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1) What a difference three years makes... I remember going to the 2021 Georgia-Clemson opener in Charlotte. The hotel I booked that weekend happened to be the same one that UGA’s players and their parents were staying in. Georgia fans were packed into every room and every floor. You could feel the tension from the moment we checked in on Friday afternoon. The Bulldogs had recruited at an elite level, but they were entering the fourth season since the 2017 national title game appearance. It was a put-up or shut-up game, where Georgia was either going to start cashing in its talent or start struggling to sell visions of future titles on the recruiting trail. Kirby Smart phrased that conundrum as, “You’re either elite or you’re not.” Georgia wanted to go where Clemson had been, and the anxiety about getting there was palpable. You could feel it on every red and black clad man, woman and child walking around downtown Charlotte that weekend. You could feel it on every elevator and in every bar. Georgia broke through that night. It was their 5th straight regular season victory. The Bulldogs haven’t lost one since. 
 
2) I bring that night up for a couple of reasons- A) Kirby Smart was hired at Georgia in December of 2015. That was the first season that Clemson appeared in the College Football Playoff. They made six consecutive CFP appearances in total, and then opened the 2021 season against UGA and have been 30-10 since the start of that season. For years, Georgia fans looked 80 miles up the road to Clemson and saw a program that was competing for titles with Georgia born players. Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence grew up in the Peach State. So did DB’s AJ Terrell and Andrew Booth. The same was true for OT Mitch Hyatt. The Tigers didn’t solely build their roster with Georgia kids, but there were key cornerstones that came out of the Bulldogs’ backyard. Smart was tasked with getting Georgia to the places where Clemson was going, and he has done exactly that. In fact, he’s taken UGA to heights that Clemson never reached. While doing so, he’s made it much harder for Clemson to recruit kids that UGA wants. The two don’t play every year, but they certainly affect one another’s existence on the trail. Five years ago, Jalon Walker might have been wearing a Clemson jersey. On Saturday, he was sacking Cade Klubnik. B) The build up to this game couldn’t have felt anymore different than that one back in 2021. This time around it was Georgia fans who strode into the neutral site stadium with an air of relaxed confidence. Smart said in his postgame that he loves playing these types of games because they feel like CFP environments. Well, that’s old hat for the Dawgs now. I was in the tunnel as UGA came on and off the field for warmups, and there was no need for fake juice. They looked focused, but they also looked relaxed and confident. Georgia’s coaches weren’t scrambling or repeating any last minute instructions to their players. They had prepared for this game and there was nothing left to do but go play and execute… Seeing how comfortable Georgia felt, and everything that ensued over the following four quarters, was a reminder of just how high the Bulldogs have ascended. They passed Clemson a long time ago, this was just a confirmation of what we all knew before. The Bulldogs are the sport’s alpha now. They know it. You know it. I know it. Hell, everyone knows it, and Georgia seems entirely comfortable living in that spotlight. There was not a single face in that tunnel that lacked confidence in itself on Saturday. 
 
3) Once Georgia got onto the field, it was about as ho-hum of a performance as you could ever see in a 31-point win in Week 1. The score was 6-0 at halftime, but UGA felt in control throughout and finished the game with a massive +3.8 yards per play differential. Let’s start on offense… I saw a lot of people who seemed unhappy with the game plan and play calling in the first-half, but I wasn’t surprised by it. In my preview piece I mentioned that I expected a lot of screens, swing passes, jet sweeps and other plays out wide. It made sense with the style of defense Clemson plays. The Tigers like to bring extra pass rushers and load the box. Georgia putting the ball on the perimeter sends the message to Clemson that they’re going to have to tackle one-on-one in space if they want to continue to load the box. It made sense in a vacuum, but I really felt like it looked smarter as the game went along. The stuff we saw on the opening drives kind of chummed the water for other concepts that were built on top of things the defense saw on the outside. To be frank, I thought there was some bad execution early on. There were times WR’s missed blocks on the perimeter, and there were times where the OL missed blocks early. There were also guys in space who didn’t make a man miss one-on-one. The play-action throw to Luckie for 31 yards midway through the 2nd quarter was really nicely designed. Then Georgia ran the swing pass to Robinson on the very next play, and Truss literally just kind of dove onto the ground in a poor attempt to cut-block Peter Woods at the snap. Georgia did throw downfield a bit more in the 2nd half, but they also started executing the East/West stuff. Georgia picked its personnel better after halftime, which was a credit to both Bobo and the position coaches he works with. They realized Frazier was the hot RB and they also recognized how well Delp was working in the trenches. Game one of the season is probably the hardest to write an opening script for as an OC. There’s no sample size to work off of when looking at the opponent’s defense. Georgia ran something early that was based off of Clemson’s historical identity and then they used in-game data to adjust that and continue to identify better matchups. What was really impressive to me is that Bobo was able to do that while still building off of the concepts he had already shown the Tigers. That tells me that Bobo spent a lot of time building the pyramid of his offense and understanding what the solves and counters are for things that aren’t popping. He had his base concepts in the first half, and then he went to the connected concepts on level two and level three in the second half. None of these guys are perfect, but the best coordinators are ones who can take in data and adjust. Bobo did some of that on Saturday, and Georgia’s players settled in too. 
UGA had just a 27% Success Rate** in the first quarter. Then they had a 42% SR in the 2nd and a 53% SR in the 3rd. The 4th quarter was 40% but that number includes the clock killing snaps late in the game with backups. In total, UGA had a 42% Offensive Success Rate for the game, which is more than respectable against a Clemson defense that is well coached and strong up front. Georgia really shifted the game in the 2nd half with its performance on Passing Downs***. UGA had just a 20% SR on Passing Downs in the 1st quarter and a 17% SR in the 2nd quarter. That jumped to 40% in the 3rd quarter and 67% in the 4th quarter. For the game the Dawgs had a 32% Passing Downs Success Rate. Simply put, UGA had less plays from behind the chains after halftime, but they were better at converting the ones they faced. All told, UGA had just a 36% 3rd Down Success Rate. Not horrible, but not great. It’s worth remembering this was a top ten defense in almost every major category last year. This was a very solid performance considering the opponent. 
**Success Rate is an efficiency metric that determines the success of a play. Successful plays meet one of the following criteria: 
The offense scored 1st downs which gain at least 50% of the yards to go 2nd downs which gain at least 70% of the yards to go 3rd and 4th downs which gain at least 100% of the yards to go ***Passing Downs for our purposes are not actually defined as passing plays. It’s just advanced stat lingo for 2nd downs with 7 or more yards to go or 3rd and 4th downs with 5 or more yards to go.
 
4) Georgia used motion on 40% of its plays on Saturday, which was almost twice as much as anyone else in the SEC in Week 1. They used Jet motions on 14 snaps (running a WR from one side of the formation to the other while having them pass in front of the QB where they could potentially take a handoff on a jet sweep. An orbit motion is the same, but the player goes behind the QB instead of in front of them). The Bulldogs passed off 7 of those jet motions and averaged 10.6 yards per play on those 7 passes. The usage of Arian Smith specifically was really nice, and it hopefully can help illustrate my point about Bobo building onto what he laid down in the first half. How Georgia used Smith to start the 3rd quarter was at the core of how they jolted the offense into gear to start the 2nd half. Bobo worked Arian as the motion man a lot in this game. He got him on jet motions that led to WR Screens, end-arounds and pop passes. The first drive of the second half started with a jet sweep to Smith for 7 yards. The very next play was the explosive pass to him down the right boundary for 32 yards. It came on a fake orbit motion where Smith came towards Beck and then reversed field at the snap and slid up the sideline as Dillon Bell ran off the Clemson safety. This was a really good sequence/play design. It forced the Clemson slot corner, #7 Khalil Barnes, to leverage really far inside because he was expecting to follow Smith across the formation and didn’t want to be behind if UGA ran another jet sweep. Two plays later, UGA got into a 2 TE set and ran a jet sweep to Bell for 27 yards that set them up in the red zone. It was perfectly designed for a defense that was playing a 300 pound Peter Woods on the edge. UGA left him unblocked and let Bell run past him, and that let Georgia’s left side climb up and start sealing for Bell at the second level. Punch, counterpunch, punch, etc… 
 
5) Bobo’s entire plan for Smith was coherent and cohesive. Everything built onto itself to show the Clemson defense something, and then trick them into thinking they were about to see it again. For years now I have typed things like, “If Arian Smith could put some short to intermediate routes on tape…” I’ve always believed he would be a monster if DB’s started having to respect his ability to catch an 8-12 yard curl or a deep comeback. It can open up all sorts of double moves, and vertical shots. He was open at one point on Saturday on a deep over where Beck elected to throw a shorter completion, but the respect for Arian’s speed helped open things up behind him after he ran defenders off deep. Arian got the start and was featured heavily in last year’s opener against UT-Martin, but he was targeted 5 times and had 0 catches. On Saturday, he had 5 catches on 5 targets for 56 yards. This was the first time we’ve seen him have real consistent value instead of being just a deep ball receiver plugged into the game to try and get behind somebody. His 30 snaps as a receiver were the most on the team, and he played 11 of them in the slot (34.4%). He averaged 11.2 yards per catch while having an Average Depth of Target of just 3.6 yards. Remember what we always talk about… Healthy offenses have a lot of YAC. Arian created 38 yards of YAC in this game, which was 7.6 yards after the catch per reception. This game was a great indicator of future success for him, and this tape should also set up a lot of double moves for big games down the road. Above all, this was the most physical he has ever looked to me. I commented to somebody in the press box that it seemed like he was blocking his butt off on the perimeter every play, and he actually graded out with the 2nd highest PFF Run Block Grade on the team (79.0). Smith had a block in front of Frazier on his 24-yard catch, and he had the key seal block that let Frazier break his long run on the toss play to the left side in the 4th quarter. Perhaps most importantly, Smith was fighting through contact at the top of his routes instead of looking for PI flags. This was a man’s game on the outside. Officials kept the flags in their pockets, and he was totally comfortable in that environment. Seeing him develop into this type of player AND continue to have his speed is a huge win for UGA’s culture and development. It’s also an interesting case study in retention in the portal era. He didn’t want to leave, and Georgia didn’t want him to leave. That decision is paying off for both parties so far. Mark my words, if he puts together a full year of this type of tape and turns all of these things into habits he will have a big 2024 season before sticking in the NFL for a while.
 
6) The run game on Saturday was kind of fascinating to watch. We heard all through camp about how great Branson Robinson looked post-surgery, and I don’t doubt that intel. We also saw him look tentative at times on Saturday. UGA’s outside run game was where it found yardage in the end, but it was also its Gap Scheme concepts that ended up being its big hitters in the run game. Georgia was a more Zone Scheme heavy team last year, and they started the game running more zone with Robinson. There was a play or two where I thought he had blocking setup and good lanes if he bounced things outside, but he looked hesitant to do that. There were others where the blocking wasn’t good for him. Robinson averaged just 1.29 Yards After Contact per an Attempt (YCO/A) on Saturday, but 5 of his 7 carries came on zone runs. Georgia ran Inside Zone Read 10 times against Clemson while running Inside Zone on another 3 plays. The Dawgs had just 3.1 yards per carry on those plays. They also had just a 23% Success Rate on those 13 Inside Zone plays. I say all of that to say that Robinson looked like a guy coming off a major knee injury who hadn’t played in a football game since January of 2023, but he also didn’t have great space to work with most of the time. Georgia ended up with 150 rush yards at 6.3 yards a pop, but that was very rooted in a few explosive runs. The Success Rate was just 37.5%. The play that Frazier popped on the left side was an Outside Zone toss, but UGA ran it just twice on the day. Inside Power (gap scheme) was more successful than Inside Zone. Georgia ran it 6 times and got 30 yards out of it for a 40% Success Rate. 
What all that means is hard to totally say considering the sample size, but the simple analysis is that UGA was not able to move Clemson up front by sheer force. It needed its OL to use leverage and numbers to bust some productive runs. That’s totally fine if you know it. Any OL is going to look better with a RB who breaks tackles. Frazier broke 4 tackles on Saturday and he had 10 YCO/A because of it. Cash Jones had one rush attempt but it went for 15 yards and a TD because he broke a tackle when he stiff-armed Clemson’s DB through the Earth’s crust. Etienne and Frazier are going to break tackles, so I wouldn’t be concerned about the run game moving forward. What was clear in this game was that outside runs were the recipe for success. Oscar Delp was absolutely superb with his run blocking in this game. He pinned down defenders on multiple occasions. He is really good on pulls and UGA should lean into that more. To my eyes, the combination of Delp and Greene on the left side was the driver behind the lion’s share of UGA’s best runs. The stats agreed too. The Dawgs had 5 carries for 53 yards behind the Delp/Greene combo and another 4 carries for 22 yards when running off the LT side with just Greene. Yurosek looked a bit lost as a receiver, but not as a blocker. He can play in this offense, at least as an extra run blocker. I thought Wilson got better as the game went along, but it took him sometime to settle in as a run blocker. Ratledge was strong. Georgia’s run game got its first real momentum when Frazier came in late in the first half and got downhill behind Ratledge. If Truss could have held his blocks a bit longer on Frazier’s first two carries he may have busted into the third level of the defense. 
In the end, UGA’s top RB didn’t play against one of the best front sevens they will face and they still put together a productive day on the ground. In Frazier they have another dude on the level of some of Georgia’s greats. He has the juice. The feet are insanely quick, the vision is next level, and the contact balance is exceptional. Just wait until he gets involved in the downfield passing game too. The way he cut and moved was visibly different than everyone on that field, and his little lateral shimmy cuts that he uses to bounce outside and in are going to be really tricky to tackle. That move actually reminds me a bit of Fred Taylor. With Etienne and Frazier this team will have two RB’s who can break a tackle at anytime and crease a defense for a long run. The things that will do to the play-action pass game will be significant. It’s going to be something to watch. 
 
