backs find space that way. Power, stretch, inside zone, wildcat, sweep, jet sweep - they run a little bit of everything.
Nick Chubb is the biggest name of the bunch but they're all very good and run extremely hard. With Chubb the key is for defenders to finish their tackle. Too many times, you see opponents look like they have Chubb stopped, only for him to use his powerful legs and balance to stay up and keep carrying the pile. If Chubb is the grind-it-out back, then Sony Michel and D'Andre Swift are the home run hitters. Georgia will used designs to get them on the edges, but, to me, they're most dangerous when they take an inside hitting play and bend it to the outside edges. It is absolutely pivotal for Carolina's edge setters to do their jobs in this game and keep that from happening.
As good as those backs are, defenses still have to account for Javon Wims - a bigger receiver who can go up and get it - and the speed of Mecole Hardman and Terry Godwin, plus Georgia's always strong tight end group.
** I don't want to make Georgia out to be some unstoppable force, but there's no doubt that this is going to be Carolina's toughest test of the season. I will say that I don't think Carolina could be catching them at a better time than right now with a huge win over Florida last week, the Auburn game on deck, and a new No. 1 branding. One thing that Fromm and this team have not had to deal with is much adversity. They've played with a lead in pretty much every game and that plays right into their hands. Perhaps my biggest key to the game (more on that later) is for Carolina to start fast, force Georgia out of its comfort zone, and make it play all four quarters for just the second time this season.
ALSO SEE: Tale of the Tape - Gamecocks use new plays in the running game to get AJ Turner on the edge
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