7) The added bonus of the motion usage was that it forced defenders to betray whether they were in man or zone. If a man in motion is followed across the field then he’s in man coverage. If a man in motion is passed off at the middle of the field and a defender on the other side of the formation then picks him up, we can safely assume those defenders are probably playing zone coverage. There are a lot of times where safeties are going to be in Cover 1 or Cover 2 (zone coverage with half or whole field responsibilities up top) while more shallow defenders are in zone or man, but the motion still tips off a lot. So, Bobo was basically pulling defenders out of the box, and giving Beck and the rest of the unit the chance to see the defense’s hand. Carson Beck’s average time to throw in this game was just 2.38 seconds, which was really impressive considering the fact UGA’s receivers weren’t getting a ton of separation early on. In my opinion, the motions Bobo worked into the game plan were key to letting Beck get the ball out quickly. He’s a quick processor already, but if you give him hints pre-snap he’s going to be even quicker. It was good game planning by UGA. Beck was 0/3 on 20+ yard attempts in this game, but he was humming on every other level. The plays behind the line of scrimmage combined to be 9/10 for 6.1 yards per an attempt, which is efficient but not explosive. Beck was 8/11 on 0-9 yard throws despite two drops and got an average of 5 yards after the catch per reception out of this WR’s. That put his ADOT at just 3.2 yards, which basically translates to a lot of short throws. On 10-19 yard throws he was lethal. Beck went 6/9 for 127 yards (14.1 YPA) and he did it despite not having a ton of large windows to throw into. The motion had the added bonus of helping UGA in play-action. There were some fake jet sweeps built into the pass game in addition to traditional play-action. Beck was 10/14 for 138 YDS (9.9 YPA) on his play-action throws. The game really started to open up after UGA got Frazier going and then came back to play-action. The first play of the 2nd drive of the 2nd half was a play-action fake to Frazier where the LB bit so hard that Frazier leaked out into the flat and then got 24 easy yards running upfield behind vertical routes that Clemson had cleared back to cover. 
Everyone wants the sexy deep ball, and hey, I get it. The counter to that is that Clemson respected UGA’s vertical routes all day and it let Beck feed balls in behind the defense once they got going downfield. He only threw one uncatchable pass all day. Beck deserves a ton of credit for valuing possession of the ball in this game. He understood the value of field position and the way UGA’s defense was dominating, and he played a very efficient game without Georgia doing anything exotic or throwing an interceptable pass. He never pressed or got greedy and he let the game come to him. He also was very timely with his legs and used them without taking hits. I continue to be impressed with the ways he improves as he gets more game reps and experience. He’s not just talented physically, but he has also become a very savvy player.
 
😎 I said in our preview that blitzing Beck and leaving the secondary in man was a great way for Clemson to get lit up, and Clemson seemed to agree. They only blitzed him on 8 of his dropbacks, and he had 4 completions for 64 yards. Part of that was UGA’s play calling forcing them out of those blitzes, and part of that was Clemson getting pressure with four rushers. They didn’t really get to Beck much, but they were moving him and forcing him to be uncomfortable, which is really just as effective in some ways. The saving grace for Georgia and Beck was that the middle three of the offensive line was borderline dominant in pass protection. Fairchild, Wilson and Beck had 108 combined pass block snaps and Fairchild gave up the lone pressure between the three. The other 5 pressures that UGA allowed came at the tackle spots. Truss allowed 2 in 29 snaps, Freeling allowed the sack of Beck in the red zone and then no other pressures across 12 snaps, and Greene allowed 2 pressures in 35 pass block snaps… I saw some of the offensive linemen struggling to get their cleats planted at times. On one of Beck’s better throws Truss was literally sliding backwards with his feet just slipping under him. He ended up doing a split on the play, but he hung in long enough for Carson to get the ball out. 
Speaking frankly, the tackle situation is something to monitor. Greene is a stud and he handled Woods pretty damn well throughout the day in my opinion. I had thought we might see a better performance from Truss, but he was just a half step slow on some things. Freeling got fooled by a simulated pressure and was caught leaning by Woods on the sack in the red zone, but he was seeing his first action with the starters against a veteran DL. The play that made me scratch my head was when Truss just sort of dropped onto the ground at Woods’s feet on the swing pass to Robinson. It was poorly executed and it got the play blown up for a five yard loss after an explosive pass. He also got bull rushed a couple times in key situations. All told, Truss was UGA’s lowest graded OL (and second lowest graded player overall) in run block and its second lowest graded OL in pass block. I think he’s a good presence and a leader on the team, but I do believe Freeling’s ceiling to be higher. If UGA comes up against a future NFL pass rusher on the left edge then that player could blow a game up playing against Truss. This was why we saw the play calling shift so dramatically in the SEC Championship last year after Mims was hurt. I don’t want to pick on the kid, but I think UGA would be smart to give Freeling a long look before it has to go to Tuscaloosa. 
 
9) The wideouts did a good job of creating productive offense on the boundaries in UGA’s first game without Bowers and McConkey. Georgia lived on Bowers a ton the last few years, and a lot of that yardage came working safeties and linebackers and nickel corners. The young boundary corners were supposed to be a question mark and Georgia hit them like they were. CB #10 Jeadyn Lukas was targeted 8 times for 7 REC’s and 57 yards plus a TD. CB #20 Aveion Terrell was targeted 10 times for 6 REC’s and 81 YDS. After that, UGA did a good job of picking out matchups it liked. One of those was Frazier on substitute LB #21 Kobe McCloud. Another one was Humphreys in man coverage against S #24 Tyler Venables. 
On the whole, I still have some concerns about UGA’s wideouts and their ability to get separation. Young is a player who should use his size more than his speed, so he isn’t really included in that. Dillon Bell is so dynamic with the ball in his hands, and I’ve started workshopping a pinball related nickname for him because of how he just bounces off tackles. I also thought he struggled to get space on a younger cornerback. The longest pass he had came in extremely tight coverage where Beck had to thread a throw into a tiny space. One of the first half drives ended when he was asked to run all the way across the field on a shallow drag route on 3rd & 4. That should be a play where a WR gets some space out of man coverage, but Bell was tackled right as he caught the ball and UGA was forced into 4th down. Bell had just 4 Yards After the Catch per Reception (16 yards of YAC total) in this game, and Humphreys busted two massive catches after coming in and playing a similar role. London had 42 yards after the catch on 2 receptions when he entered. He made that impact on just 5 receiving snaps. Smart said his catch on the first 3rd down crossing route might have been the play of the game, and it says a ton about his development in Georgia’s system that he made the right read and cut his route properly in front of two defenders on that play. Beck had to trust him to be there before he threw it and it was a live read with no pre-snap communication. 
Bell has a ton of value for sure, but it might look different than him being an every down WR at X. Or, maybe that was a symptom of UGA not taking many vertical shots in this game. It seems clear that Lovett is an elite athlete who can make plays in space, but I would like to see him go downfield more as the season runs on. We know Arian can move as well. It’s only week one though, and UGA seemed determined to get the ball out quickly. It will be interesting to see how the WR rotation evolves as the season goes on. It seems like Humphreys and his 12.6 Yards per Route Run earned more playing time. No other UGA WR eclipsed the 2.00 YRR mark that is our historical benchmark for high level WR play.
 
10) The defensive performance was so dominant that it almost took on a routine feeling, but looking back at the game I was struck by the waves of front seven players coming in and executing properly whenever they were put into the game. This was an absolute smothering on all levels. Clemson’s explosive play rate was just 2%, which was in the 2nd percentile amongst all Week 0 and Week 1 performances in college football so far this year. Clemson had just 2 scoring opportunities (trips inside the 40 yardline) and managed just 1.5 points per opportunity. The Tigers had a 23% Success Rate in the 1st quarter and that dropped to 14% in the 2nd. It bumped to 33% in the 3rd before being 40% thanks to substitutions in the 4th, but Clemson got nothing explosive besides the one long pass to Williams over Everette’s outstretched arm. Georgia missed just 2 tackles all game long. 
Nowhere did things seem more night and day from last year than at the LB position. Clemson had clearly done its homework and watched its tape on the outside runs that UGA was giving up towards the end of last year. It got one 7 yard gain on a toss sweep to the left side early on during a play where Damon Wilson was held. After that, it was like UGA’s backers were teleporting to the ball on the perimeter. The Tigers ball carriers forced 2 missed tackles, but that was all. Clemson had 4 outside runs off the right side for a total of -1 yard. They had 3 other attempts off the left side for a total of 3 yards. All told, 8 outside runs for 12 yards was all they could muster. The longest run of the day for Clemson was 9 yards and that came when Jalon Walker got caught coming on an A-Gap blitz from the ILB spot. Georgia had 38 tackles in this game for 22 STOP plays (failures for the offense). The UGA inside backers read everything on the ground like a group that was auto programmed to fill run lanes. From up in the press box, there were times where I confused one LB with another because the level of play was so high amongst all 3. Mondon looks like Mondon again, back healthy and moving exceptionally well. For Allen and Raylen Wilson, this was just so different than what we saw late last season. We have known they are very talented players, but this was the first time they just saw ball and hit ball. Last November we watched them stutter and hesitate and take false moves or bite on fakes. This game you saw them glide around the field and read plays before they had a chance to develop. The only gripe you could have would be Allen missing 2 tackles. They allowed virtually nothing in the passing game. Combined, the three allowed 3 catches for 4 yards, and This trio of linebackers is special. You will talk about them for years to come, and you may talk about them on a level that reaches or surpasses the trio from 2021. 

 
11) On the defensive line, the story was the same. Maybe not flawless execution at every moment, but waves of depth coming in and playing tough. They played physical and unselfishly. They played Georgia defense. They were beating Clemson defenders on pass rush a lot, but Klubnik was spitting the ball out on most of his attempts just to avoid getting hit. Georgia’s front seven had a havoc rate (TFL, Sack, Turnover, PBU) of 15%, which is high. Last year’s team had a 9.7% front seven havoc rate for the full season. Georgia didn’t have to blitz its ILB’s much at all. It brought Starks from the STAR spot four times and it brought Bolden twice, but UGA affected Klubnik with four a whole lot in this game. 
The OLB/Edge group is ridiculously talented, and they set the edge all afternoon. Mykel is still Mykel, and the play he made solo on the backside to beat two blockers with his speed when Klubnik kept the ball in the red zone was something guys who are 260 shouldn't be able to do. That eye discipline and then jumping in front of the blockers saved a TD. That was a play that lots of guys can’t make, but talented guys don’t make those plays if they’re not well coached and taking that coaching. We knew Williams was good, but we didn't know exactly how the rest of the guys would look. Chambliss was extremely steady in run defense. Damon Wilson beat the RT on the first 3rd down of the game and showed his athleticism in pursuit. He was really good in the run game for a guy with his speed rushing skills, and I was impressed with his maturation. He led UGA with 3 pressures and got 21 snaps total. Gabe Harris was extremely physical in his 15 snaps. He blew up blockers and knocked run plays off their paths. He held his space at times when two blockers converged on him. I absolutely love his game, and he may have been the biggest stand out of the game on defense in terms of showing us something we didn’t know before. He is a dude I want in the trenches on 3rd and short. He punches up out of his stance and strikes the offensive lineman across from him. And then of course there was Jalon Walker. He isn’t a full-time EDGE, but he’s damn good when he’s there. He had 2 pressures and a sack on 6 pass rush snaps, but what was jarring to me was the 3rd & 1 play he made in the 2nd half after getting the TFL on 2nd down the play before. He held his space despite getting held and then made the tackle to force a punt. If he’s going to defend the run like that then he’s never coming off the field again. He tied Raylen Wilson for the team lead in STOP plays, but he made at least 2 of those from the DL instead of as an ILB. He played 26 snaps, and 14 of them were on the defensive line while 12 were at inside linebacker. Walker is a total chess piece and he can cover better than anyone talks about as well. Kirby said after the game that UGA needs to get him and Mykel on the field together more. That is a recipe for mayhem waiting to happen, and I bet we see it a whole lot in Tuscaloosa a few weeks from now. 
On the interior, I thought Georgia got really gritty performances from Stackhouse, Miller and Ingram-Dawkins. Those guys played a lot more snaps than UGA’s interior linemen normally play and they two-gapped all day while holding their space inside. Miller’s motor was really high and he turned in 2 STOP plays from the inside. Ingram-Dawkins has always been known more for his pass rush, but he was strong for UGA while playing unselfish team defense and taking up blockers. Stackhouse looked a bit quicker than last year and he played a good if not great game. Interested to see if he gets better as UGA’s rotation gets deeper and he can go all out on more snaps. Brinson flashed a nice pass rush move before he went out too. UGA needs him healthy to get pass rush from the DT spot. Once this group gets Hall and McLeod back it can be really highly functioning. It feels like it’s going to be extremely hard to run on them, but they’ll have to find a bit more interior pass rush. It was encouraging to see them get enough pressure with 4 to hurry Klubnik. The inside backers didn’t have to blitz as much, and that will make the defense hard to beat on the back end.
 
12) It’s hard to translate just how impressive UGA’s secondary was on Saturday. It’s not just the skills of playing coverage and blanketing Clemson and tackling on the back end. Not having Aguero threw everyone’s positions into flux, and they rotated throughout the game. Every time one moves another guy moves. The dance that went on between Starks, Bolden, Jackson and Thomas showed a really impressive knowledge of the defense. Those guys communicated really well with one another and the rest of the team, and they allowed almost nothing all day. Thomas gave up 1 REC for 3 yards on that stage in his first career start. Starks played out of position for half the game and gave up 1 catch for 12 yards while making the most athletic interception I have seen in person in my entire life. Jackson gave up 1 catch on 2 targets for 12 yards and showed why he’s been impossible to knock out of the picture. And then there was KJ Bolden- That was a case study in why recruiting matters. He played more snaps on Saturday than anyone on the team, and he was tough as hell. He slammed into Clemson’s big TE in the open field. He chopped down Mafah in the flat on the first third down of the season. He almost tracked down the long deep ball that I think Klubnik was trying to throw away as well. His range is insane, and he is like Starks in that I think he could play CB if he wanted too. He and Malaki just became the best safety tandem in college football. He will have a freshman moment or a tough game at some point, but you can tell with how he plays and the way Smart talks about him that he will likely have the mental and physical toughness to be made better by it. In his first college game he played 28 coverage snaps and had 8 yards receiving. 
The corner tandem ended up being Everette and Humphrey after a long offseason of speculating on who would win the #2 job. To be frank, I thought Humphrey out played Everette by a little bit. He gave up just 1 catch for 10 yards and Clemson only tried him once. Everette drew some tougher matchups at times though. He gave up 3 REC’s on 3 targets for 61 yards. The big play was the long ball fading to the sideline for Williams. It was a fantastic catch, but Everette needs to develop the confidence to start playing more balls in the air. UGA will face much better outside receivers as the season goes along. I still think Daniel Harris will have a role to play in this season too. We should find out more about this CB group when Georgia goes up against Kentucky’s group of wideouts in a couple weeks. It’s hard to find much to gripe about in a performance where the Bulldogs allowed just 4.9 yards per attempt to Clemson in the passing game. Especially when you add in the way Georgia’s secondary tackled all day. There is nobody in the sport who tackles like Georgia does year after year.

Come tomorrow, the Georgia Bulldogs will come sprinting through the tunnel cheered on by 93,000 + faithful and Baba O'Reilly beginning to play. For any team, home openers are great. However, they're even sweeter for a team ranked No. 1 in the country with a 40-game regular season winning streak. Not to mention, Georgia's had a solid track record of home openers, not having lost since 2011. 
However, like others in years past, the excitement of a close game may be absent, starting just past 2 p.m. tomorrow. In a game where Georgia is favored by over 50 points, here's what to watch for when the Dawgs tee it up between the hedges against Tennessee Tech. 
Airing it out early
Tennessee Tech lacks the size, speed and talent the Bulldogs may match up against later this season, especially in the secondary. I don't expect the Golden Eagles to play much press-man coverage, if any at all. They'll primarily sit in cover 3 or cover 4 zones, which presents a great opportunity for offensive coordinator Mike Bobo and quarterback Carson Beck. 
Early in the first half, I think Georgia will take some shots down the field, looking to exploit speed mismatches. Coming off a career day last week, setting a career-high in receptions, Arian Smith could find himself as the recipient of one of those deep shots down the field. 
Ultimately, the Georgia offense should be able to move the ball at will, and things should get out of hand quickly. With that being said, I expect the offense to come out firing, looking for the big plays early as they continue to fine-tune the unit before conference play. 
Etienne's Debut
While there has been no official word on Etienne's status, as Kirby Smart has intentionally held the decision close to his chest, we may get to see Trevor Etienne play for the first time this season. 
The running back room will operate with a handful of guys receiving touches, especially as the game moves along, but Etienne may be the feature back early and will have the chance to showcase his talent. Freshman Nate Frazier certainly earned more opportunities, but while available, Etienne will be the running back to watch. 
Depth
This should be a game where Georgia can rotate plenty of players on and off the field, assuming the team handles business early on. I'd expect we see Gunner Stockton in much of the second-half commanding the offense. Freshman receivers Sacovie White and Nitro Tuggle could be utilized as the game progresses, looking for their first catches as Bulldogs. USC transfer Michael Jackson should also be able to work his way onto the field as a slot receiver. On the defensive side of the ball, Ellis Robinson is a name that stands out along with linebacker Justin Williams. 

Overall, Georgia likely won't have to worry about the score for long, and plenty of players should get action this week. The main goal: Take care of business while avoiding injury. 
 
For the home opener, fans will be welcomed back to Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium in what is a great tune-up opportunity for the Dawgs before beginning SEC play next week. Kickoff is at 2 p.m. ET. 
Photo Via UGA Athletics

Recently Georgia has become known for their development of quarterbacks that have stayed in the system, most notably Carson Beck. Kirby Smart and his staff may have struck gold again and found another quarterback with a mindset similar to the Bulldogs' current starter.
Despite being known for their recruiting in the South, Smart and his staff signed Ryan Puglisi out of Avon, Connecticut. Puglisi was a four-star recruit on all major recruiting sites and was ranked as high as the No. 6 quarterback recruit in the nation. He committed to the Bulldogs in October of 2022.
The 6-foot-3, 205-pound gunslinger spent his first two years of high school at Lawrence Academy in Massachusetts before transferring to Avon Old Farms in Connecticut to help put himself on the map. This quickly became the right decision for Puglisi as his arm talent attracted multiple top schools like the Bulldogs, Alabama and Ole Miss.
Puglisi first wooed the hearts of some Georgia fans for not letting his commitment waver during the Bulldogs' recruitment of current Nebraska freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola. Since this point, Puglisi stayed ten-toes-down with Georgia and now has his future lined up, similar to Carson Beck's path.
The Bulldogs added Arizona State transfer Jaden Rashada this offseason for depth, but this has not intimidated the talented freshman. While Puglisi understands the starting position is Carson Beck's this season, he also knows that he will have a chance to make a push for the starting spot against Gunner Stockton and Rashada in 2025.
Still, Puglisi could see the field as early as this Saturday against Tennessee Tech, as the Bulldogs' staff looks to rotate young players in to gain experience before their tough SEC schedule. He began making waves early during the offseason, impressing veteran players on the defensive side of the ball with his arm talent. 
Bulldog fans can expect Puglisi to be a major part of Mike Bobo's offense in 2025 or 2026, as he has emphasized that he plans to stick with the Bulldogs and win the starting role following Beck's departure to the NFL.
Photo via UGA Athletics

When Nick Saban was with the Cleveland Browns he invented what’s called the “star” position. The role is a hybrid between a linebacker and a defensive back. Coach Saban carried the position into his defenses with Alabama, which was then shared with former Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart. Kirby has utilized the star position with all of his squads and it has become a staple of the Georgia defense. 
In this most recent game against Clemson, Georgia fans saw Malaki slide into that role and make an instant impact. Malaki played 28 snaps in the slot, 10 snaps in the box, and just 6 reps at free safety. Starks is extremely versatile as proven by the numbers, and seems to succeed in every role Coach Smart asks him to play. Malaki finished the season opener with 2 total tackles and a ridiculous interception in the 4th quarter. 
There have been some Georgia greats to rotate in and out of the position, two of the most recent two being Tykee Smith and Javon Bullard. Those two guys played a massive role in Georgia’s back to back national championship run from the star position. This past Saturday, due to a Joenel Aguero injury, we saw Malaki rotate into the box and true freshman KJ Bolden came in to play free safety. On the most recent episode of The Players’ Lounge “Beyond the Hedges”, Malaki was asked about how he felt about playing star. “I see it as, I go get a few reps at star, he (KJ Bolden) comes in at safety, and there’s more people on the field that can play winning football”, Starks said. 
Malaki talked about how talented the roster is, specifically the DB room. He said “we just have more people that are able to play winning football at a higher level”. 
Over the last few seasons, Georgia’s secondary has been fantastic, limiting air attacks, being physical, and making plays when they matter. The All-American DB went on to say “We have so many great athletes, when someone’s over here, there’s someone over there that you have to worry about.”
Starks mentioned multiple times how playing star is a fantastic way to be in the right place at the right time. Malaki said “(In the star position) you have a lot more opportunities to be in a position to make a play”, Dawg fans have seen Malaki make spectacular plays throughout his career at Georgia and his versatility is a massive reason why. 
Tune in to the full episode of “Beyond The Hedges” to hear Starks and Thornton discuss Malaki’s acrobatic interception against Clemson, and how it rivals his pick against Oregon.
 

Coming off a stellar Week 1 performance that resulted in a 34-3 rout over the Clemson Tigers, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart already has that game in the rearview mirror. Now, he's onto Tennessee Tech for the Bulldogs' home opener. 
Smart spoke to the media ahead of that matchup following Tuesday's practice.
Here's everything he said.
On practice this week:
“It wasn’t great yesterday. I hate it when you change routines, but we didn’t do anything with the players. The players didn’t have anything to do Sunday. They didn’t have school Monday. Historically, the years I’ve been here, Monday’s not great of Labor Day because they lay around all day Sunday and then they lay around all day Monday because they don’t have classes. Then they come over here, and they didn’t have a great day. Today was much better. I think maybe it had something to do with the weather. It was a little cooler today. They’re were good spirits. We had a good practice.”
On 13 freshmen playing Saturday and if teams leverage lack of early playing time against Georgia:
“I don’t know about playing time. I think we can disprove that with the guys that have started and played. It may get used, but it doesn’t work very effectively because we have as many freshman All-Americans and as many freshmen play as anybody in the country, so I don’t know how effective it is. I don’t know. I would be interested to see how 13 compared to other years. Obviously, the type of game that we play in would dictate that. Last year, we probably had more than 13 play because of the score and the differential.
A couple of years ago against Clemson we probably didn’t have many. I know one that did, but I don’t know many more than that one. Every year is different, you know? It’s about their development. I think so many freshmen across the country right now are so caught up in am I going to play? Am I going to play this week? Am I going to travel? What am I doing? Did I make the right decision? Because all they’ve got to think about is the alternative of where I can go, and if you just be where your feet are and get better, you’ll come out on top in the end.”
On if freshmen now are more prepared than they used to be:
“Oh, they’re not. They’re having to play out of necessity. They’re having to play out of the fact that we got more transient rosters. They’re not anymore ready to play physically, mentally, disposition. Not many freshmen are -- let me say this: in our league, playing in our league, SEC to SEC, if you’re playing with a lot of freshmen, you’re in trouble because they’re not physically developed. That doesn’t mean one can’t do it, but you don’t want to be out there playing with a lot of freshmen.”
On Raylen Wilson's Week 1 performance: 
“I haven’t gone back and watched the film from Saturday since, like, Saturday night. That game’s over and done. I’ll speak about Raylen, but I can’t tell you the first thing because I’m own and popping to the next one. Raylen worked really hard in camp. He had some struggles with cramping, and he wasn’t able to finish some practices.
He missed a little time, not really injured, just not being able to finish it up. I thought that hurt his stamina in camp. And then the last week he started playing better and better and better in practices, and then that carried over a little bit into the game.
I think he’s much more confident in the scheme. He’s seeing things well. He had some nice plays on Saturday. He’s a really good athlete.”
On the evolution of offenses and the heightened need for inside linebackers:
“Yeah, it’s a premium now. It probably used to go size, speed, toughness, keys, and now it goes speed, intelligence, space player, size. It just changes the order. It’s a priority to have length. It’s a priority to be able to match up and play in space. You’ve got to be able to run, cover down. I mean, you’re in conflict every play. You’ve got this gap, but you’ve also got to play the bubble. You’ve got to see counters, pulls, RPOs. It’s absolutely insane how much you have to defend now compared to 2012.”
On Dan Jackson:
“Dan’s a product of toughness, the program. I mean, first of all, we’re lucky to have Dan Jackson because we fell into it, and we didn’t do one thing to earn Dan being here. He came to us, and he’s made himself into a really good football player, but he did that through hard work. It’s proof that if you stick around and you have toughness and you’re smart, you’re going to play. I mean, we’ve got millions of examples of kids that have come here, have showed toughness, stuck around, and played. Cash, Prather, and all these guys have done it, and Georgia has a long history of great walk-ons, and he’s one of those.”
Injury updates on Jordan Hall and Xzavier McLeod:
“Yeah, they’re both doing great, man. They were running today, flying around, sideline running, not practicing, but running, straight line, cutting. I’m fired up. I mean, Sunday or Monday, I looked out my office. Two days run together, Labor Day, but Jordan was out there smoking it across the field, and excited. He was up at 5.30 in the morning, game day, rehabbing on his own, beat Ron in there, riding a bike in Atlanta. I mean, he is a different dude when it comes to rehab. He has attacked it and dove all in. I think he’s probably a little ahead of McLeod because dealing with different muscle tissue-type injury. He also hasn’t really ever had a significant injury. But They’re both pushing."
On non-conference schedule in-state:
“Not the slightest clue. I can’t give you good input. I mean, the schedule I have now, as far as I know, I inherited it. If I didn’t inherit it and I’m lying to you, I don’t know. I didn’t go down the schedule and say, oh, let’s go play Tennessee Tech over Georgia Southern or Mercer. I mean, I don’t know. That’s probably a better question for Josh Brooks.”
On the balance of playing weaker opponents vs higher caliber out-of-conference teams:
“Does he still want the check? He said he absolutely did. He said there’s no other way really for them to do it than that. That’s my point. Everybody can put me in a pigeonhole of, well, ‘Kirby believes in these games.’ ‘Kirby doesn’t believe in these games.’ I believe in the sport of football. If you told me that the sport of football is going to lose programs because they can’t sustain without the financial help, then I want to support that. I also want the financial support of our fan base. If you told them they’d rather us play Clemson, Notre Dame, every week play somebody. I respect that too. I enjoy that. I coached in the NFL. I’ve been around those kind of leagues.
I’m sensitive to both of those things. I just think that if we’re going to lose football at a lower level, for financial reasons, I’d rather try to sustain those programs and keep them up. Which, by the way, the quarterback he brought in played really well too. He’s a really good athlete. I hate it for the other kids. Obviously, he was a starter.”
On if he has looked ahead to Kentucky yet:
“Yeah. I don’t have time. What I do do is look at all the third and one and fourth and one plays in our conference, all the explosive plays in our conference, and they tape was extremely long time, considering there’s 60 and 70-point games out there. But it’s not looking at anybody specifically. It’s just what’s going on.”
On transfers Jake Pope and Michael Jackson: 
“Both working hard. Both doing good. Both part of our culture and our program. Really doing a pushing and fighting for playing time.”
On why he looks at SEC teams' short-yardage plays:
“It’s something I always do. I think it’s important. If I’ve got to make the decision whether we’re going for it and third and one or fourth and one, I want to know what’s going on.”
On the injury status of Joenel Aguero, Warren Brinson and Mykell Williams:
“Yeah, it’s a soft-tissue injury. Joenel practiced and did everything today. I wouldn’t say he’s 100%, but he practiced and did everything. Warren did some things, was out there, moved around pretty good. I would say that Joenel’s ahead of Warren, but Warren’s got a shot. Mykel’s out there watching our guys, doing rehab, being at all the walkthroughs and things, but he’s not participating.”
On Trevor Etienne's status:
“Again, we’ve all talked about it. It’s not something that I share or talk about. Respectfully, respect your question.”
On declaring suspensions in future availability reports:
“I didn’t tell ESPN anything. I don’t talk to ESPN, so don’t put words in my mouth, Chip. I didn’t say that. You said I might have told them. I haven’t talked to anybody. I’m not giving anybody have any more information than I gave you. I don’t tell them anything. As I understand the availability report when it was discussed, there was a debate about whether you had to put that on there. I think you’re talking about a non-injury reason to not be playing. Like a kid’s got a death in the family and he’s not going to be at the game because he’s got to go to a funeral or he’s suspended. You have another category there that you have to report that they’re not going to play. There was a debate about that. I think it ended with you do have to put that, but there was disclosure to me and to several coaches in the SEC that were concerned about what the speculation will be. If you put them in that category, what are you immediately going to assume? That they’re what? Suspended. I don’t think that’s fair, you know what I mean? Because you can get an assumption that is wrong. But I think you do have to disclose that in there. I’m not 100% accurate on that. We haven’t had to worry about it because we’re not to Kentucky week. And like I said, Ron’s going to handle the entire injury part of that. Because I don’t want anything to do with injury."
On whether it is gamesmanship to not declare a player's status:
“No, it’s not gamesmanship at all for me. It’s a kid. It’s a kid, his family. It’s respecting. When recruits come in my room, they say, we respect the way you handle things because a kid takes enough drug through the mud headlines. Everybody puts it out there. And then nobody knows if it’s wrong or if it’s dropped or any of that. They never get to do that. I want to defend the kid. And to discuss it again and say it again, then it’s another whole headline out there. So it’s not gamesmanship in any way, shape, or form for me. It’s just, I don’t want that for the kid. I don’t want to have to go through that again. That’s why I don’t discuss it.”
On if the freshmen showed toughness Week 1:
“I don’t know. I didn’t see, had a couple freshmen go in and get knocked off the ball. So, no, I wasn’t real proud of that. But I had some guys, I don’t know that a freshman got to show toughness. There was not enough snaps. I mean, what freshman took the most snaps? K.J. Bolden? He didn’t have to show a lot of toughness. He went up there in the trenches, and he had some nice tackles, he had some nice plays, but he didn’t have to show toughness. Nate Frazier had some nice holes and made some nice cuts, but he didn’t have to show toughness. So I respect your question, but I don’t know how to answer it because I don’t know that all freshmen had to show toughness.”
On Monroe Freeling:
“He’s physically stronger, mentally in a better place, more confident in the system. We wouldn’t put him in there rotating if we didn’t have a lot of confidence in him. So he’s got to continue to get better.”
On the two-minute timeout:
“Well, I mean, I think it’s an extra timeout. Like I’ve said repeatedly, I think it’s going to get coaches more criticized. It’s another thing that you can screw up. You’ve got to be really smart. I’m not talking about me now. I’m talking about you’ve got to be really smart to not screw it up based on the analytics and all the things. A lot of people just say, oh, I’m not worried about that. I’m just going to play with my gut. But when you read all the analytics into it, it’s pretty deep.”
On if there are staff positions for clock management:
“Yeah we’ve got three or four people on staff that do that. It’s really critical you’ve got people covering your back.”
 
Georgia will host Tennessee Tech at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, with fans eagerly anticipating welcoming the Bulldogs back to Sanford Stadium. 

ATHENS, Ga. – Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart and select players spoke with the media on Tuesday afternoon and offered the following comments

GEORGIA HEAD COACH KIRBY SMART

On practice this week…
"It wasn't great yesterday. I hate it when you change routine, but we didn't do anything with the players. The players didn't have anything to do Sunday and they didn't have school Monday. I don't know, historically the years I've been here, Monday's not great of Labor Day because they lay around all day Sunday and then they lay around all day Monday because they don't have classes and then they come over here and didn't have a great day, but today was much better. I think maybe it had something to do with the weather. It's a little cooler today and there were good spirits. We had good practice."

On true freshmen playing against Clemson…
"I don't know about playing time. I think we can disprove that with the guys that have started and played. It may get used, but it doesn't work very effectively because we have as many freshmen All-Americans and as many freshmen players as anybody in the country. So, I don't know how effective it is. But I don't know, I would be interested to see how 13 compared to other years. Obviously, the type of game you play in would dictate that. Meaning, you know, last year we probably had more than 13 play because of the score and the differential. A couple of years ago against Clemson, we probably didn't have many. I know one that did, but I don't know many more than that one. But every year is different, you know. It's not about – it's about their development. I think so many freshmen across the country right now are so caught up in, 'am I going to play? Am I going to play this week? Am I going to travel? What am I doing? Did I make the right decision?' Because all they got to think about is the alternative of where I can go. If you just be where your feet are and get better, you'll come out on top in the end."

On freshmen being ready to play in their first year…
"Oh, they're not. I don't know. They're having to play out of necessity. Having to play out of the fact that we got more transient rosters. I mean, they're not any more ready to play physically, mentally. That disposition – no, not many freshmen are. I'm going to say this, in our league, playing in our league, SEC to SEC, if you're playing with a lot of freshmen, you're in trouble. Because they're not physically developed. That doesn't mean one can't do it. You don't want to be out there playing with a lot of freshmen."

On Raylen Wilson…
"I haven't gone back and watched the film from Saturday since like Saturday night. That game's over and done. I'll speak about Raylen, but I can't tell you the first thing because I'm on and popping to the next one. Raylen worked really hard in camp. He had some struggles with cramping, and he wasn't able to finish some practices. He missed a little time, not really injured, just not being able to finish it up. I thought that hurt his stamina in camp, and then the last week he started playing better and better and better in practices and then that carried over a little bit into the game. I think he's much more confident in the scheme. He's seeing things well. He has some nice plays Saturday. He's a really good athlete."

On recruiting inside linebackers…
"Yeah, it's a premium now. It probably used to go size, speed, toughness, keys. Now it goes speed, intelligence, space player, size, toughness. It just changes the order because it's a priority to have length. It's a priority to be able to match up and play in space and you've got to be able to run, cover down. I mean, you're in conflict every play. You've got this gap, but you've also got to go play the bubble. You've got to see counters, pulls, RPOs. It's absolutely insane how much you're having to defend now compared to 2012."

On Dan Jackson's influence on the program…
"Dan is a product of toughness. The program. I mean, first of all, we're lucky to have Dan Jackson because we fell into him. We didn't do one thing to earn Dan being here. He came to us, and he has made himself into a really good football player, but he did that through hard work. He's proof that if you stick around and you have toughness and you're smart, you're going to play. I mean, we've got millions of examples of kids that have come here, have shown toughness, stuck around and played. Cash [Jones], Prather [Hudson], I mean, all these guys have done it and Georgia has a long history of great walk-ons, and he's one of those."

On the progress of Jordan Hall and Xzavier McLeod…
On why Georgia has not played more in-state programs in recent years…
On the approach to playing smaller programs during the season…

On if he will begin preparing for Kentucky this week…
"I don't have time. I don't. What I do do is look at all the third and one and fourth and one plays in our conference, you know, all the explosive plays in our conference, and the tape was extremely long considering there's 60- and 70-point games out there. It's not looking at anybody specifically. It's just what's going on." 

On Michael Jackson III and Jake Pope…
"Both working hard. Both doing good. Both are part of our culture and our program and doing a really good job of pushing and fighting for playing time."

On analyzing short-yard plays against opponents…       
"It's something I always do, you know. I think it's important to if I got to make the decision whether we're going for it on third and one and fourth and one, I want to know what's going on."

On the progress of Joenel Aguero, Mykel Williams and Warren Brinson…
"Yeah, it's a soft tissue injury. Joenel practiced and did everything today. I wouldn't say he was 100 percent, but he practiced and did everything. Warren did some things, was out there, moved around pretty good. I would say that Joenel's ahead of Warren, but Warren's got a shot. Mykel's out there, you know, watching our guys, doing rehab, being in all the walk-throughs and things, but he's not participating in them."

On the availability of Trevor Etienne…
"We don't talk about it. It's not something that I share and talk about. Respectfully, I respect your question."

On availability reports…
"I understand the availability report, when it was discussed, there was a debate about whether you had to put that on there. I think you're talking about a non-injury reason to not be playing, like a kid's got a death in the family, and he's not going to be at the game because he's got to go to a funeral. Or he's suspended. You have another category there that you have to report that they're not going to play, and there was a debate about that. I think it ended with you do have to put that. There was disclosure to me and to several coaches in the SEC that were concerned about what the speculation will be. Because if you put them in that category, what are you immediately going to assume? That they're what? That they're suspended, and I don't think that's fair. You could be an assumption that it's wrong, but I think you do have to disclose that in there. I'm not 100% accurate on that. We haven't had to worry about it, because we're not to Kentucky week. Like I said, Ron's [Courson] going to handle the entire injury part of that, because I don't want anything to do with the injury part of that. It's not gamesmanship at all for me. It's a kid. It's a kid, his family. It's respecting when recruits come in my room, we respect the way you handle things because a kid takes enough drug through the mud in headlines. Everybody puts it out there, and then nobody knows if it's wrong or it gets dropped or any of that. They never get to do that. I want to defend the kid. And to discuss it again and say it again, then it's another whole headline out there. So, it's not gamesmanship in any way, shape, or form for me. It's just I don't want that for the kid. I don't want to have to go through that again. That's why I don't discuss it."

On the toughness of the freshmen against Clemson…
"I don't know. I didn't see. We had a couple freshmen go in and get knocked off the ball. So, no, I wasn't really proud of that. I don't know that a freshman got to show toughness. There were not enough snaps. I mean, what freshman took the most snaps, KJ Bolden? He didn't have a lot of. He didn't have to show a lot of toughness. He wouldn't up there in the trenches, and he had some nice tackles. He had some nice plays, but he didn't have to show toughness. Nate Frazier had some nice holes and made some nice cuts, but he didn't have to show toughness. So, I respect your question, but I don't know how to answer it because I don't know that our freshmen had to show toughness." 

On the growth of Monroe Freeling…
"He's physically stronger, mentally in a better place, more confident in the system. We wouldn't put him in there and rotate him if we didn't have a lot of confidence in him. So, he's going to continue to get better."

On the two-minute warning now in college football…
"I think it's an extra timeout. You know, like I've said repeatedly, I think it's going to get coaches more criticized.It's another thing that you can screw up, and you got to be really smart. I'm not talking about me now. I'm talking about you got to be really smart to not screw it up based on the analytics and all the things. A lot of people just say, 'I'm not worried about that. I'm just going to play with my gut.' But when you read all the analytics into it, it's pretty deep."

On members of his staff dealing with clock management…        
"We've got three or four people on staff that do that, and I think it's really critical that you got people covering your back."


#5 RAYLEN WILSON | SO. ILB

On the defensive performance against Clemson…
"We learned where we were at as a defensive unit as a whole. We all felt like we played pretty good holding them to three points, a field goal. You can't get too much better than that, unless it's a goose egg."

On his performance against Clemson…
"I know it wasn't my best game, but I feel like it was a good start to the season for the plays that came to me that I made. So, I feel like it was a decent start."

On the development players have at Georgia…
"Me personally, I know it's more about the development for me. Playing earlier is just like a plus. My main reason for coming here was to get developed, and that's what we do every day. So, I feel like it's pretty easy if your head is on right and you want to get developed and you want to get better every day."

On the mentality of the team going into Tennessee Tech…
"It's really the same vibe every week. We're going in there to beat somebody for four quarters. We don't really look at the team we're playing, It's really about us being better than we were last week."


#71 EARNEST GREENE | SO. OL

On the performance of the offensive line against Clemson…
"That's why you come to a school like this -- to play top-tier guys and the best competition in big games like that. I'd say as a unit, we played okay. There is always room for improvement everywhere, but I'd say we could do a little better with communication."

On what changed offensively in the second half…
"I'd say communication, that was just one of the biggest things. When you go out there for the first game of the season, not rusty, but you just have to get the kinks out a little bit. That was the biggest emphasis going into the second half, which is why we are pushing it this week to just be better communicators."

On offensive tackles he watches…
"I watch a lot of the Andrew Thomas film from his 2019 season. I like watching his game, and how he broke it down by being a technician and really exceeding with his technique. I always like to watch Andrew Thomas tape."
Transcript and Photo via UGA Athletics

12 Takeaways https://www.dawgscentral.com/news/dc/12-takeaways-georgia-vs-clemson/
 
Recruiting Update on Saturday Visitors and Others - https://www.dawgscentral.com/topic/4059-brassell-bites-post-uga-vs-clemson-recruiting-update/
Georgia vs Clemson Snap Count - https://www.dawgscentral.com/topic/4053-georgia-vs-clemson-snap-count/
Intel on Mykel Williams Injury - https://www.dawgscentral.com/topic/4055-what-i’m-hearing-on-mykel-williams/
Injury Report From Kirby Smart Presser - https://www.dawgscentral.com/topic/4064-injury-report-from-kirby-smart-monday-presser/
Georgia vs Clemson PFF Grades - https://www.dawgscentral.com/topic/4057-georgia-vs-clemson-pff-grades/
Kirby Smart Post Game Presser - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gdKp72ZJmc

ATHENS — Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart, along with several players, met with the media on Monday to preview the Bulldogs’ home opener against Tennessee Tech and offered the following comments. 
 
HEAD COACH KIRBY SMART
Opening Statement…
“Excited to be here, excited to get moved on to pursue getting better. We open with Tennessee Tech practice today, and we'll start attacking these guys. They played a really hard-fought game with Middle Tennessee the other night. They had a great comeback and got a lot of respect for the way they played in that game, for sure. Our guys will start getting prepared on them today.”
 
On facing a man-to-man defense…
“Not necessarily. They've been a pressure team, but they're not necessarily man-to-man pressure. They play a lot of forms of pressure, very similar to what we do in terms of zone, sims, and two traps mixed in with some man-to-man. They probably played a lot more single high, man and zone, than they have in the past to load up on the run. But I wouldn't say anything our offense gets surprises us because we have a huge volume of defense. So, they typically get exposed to a lot of defensive structures. But that's either here nor there. You can do a lot and be no good at it, or you can do a lot and try to be good at it. It's a lot more about the players.”
 
On which player will wear the green dot on their helmet…
“I hadn't really thought about it. I mean, we share who uses it every day in practice. I'll be honest with you; I don't even know. I mean, CJ [Allen] had it some, Smael [Mondon] had it some, Raylen [Wilson] might have had it some. We have two helmets, so it depends on which pairing of players are in. We have other players that have green dot helmets in case they have to play a position that they're not normally playing. And we had a couple situations like that Saturday that we thought might happen with injuries. So, we had other guys ready and prepared to use the green dot. But as far as I know, we just had the linebackers using it.”
 
On Arian Smith…
“Yeah, we want to depend on everybody because you don't want to be a one-dimensional team. So, the idea ever since we've been here is spread the ball around. We've had a lot of guys with a lot of touches, nobody with a ton individually. And Arian's been a great case study in that because he's touched the ball vertically. He's touched the ball sideways. He's become a more complete receiver and route runner. I thought he made some plays out on the – besides the rocket sweep things and the edge runs – he made some plays catching the ball outside. And that's big for him. That's growth for him. We need more guys to step up and be able to do that. And we've got to be innovative in ways to get touches that make us hard to defend.”
 
On player injury updates…
“Joenel [Aguero] was close to being able to play. Worked out before the game. Thought he might be able to go in an emergency. I don't really know today anymore. We just had a walk through. He walked through and hoping he'll be able to go this week. Warren [Brinson] got a little bit of an ankle/contusion, wasn't able to go. We're hopeful he's able to go. Mykel [Williams] has an ankle sprain. It's a grade two, but it's stable. He'll be week-to-week. Probably questionable this week, but not going to be a long-term ankle and we'll see.”
 
On navigating NIL and the transfer portal…
“Just an organizational conglomeration of information. I can't answer that question. I'm very process, detail oriented. We have a way we go about things. We talk about it. We visit with others. We brainstorm. We do what any good business would do, and we try to make the best decision. When it comes to NIL, what can we raise? What do we have? What do we have available? What's the best value and what kids fit our culture and who's going to be unselfish and come here and play for the University of Georgia and not just for the money? There's a lot of things that go into that decision, and those other decisions you talked about, there's a ton, especially in the offseason.”
 
On Jared Wilson…
“Knock on wood, I don't think we had an errant snap, and that was something that was really important. We chart his snaps every day, and he's been about 95%, 96% snap accuracy, and that's something that you can't afford to have. It's got to be 100%, and I thought he did a good job of doing that in the game. I think if you ask Jared, there's some things that he should have done better, he could have done better, and he didn't play his best football game. But, like I tell kids all the time, if you miss time in training camp, it tends to show in the first game. He missed some time. He did some really good things, some really athletic things, and then he had a couple plays that he didn't make. I think he was the first guy that came up to me walking off the field and said he screwed up a couple plays, but, you know, that's football.” 
 
On London Humphreys…
It's great. He does a good job. He's probably more in relief for Arian [Smith], and he did a good job. He's got SEC experience. I think that's what, you know, the portal provides you to go get a guy that's been successful and played well in our conference. He's done that. He's proven himself as a guy that can make plays, and he was ready when his number was called. We talk about it all the time. Your opportunity's coming. Are you going to seize the moment when the moment jumps in front of you? He did that.”
 
On Malaki Starks playing the STAR position…
He did a nice job when he played the star, especially for a guy that didn't rep there, but last week a few times. He didn't get any reps in camp there, so he did a good job jumping in and filling that role. Flexibility, it just depends on the depth at other positions. I mean, Malaki can be our best player at five positions, so it's more a matter of what's around him and what's healthy, working, and what are we going to do defensively. He plays a role at safety. He plays a role at strong safety. He plays a role at the star, so he does a tremendous job. It gives us some depth, but I'd rather not have to be relying on the depth than rely on the guys that practiced all camp.”
 
On Jalon Walker his ability to play multiple positions…
“We're unique in our defense. I shouldn't say unique. I don't know how many others do what we do defensively because I'm not in their programs. We're very different in regard to what NFL scouts and personnel tell us, that we still train outside backers to be SAM outside linebackers. I learned a long time ago that you need to develop two skill sets because the game has changed and evolved to be more spread-oriented. So, these guys that played outside linebacker against a two-back asset, they weren't finding homes. They might have a home in the NFL. They'd have a home in college, and we make promises that we're going to develop you in multiple ways. Going back to Natrez Patrick, he could play end-of-the-line backer, and he could also play inside backer, and he was used to rush and do things here. Lorenzo [Carter] was that way. Quay Walker started as an outside backer, an inside backer, and had flexibility. So, we think it's part of your growth. We say all the time you're going to get 98% of your football reps in practice, so why not experiment and grow. That 2% you get to play in the game, you get to show off all these things you learned. And then when the next level comes calling, they've seen you do multiple things. It's really important to them that you can still play end-of-the-line backer because their style of football still has some traditional nature to it as opposed to college. It's very different now. So, I'm very proud of Jalon because he's had to really grow and get uncomfortable at inside backer. He's more natural at his outside backer position.”
 
On KJ Bolden…
"KJ is very confident. He's played more football than most seniors. He's been playing since he was six years old, in the heart of Atlanta, in one of the toughest leagues there is to play football, and he's played up against older kids all his life. He's extremely athletic. The moment's not too big for KJ. He's very gifted athletically, but he also has great football instincts and intuition. He's been coached by his father, and he's tough. So, I think that gives him a leg up on other guys coming in because he's just been playing football so long."
 
On Damon Wilson II…
"Effort, like I did last year. There's things he's got to improve on and do better. He missed a couple opportunities to make a couple plays that I thought he should have made, but I don't judge Damon on that body of work of those snaps. I judge Damon on the body of work of the 1,000 snaps he's had in camp, and he's had a really good camp. He's improved himself physically. He can play more downs now. He's got to continue to get stronger and maintain his weight, but just the few snaps that he – I mean, our guys didn't play many snaps. I think we had 56 or 57 snaps, so we didn't have – I think we had 18 guys that played over 28 snaps on the whole team. So, there weren't a large number of snaps played by anybody. So, that body of work is not real big."
 
On limiting Clemson’s offensive touches and snap count…
"I really don't know what their decisions are for their offense. When you stop people on third down and you're hard to run the ball on, you're not going to have a lot of snaps. And we were fortunate to get off the field on some third downs. They were also unfortunate. They had a couple drops early that would have gotten them rolling. So, it is what it is. As far as the snap count numbers, I think people, with the headsets, you may end up with less plays than normal because of people wanting to wait and talk."
 
On Arian Smith’s improvement and work ethic…
"Oh, Arian works. There's no harder worker on our team than Arian Smith. I mean, he's a product of a really tough physical program. He'll tell you today, he stands in front of the team and he is just a completely different person. He had never had to practice and strain like he does here. He has made decisions that he wants to be really good, so he works really hard at it. I mean, there's not a play that I can find where Arian doesn't run hard to the ball or try to block somebody and do something extra and it's that way on special teams. He made a huge special team play in the game and continues to improve by doing those things."
 
On Lawson Luckie…
"More confident in the system. Healthy, tougher and more physical, but needs to improve on that. And just a passion for the game. He's really, really football savvy. He understands football and leverages and has made a lot of plays in the passing game and continues to play more physical."
 
On the freshmen receiving playing time…
"I know for you guys everything is about that small snapshot you see of a game, but for me it's what are you going to do today? What are you going to do tomorrow? Because you're going to get 40 or 50 snaps against a really good football player today and tomorrow. And we really try to impress upon our guys, there's so much value in our practice that it's held at higher esteem a lot of times by NFL organizations than the game is. And that's not understood by the common fan, that practice is more important than the game, but it certainly is here."
 
On Micah Morris…
 
“Micah’s has to continue to improve. It's one of those deals where we're going to play the guys that practice the best, and when he practices better, he'll get to play more.”
 
On Anthony Evans III on punt return…
 
“I thought he did a great job of fielding the ball. The ball hits the ground, and it bounces, and I watch all these games in college games where the ball bounces 20 and 30 yards. Field position wise, it's getting flipped. It takes a lot of confidence to go and judge the ball, especially in that dome. And there were some strange punts. There were some balls doing some crazy spin. It was a left-footed punter. So, one of the wins of the game for us was not letting the ball hit the ground and bounce. He did once and it went in the end zone, which was a judgment call by him. So, I was very pleased with what he was able to do in terms of punt returns.”
 
On making improvements after the first game…
 
“I can't pick one thing on improvement. There are so many things that we've got to do better. There's just a lot there that we want to improve on, and some of what you're doing is dictated by who you play. People just think it's a stat game. It's not a stat game. It's who you're lining up across from and how good that football player is because that does dictate things, the matchups.”
 
On using the in-helmet communication…
 
“In terms of Carson and Mike, we've done it every day for 32 practices. So, it wasn't any different than the 32 practices that we did. It shuts off at 15, and you talk before it. It wasn't any different than our scrimmages, it was exactly like we practiced, and we've had probably 60 walk-throughs. So, between the walk-throughs and the games, we've got some form of communication. Walk-throughs, it can't be a helmet, so it's an earpiece, but he's heard it all.”
 
On the players’ growth from game to game…
 
“Every team's different in terms of – and over time they change. I can't compare 2018 to 2020 to 2022 because the teams are different, the maturity level, the experience level. It does seem that every year we get younger, so every year it's a greater burden and challenge on the older players to set the standard and hold people to how we go about our preparation and putting a game behind us and moving on to the next one. It's the same for the coaches though, and we don't change how we go week to week. We have a protocol, we have a checklist, and we follow that.”
 
 
#7 LAWSON LUCKIE | SO. | TE
On his big catch against Clemson…
“That is one of the plays that we had been practicing all week. We hit it a bunch of times going into the game and then we got the coverage we were looking for. Carson (Beck) gave me a good ball and we had a big score to start the drive.”
 
On the emotions during plays designed for him…
“It honestly happened so fast. I am not even thinking about that. I am just getting lined up, checking the defense. Looking on how I am going to run it. There is a couple of different ways I can take that route. I just see what the defense can give me and just run in there. I try not to think about it too much.”
 
On the depth of the offense and moving the ball to different players…
“I think it shows that Carson (Beck) has a great ability to read the field. I think it shows how deep our offense is. We have so many weapons in each position. This is a good thing that our team has going for us. That obviously showed on Saturday.”
 
#20 JACOREY THOMAS | JR. | DB
On his big pass breakup against Clemson…
"Usually when the receiver comes their eyes get big, or their hands go up. When their hands go up, you want to mirror their hands, so where you think the ball is going to come to and kind of break their hands away instead of just going for the ball. Sometimes if you just go for the ball, you can miss and they can still catch it, but if you rake out the elbow or rake out one of their hands it'll be a way harder catch to make."
 
On his first career start…
"You just come out there and play every day, so I really didn't know I was going in at first to start at the beginning. Sometimes you might come in different packages, so you could start out on a reg, and I wouldn't have been out on the field, but instead we started on a nickel, so I was the first one on the field. My mom was there. She was pretty happy to say so herself, so she was there."
 
On staying locked in during a game with a rotation of players going in…
"Being here at Georgia, they teach you how to focus for longer times. During fall camp we have longer meetings, so your focus stamina needs to be really good. As to when you get in the game, you need to focus on what package is being called, when you're in and when you're out, so as long as you're able to lock in to do what you need to do, you'll be fine."
 
Transcript  and Photo via UGA Athletics Communications

QUARTERBACK
Carson Beck
Gunner Stockton
Ryan Puglisi OR Jaden Rashada
 
RUNNING BACK
Trevor Etienne (still expected to sit this game)
Branson Robinson
Roderick Robinson
Nate Frazier
Cash Jones
Chauncey Bowens
Dwight Phillips Jr.
 
WIDE RECEIVER (X)
Dillon Bell OR Colbie Young
Cole Speer
Jeremy Bell
 
WIDE RECEIVER (SLOT)
Dominic Lovett
Anthony Evans
Sacovie White
Walter Blanchard
 
WIDE RECEIVER (Z)
Arian Smith
London Hummphreys
Michael Jackson
Nitro Tuggle
 
TIGHT END
Oscar Delp OR Ben Yurosek OR Lawson Luckie
Jaden Reddell
Colton Heinrich
 
LEFT TACKLE
Earnest Greene
Bo Hughley
Jahzare Jackson
 
LEFT GUARD
Dylan Fairchild
Micah Morris
Jamal Meriweather
Marques Easley
 
CENTER
Jared Wilson
Drew Bobo
Malachi Toliver
 
RIGHT GUARD
Tate Ratledge
Daniel Calhoun
Michael Uini
 
RIGHT TACKLE
Xavier Truss
Monroe Freeling
Nyier Daniels
 
DEFENSIVE END
Mykel Williams OR Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins
Joseph Jonah-Ajonye
Justin Greene
 
DEFENSIVE TACKLE
Christen Miller OR Warren Brinson
Jordan Hall
Xzavier McLeod
Jordan Thomas
 
NOSE GUARD
Nazir Stackhouse
Jamaal Jarrett
Nnamdi Ogboko
Nasir Johnson
 
JACK LINEBACKER
Chaz Chambliss or Damon Wilson
Gabe Harris Jr.
Sam M’Pemba
Quintavius Johnson
 
MONEY LINEBACKER
CJ Allen OR Jalon Walker
Terrell Foster OR Justin Williams
 
MAC LINEBACKER
Smael Mondon OR Raylen Wilson
Chris Cole OR Troy Bowles
 
RIGHT CORNERBACK
Julian Humphrey OR Daniel Harris
Ondre Evans
 
STRONG SAFETY
Malaki Starks
Justyn Rhett or Chris Peal
 
FREE SAFETY
Dan Jackson
KJ Bolden
Jake Pope
 
LEFT CORNERBACK
Daylen Everette
Ellis Robinson IV
Demello Jones
 
STAR
Joenel Aguero
JaCorey Thomas
Kyron Jones
Collin Gill
 
PUNT
Brett Thorson
Drew Miller
Noah Jones
 
PLACEKICKER/KICKOFF
Peyton Woodring
Charlie Ham
 
SNAPPER
Beau Gardner
Will Snellings
 
HOLDER
Carson Beck
Brett Thorson
Gunner Stockton
 
KICKOFF RETURN
Dillon Bell AND Trevor Etienne
Cash Jones AND Anthony Evans
 
PUNT RETURN
Anthony Evans OR Sacovie White OR Malaki Starks
 
Photo courtesy of UGA Athletics

"Who would you rank as the coaches most important to UGA's success?"
A DawgsCentral user posting under the name PiousMonken posed that question to me in the spring of 2023, and I quickly realized that a good answer would require quite a bit of consideration. 
When thinking about the question, I kept coming back to an old football cliche, "It's not the X's and the O's, but the Jimmys and the Joes that make the difference." I found myself considering the players who suit up on Saturdays. Good gameplans and great play calls are key to the success of any college football program, but they are usually only as good as the personnel executing them. With that in mind, I decided to broaden the scope of the rankings beyond members of the coaching staff. 
It sparked a series of longform articles called 23 For 2023. The premise was simple- Profile the 23 people who were most important to Georgia’s success on the gridiron in 2023. To create such a list, one must make value judgments on what on and off-field assets are most important to a modern college football program. 
It focused on players and coaches within the UGA program. Collectively, the series served as a giant preview for the season ahead. It became a favorite of subscribers, and it forced me to ask questions that I hadn’t before. 
This year, I am bringing the list back once again. Naturally, it will be called 24 for 2024. 
With his former mentor now manning a microphone on ESPN, Kirby Smart is college football’s most accomplished coach. In 2024, Smart will have to navigate significant staff turnover and seismic changes within the sport itself. Georgia came up short of a third straight national championship in 2023, but winning it all this season would give the Bulldogs three titles in four years. That achievement would cement the program as a modern dynasty. 
Whether or not Georgia can reach that lofty pedestal, and how they go about trying to do it, will be largely influenced by the roles these 24 individuals play. 
Today we finish the rankings with #1 Kirby Smart. Let’s get after it…
Previous Entries
#24 - David Hill
#23 - Will a True Nose Tackle emerge for the Dawgs?
#22 - Benjamin Yurosek
#21 - Will Muschamp
#20 - Dominic Lovett
#19 - Jalon Walker
#18 - Chidera Uzo-Diribe
#17 - Daylen Everette 
#16 - Trevor Etienne + #15 - Josh Crawford
#14 - Daniel Harris + #13 - Donte Williams
#12 - Earnest Greene + #11 Stacy Searels
#10 - Malaki Starks + #9 -Travaris Robinson
#8 - Mykel Williams + #7 - Tray Scott
#6 - Colbie Young + #5 - James Coley
#4 - Carson Beck + #3 - Mike Bobo
#2 - Glenn Schumann
#1 - Kirby Smart
It’s a hot August afternoon in Athens, and a football program staffer is sprinting up a hallway…
Throughout this series we have looked back at the professional histories and playing careers of many of the biggest figures in the Georgia Football program. The exercise was designed to help us understand the program on a more granular level, and assess how it has grown and changed to arrive at the current moment. 
The words “Georgia Football” carry more weight now than they ever have. The program has ascended so dramatically that it has its own identity beyond just the players and coaches that makeup the current organization. At this point, it feels almost like a force or an element. It’s a thing possessing great power. There is a certain level of inevitability to its nature.
In my own lifetime, there have been a few programs like that- Nebraska of the mid-to-late 1990’s, Miami of the early 2000’s, USC of the mid-2000’s, The late-2000’s Florida teams of Meyer and Tebow, and the Alabama dynasty of Nick Saban. Those programs became so accomplished that they rose into the national consciousness in a way where even non-sports fans gained awareness of them. Georgia Football is now in that type of place. 
On Saturday, the Bulldogs will face Clemson in their season opener. A victory would give UGA its fortieth straight regular season win, which would be the most since Bud WIlkinson’s teams at Oklahoma won 47 straight games from 1953 to 1957. 
Georgia’s arrival at this moment was unexpected for all except for maybe the most optimistic dreamers in the Bulldogs’ fanbase. Smart’s hire was questioned by many in the national media, and the prevailing thought was that UGA’s firing of Mark Richt was a mistake. 
On the cusp of his 9th season at Georgia, Smart is responsible for the big gigantic thing that Georgia Football has become. The program getting to the point of winning back-to-back national titles and 39 straight regular season games was the result of his vision. He believed Georgia could dominate, and so it did. He built it one piece of scaffolding at a time, with precision, care, and most of all effort. 
The 24 For 2024 series has allowed us to look at the expansion of Georgia Football from hopeful regional powerhouse to national brand. It was Kirby who hired the people that could help him lock down the Peach State. It was Kirby who instilled a culture of composure and physicality. It was Kirby who asked his creation, “Are you elite or not?” It was Kirby who urged it to answer, “Yes.” Next, he looked outward, hiring assistants with recruiting networks in Texas, California, New Jersey and beyond to help ensure winning beget winning. 
 
The disease of more
If you look at the list of college football dynasties listed above, all but one have something in common. They rose to the top, but they didn’t stay there for more than a few years. Saban’s program in Tuscaloosa was the only one that found a way to achieve true longevity. It scaled the mountain in 2009, and it was still appearing in the four-team playoff 14 years later. 
A theme emerges when looking at all of the other iconic programs of college football’s last 50 years. The figures involved built something so grand that it touched the clouds. Then they were quickly consumed by the weight of it all. The story of how that happened for each dynasty has its slight variations, but it was almost always a symptom of living life in the brightest of spotlights. 
Sometimes it was media related- Jealousy of a star or an intense microscope on off-field behaviors. For some, it was simply burnout and exhaustion of a head coach who had given all of themself while building towards a national title. Other programs became so well known that they attracted attention from the wrong kinds of people. Others still suffered from coaching staff brain drain, as longtime assistants were hired away by other schools hoping to find the same kind of success.  
All of them struggled to redefine themselves with so many different people constantly praising the program for what it had already accomplished.
Now, it is Kirby who is responsible for that. 
Georgia has a star quarterback in Carson Beck, and he is likely to receive tons of media attention as the Bulldogs navigate a schedule filled with marquee games. Smart will have to navigate that. Georgia has also been the subject of many articles and podcast segments questioning the culture after a string of offseason driving arrests. Kirby has had to navigate that as well. Above all, UGA must navigate the weight of being UGA. 
Thousands and thousands of words are written and said about every little thing the Bulldogs do. After UGA’s 2021 national title, offensive lineman Jamaree Salyer reminisced on how his team got to the point of being champions. “Running, scaling these stadium stairs. Just getting ready for the battles that this team would endure,” said Salyer. “That dirty hard work in the dark that I know coach Smart knows what I’m talking about, that gave us these results.”
Football teams are formed in the dark, and it gets harder to find it as the spotlight gets brighter. 
The Florida teams of Tim Tebow and Urban Mayer were the subject of a Netflix documentary called “Swamp Kings” that came out in the summer of 2023. The documentary didn’t touch on a lot of the more scandalous stories from that period, but it did take a look at Florida’s 2009 season. Tebow had returned for a senior season after the 2008 national championship, and the Gators were looking to win their third title in four seasons. 
They were the most talented team in the sport, but they were fractured by many of the issues outlined above. Despite the internal dynamics and the pressure of expectations, the Gators managed to keep their #1 ranking all season. They arrived in Atlanta for the SEC Championship at 12-0. There they faced an Alabama team that was also undefeated, and still smarting from a loss to Florida in the SEC Championship game a year earlier. The Tide rolled to a 32-13 victory.
In the documentary, multiple players admitted that Alabama was the hungrier team in that game. The Gators were more talented, but the Crimson Tide were more determined. Tebow, the star quarterback and reigning Heisman winner, said this about the 2009 team, “We were so close to doing it, but we were still trying to match the past versus press on for the future.” 
Kirby Smart was on the sideline as Alabama’s defensive coordinator in that game.. While many Saban assistants came into the program and went onto other jobs in the ensuing seasons, Smart stayed until leaving for Georgia after the 2015 season. He was a crucial part of helping Saban navigate all the potential pitfalls that the program avoided falling into year after year. 
 
Always forwards
As Kirby has prepared for the 2024 season, he has appeared as aware as anyone that the past is a trap for college football programs that have tasted the type of success Georgia has in recent years. 
At SEC media days, Smart said, “I’ve never let a past season’s success or failures inform the next season’s preparation.” That mentality has served Georgia well since winning the 2021 national title, and leaving the past behind has become a central theme of the program’s offseason. Multiple people close to UGA have said that Smart has become obsessed with forward motion. 
Not being tethered to the past is such a mental priority that it has begun to manifest in the physical world surrounding the Georgia football program. Staffers have even become cognizant of his desire to not have his forward motion stopped. There are many things that Kirby Smart has achieved at Georgia, but his greatest accomplishment might be creating an entire organization of people that share his own attention to detail.
Within UGA’s facilities, things have been carefully organized so that Smart, and his team, are never stopped by anything but themselves. At one scrimmage, a staffer fretted over the positioning of a post-practice snack table in the tunnel that Georgia would use to get on and off of the field. The individual made sure that the colleague manning the table had it pressed all the way up against a wall. A clear path must exist at all times. One cannot move forward if one cannot move forward. 
Smart’s process oriented approach of coaching focuses on making sure that every detail is done correctly. The result is not of concern. The result will take care of itself. 
UGA will start 2024 in the same building where its three-peat bid was foiled by an SEC Championship loss to Alabama. It’s the same building the Bulldogs will look to return to for the 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship on January 20th. At noon on Saturday they will kick off their season against the Clemson Tigers in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. 
What will happen over the ensuing four quarters of game time between the Dawgs and Tigers is not of concern. What will happen over the ensuing four month college football season isn’t either. If all goes according to Kirby Smart‘s plan, he will have his program focused on the rep it's about to take. It will not be thinking about the brightness of the lights or how to match the past. It will be focused on the rep that is in front of it. Then they will focus on the one after that. The result Is not of concern. The result will take care of itself.

"Who would you rank as the coaches most important to UGA's success?"
A DawgsCentral user posting under the name PiousMonken posed that question to me in the spring of 2023, and I quickly realized that a good answer would require quite a bit of consideration. 
When thinking about the question, I kept coming back to an old football cliche, "It's not the X's and the O's, but the Jimmys and the Joes that make the difference." I found myself considering the players who suit up on Saturdays. Good gameplans and great play calls are key to the success of any college football program, but they are usually only as good as the personnel executing them. With that in mind, I decided to broaden the scope of the rankings beyond members of the coaching staff. 
It sparked a series of longform articles called 23 For 2023. The premise was simple- Profile the 23 people who were most important to Georgia’s success on the gridiron in 2023. To create such a list, one must make value judgments on what on and off-field assets are most important to a modern college football program. 
It focused on players and coaches within the UGA program. Collectively, the series served as a giant preview for the season ahead. It became a favorite of subscribers, and it forced me to ask questions that I hadn’t before. 
This year, I am bringing the list back once again. Naturally, it will be called 24 for 2024. 
With his former mentor now manning a microphone on ESPN, Kirby Smart is college football’s most accomplished coach. In 2024, Smart will have to navigate significant staff turnover and seismic changes within the sport itself. Georgia came up short of a third straight national championship in 2023, but winning it all this season would give the Bulldogs three titles in four years. That achievement would cement the program as a modern dynasty. 
Whether or not Georgia can reach that lofty pedestal, and how they go about trying to do it, will be largely influenced by the roles these 24 individuals play. 
Today we continue the rankings with #4 Mike Bobo and #3 Carson Beck. Let’s get after it…
Previous Entries
#24 - David Hill
#23 - Will a True Nose Tackle emerge for the Dawgs?
#22 - Benjamin Yurosek
#21 - Will Muschamp
#20 - Dominic Lovett
#19 - Jalon Walker
#18 - Chidera Uzo-Diribe
#17 - Daylen Everette
#16 - Trevor Etienne + #15 - Josh Crawford
#14 - Daniel Harris + #13 - Donte Williams
#12 - Earnest Greene + #11 Stacy Searels
#10 - Malaki Starks + #9 -Travaris Robinson
#8 - Mykel Williams + #7 - Tray Scott
#6 - Colbie Young + #5 - James Coley
#4 - Carson Beck + #3 - Mike Bobo
#2 - Glenn Schumann
“Who?”
That was the reaction of many when Georgia announced the first hire of Kirby Smart’s tenure in December of 2015. 
Kirby had just been hired to replace Mark Richt, and he was helping Alabama’s defense prepare for the 2015 College Football Playoff by day while calling recruits for Georgia and assembling his first staff at night.
When Smart accepted the job at Georgia, he immediately knew one name who he wanted to bring along. It was a young analyst named Glenn Schumann, who was then just 26 years old. At Smart’s first press conference, he told the world that the young assistant would have an on-field coaching job. 
Schumann got his start in the profession as a student assistant at Alabama. His father had played for Bear Bryant, but Glenn didn’t follow his path onto the field. He showed up as a student in Tuscaloosa in 2008 and asked for a role as a student assistant. Nick Saban brought him on board, and he quickly became a rising star on a Crimson Tide staff that was building Alabama into a dynasty. 
Schumann became Kirby Smart’s right-hand man and was promoted to a graduate assistant when he graduated. In that role, he worked with Smart and Saban on installing Alabama’s defense, and he became an in-house expert on the team’s scheme. 
In 2014, Schumann was promoted to Alabama’s Director of Football Operations, but his time as an on-field assistant earned him a reputation as a valuable resource among Alabama’s players. When Saban, Smart and others were busy, Alabama players would go to Schumann with questions about the Tide’s defense. 
When he was hired at UGA, future Butkus Award winner Roquan Smith called Alabama players to try and learn more about the relatively unknown analyst who was going to be his Inside Linebackers coach. According to a 2018 article by Jason Butt in the Macon Telegraph, the Tide players told Smith that Schumann was a guru. When Smith watched film with Schumann the first time he was blown way. The relationship that the two men formed helped Smith understand Georgia’s defense on a deeper level, and that knowledge helped propel him and UGA to a national title game appearance and the 2017 SEC Championship.
Those kind of results saw Schumann go from the SEC’s youngest on-field assistant in 2016 to a co-defensive coordinator in 2019. 
 
Up close with a sharp football mind
Georgia’s assistants aren’t available to the media too often. The position coaches and coordinators speak with the press once during fall camp, but that’s it. The College Football Playoff requires schools to have more availability. All Georgia coaches were made available to the media in the lead-up to UGA’s 2023 national championship game appearance against TCU. For a full hour, Georgia’s players and staff milled around a large room in the back of a convention center in Los Angeles. 
Cameras and microphones swarmed around Kirby Smart, Brock Bowers, Stetson Bennett and others, but with about 15 minutes left in the session I noticed Schumann standing alone off to the side of the room. 
His brain was in full prep mode for the title game. In fact, he was so engrossed in preparing for TCU, and fixing the mistakes that let Ohio State score 41 points in the CFP semifinal, that he wasn’t entirely sure how far away kickoff was. “It is two days, right? I’m just making sure. When you end up playing a game on Monday… It was great for the semifinal because it was, ‘oh, the game is on Saturday.’ The day of the week tells me exactly where we are.” 
Schumann’s answers that day didn’t just open up a window into Georgia’s prep for TCU. They also showed his philosophies on defense and the way UGA plays.
I asked him about CJ Stroud’s long scrambles in the prior game… “One thing we do with every quarterback is watch their scramble drill… He had shown an ability to use his legs… We were aware of the fact he could do that. We still at the end of the day knew we had to go affect the quarterback and make sure we did everything we possibly could in our rush and in our pressures and disguises to try and affect him the best we could… Credit to him and the job he did, but he had shown that in big moments that he would do it and I think he obviously knew that he had to. We knew that he had to. We had to also make sure that you make him play quarterback in the way that he doesn’t want to play quarterback. Credit to him that he is plenty capable of doing it.” 
Put simply, Georgia would rather make a good thrower run than throw. 
Then on the topic of explosive plays… “For about every ten yards of explosive plays that you give up it’s worth about a point. You give up 200 yards of explosives, you probably gave up about 20 points. You give up 300 yards of explosives, you probably gave up 30… It’s not an exact correlation. Obviously there’s outliers there but I think that limiting explosive plays is really important. They might not have hit the home run 70-yarder, but there were too many plays in that game… We define explosives as over 12 yards running or over 15 yards passing and there were too many of those.”
Georgia’s calling card on defense under Kirby Smart has been its ability to stop explosive plays from happening. They play a style that is more focused on forcing opponents to drive the field one small chunk at a time than on creating havoc plays of their own. 
So, how did Georgia fix its defensive errors and go out and deliver a historic performance to beat TCU 65-7 in a national championship game? Schumann detailed the process of looking inward. 
“First thing we do… Was it schematic? Was it coaching based? It could be hey, the scheme was good but it was called at the wrong time. Was it matchup based where we lost a matchup, and if we lost a matchup was it correctable by better technique? Or sometimes you just give them credit on that play or it could be execution based… Then you go and look, and you write up the plays we gave up that we would deem explosives for us… There was a variety. We need to affect the quarterback better. There’s times where we need to get lined up better and we can help that as coaches, giving them the call sooner at times. Then we can also improve at times where a call came in fine and we need to improve our communication. I think it’s a whole big picture more than it’s one thing. We were really good on third-and-long. We were 7 for 8 on third-and-seven plus… Everytime we got them into a hard down and distance we got off the field, and we sacked the quarterback, and we forced bad throws. So we need to do a better job on first and second down defense because when we get to third we did a really good job in that regard.” 
Schumann unknowingly summed up what makes him a special coaching talent when saying, “it’s a whole big picture more than it’s one thing.” Above all, Schumann has shown the ability to retain, contextualize and manage incredible amounts of information. He understands that Georgia’s defense is a living, breathing organism. Nothing occurs in a vacuum. If something goes wrong on the defensive line, it changes things for the secondary.
Georgia has had many stars over the years, but they have all excelled at playing within UGA’s system of team defense. The Bulldogs rarely cut guys loose to chase the QB. They collapse the pockets as a defensive line. They don’t want one player to make tackles in space. They want a gang of red helmets arriving at the ball. 
 
Growing at home
Schumann has answered every question that’s been asked about him as a coach. There was a time where people wondered if he had the ability to recruit at a high level. Rival staffs used his youth and lack of playing experience against him early in his time at Georgia, but his development of Smith turned him into a trusted face in the living rooms of blue-chip recruits. Schumann has signed at least one five-star recruit at inside linebacker in each of the last four cycles, and he has another one committed in the 2025 class. Glenn has turned UGA into the modern LBU, 
At 33 years old, Schumann won his sixth national title as an assistant. His football mind and growing list of achievements have turned him into a coveted figure in the coaching profession. After UGA’s second slight national title, Schumann interviewed for the Eagles DC job. 
Philadelphia was coming off of a Super Bowl appearance, and the chance to interview was originally thought of as good experience for Glenn. He was so impressive that the Eagles thought hard about offering him the job. Schumann bowed out of the process as a finalist, but he would likely be the DC of an NFL team right now if he wanted to be. 
Other programs have come knocking on the door plenty of times over the years, but Schumann remains loyal to Georgia and Smart. In 2024, the two will go through their 17th year coaching together. Schumann has subscribed to the same philosophy he preaches to his players- The team is bigger than one person. 
Georgia sells players on development and learning before becoming the next UGA stars after learning behind the current UGA stars. Schumann could easily be a distraction every offseason, and create intrigue around his next destination. Instead, Glenn stays and learns from college football’s most accomplished active coach. Championships are won by everyone on the Georgia defense doing their jobs and eschewing individual stats. Schumann does that from a coaching perspective. 
It’s similar to the way Kirby Smart handled his time under Saban, and Schumann could one day run his own burgeoning dynasty. Like his mentor, Schumann sees the bigger picture. There was a time when Smart considered the DC job on Mark Richt’s staff. Saban asked him why he’d go to work for Richt when he could likely wait and have the head job at Georgia in a few years. That thinking turned out to be correct. Schumann seems to be in a similar mindset when considering other opportunities. He’s probably not leaving Georgia for anything less than a high-level NFL job or a chance to run his own P4 program. 
 
Here and now
Before any of those options come back up for consideration, the business of the 2024 Bulldogs will need to be handled. Schumann’s LB room might be the deepest he’s ever had. CJ Allen and Raylen Wilson played high-stakes snaps in the SEC Championship as true freshmen. Classmate Troy Bowles could be ready to contribute behind them. Veteran Smael Mondon returns from a foot injury that slowed him down the stretch in 2023. Behind that group are freshmen Justin Williams and Chris Cole, two more five-stars for Schumann’s cupboard. Both are special athletes, and Cole possesses the length to rush the passer off the edge. 
Injuries ran through the position room in 2023, and the Dawgs didn’t meet their usual standard of play at times. This group of LB’s could anchor a rebuilt front seven looking to lead the UGA defense to another national title. A key to that might be hybrid ILB/OLB Jalon Walker. The junior has shown himself capable of getting to QB’s and he could add a dimension to the UGA defense that would represent another evolution of Georgia’s system. Walker can blitz from anywhere, but he can cover RB’s and TE’s in space and spy the QB as well. 
Georgia has always looked to disguise their calls by showing offenses different looks before the snap. Walker could confuse that even further, especially when coupled with Mykel Williams. Williams will still play plenty of snaps as UGA’s 4I defensive end, but he will be freed up to be used as a stand-up pass rusher as well. He and Walker could rush passers at anytime, and UGA will also continue its usage of LB’s as pass rushers. 
All of it opens up lots of opportunities for Schumann, Smart, and the rest of the UGA defensive brain trust to vary their alignments, fronts and personnel. UGA rode the MINT front to the top of the SEC, and took advantage of a generational group of defenders and pattern matching in the secondary to break through with its first national title in 41 years back in 2021.
If it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it. Georgia will start the season with 39 straight regular season wins, but the 2024 team was run on more effectively than any UGA team since 2020. Part of that was youth and injuries, but the minds of Kirby Smart, Will Muschamp, Glenn Schumann and Travaris Robinson are always evaluating things. A lot of those runs went outside the tackles, and that’s how Georgia’s defense is designed. The best coaches put their players in positions that fit their skill sets, and Schumann’s 2024 LB room will feature a fascinating amount of versatility. Will we see another update in alignment or philosophy that puts new tricks into Georgia’s system? We’ll start to get the answers when Georgia starts the season against Clemson on Saturday.

My goodness, this week can’t go any slower. We’re only two days away from the Dawgs taking the field again and every day leading up to the big game against Clemson feels like a week. We posted a VISITORS LIST only two days ago, but it feels like it’s been up forever. Just get the game started and get the recruits in Atlanta already!
Georgia will be the host of six or more five star prospects from three different classes, plus multiple targets committed elsewhere. Of course this game is different from hosting recruits in Athens. The coaches and staff aren’t allowed to have any contact with the guys before, during, or after the game. They can basically come watch the matchup and go home.
It’s still a big deal to see who gets one of the coveted invites and shows who Georgia is serious about recruiting. Obviously all of these recruits are important to try to bring in and build another championship team, but who are the biggest targets? Who are the ones to keep a close eye on?
THE OBVIOUS
Every 2025 recruiting list is going to begin and end with the top two targets left on Georgia’s board, 5* DL Elijah Girffin and 5* DL Justus Terry. Georgia wants them bad. Georgia needs them bad. And Georgia is going to do everything in their power to get these two. I still very much see the Dawgs getting both. We won't include these top overall targets in the list of five since they are going to be discussed every day until they commit.
THE FLIP TARGET
It is very interesting that 4* OL Damola Ajidahun is coming to the game as a Georgia guest not too long after committing to Georgia Tech. That tells us a couple of things. The interest in the Dawgs is still there and the Dawgs are still in communication with him. It will be very interesting to see if this gets to a place where Kirby Smart and company make it a priority to flip the talented offensive lineman.
THE ONE THAT ACTUALLY DID SHOCK THE WORLD
While we didn’t think Georgia was going to be the choice when 4* LB Tavion Wallace announced his commitment, most everyone was shocked when he put on the Arkansas hat instead of the Florida State hat. Maybe everyone underestimated the relationship between Wallace’s older brother and Arkansas defensive coordinator Travis Williams, but will Williams still be there after Sam Pittman and the Razorbacks have what is likely to be another losing season? This is something to keep an eye on as the season progresses, especially with Georgia currently only having one linebacker commit.
THE SOUTH GEORGIA STAR
Most of you guys know by now that I love the players from South Georgia. These guys are just built differently. What better place to look for a second running back in this class than a place where the only thing thicker than a swarm of mosquitos is the football players popping pads under those Friday Night Lights.3* Minnesota running back commit Shane Marshall doesn’t have an offer from Georgia yet, although he’s talented enough to play for anyone in the nation. This is more indicative of playing for a small town school and not going to a lot of camps, showcases, etc. An offer from the Dawgs would very likely change this recruitment fast.
THE FIVE STAR
Georgia has after 2026 5* LB Tyler Atkinson since before his ninth grade year. You’d have to use more than two hands to count the number of times he’s been to Athens. This is your typical top in-state target who Georgia spends 4+ years putting all of their energy into recruiting as a top priority. He’s the one that Kirby Smart makes sure he’s involved with. He’s the one who Kirby Smart refuses to lose. Think KJ Bolden. UGA is in a great spot for Atkinson and being able to watch CJ Allen, Smael Mondon and company fly around the football field in The Benz will only help cement the Dawgs at the top of his list.
THE YOUNGSTER
Why put someone from the Class of 2027 on this list? There is one simple reason. He’s the player who will come closest to the talent and style of play of Brock Bowers that we’ll see in a long time. Comparisons like this may not be fair, but this guy is called “Baby Brock” for a reason. Of course he’s a tight end. He’s from California. He’s already 6’4 220 pounds. He has superior athleticism. And he wears the #19! He’s 5* TE Mark Bowman and he’s a top priority for tight ends coach Todd Hartley. Bowman has already seen the Dawgs in action before and will make the cross country trip this weekend to see them again. That shows a real interest in what Kirby Smart has going on in Athens. Expect to hear Bowman’s name A LOT as we follow him the next couple of years.