Aaron Murray believes the Georgia defense's biggest strength is its biggest weakness

The Georgia defense was the most dominant unit in college football last season and a big reason the Bulldogs ended their national championship drought. Although many key playmakers departed for the NFL, former Georgia quarterback-turned-ESPN analyst Aaron Murray thinks they’ll still play fast.

He said that’s Georgia’s biggest strength — but, Murray said, it could also be its biggest weakness.

Nolan Smith and Kelee Ringo are two of the biggest names coming back, and they’ll help with the speed of the defense. However, there are still a lot of new faces joining the party, and Murray said he’s worried the Georgia defense could wind up going too fast at times.

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“Overall, as a defense, the one thing I keep hearing is speed, speed, speed, speed, speed. They’re fast,” Murray said on “Always College Football” with Greg McElroy. “They fly to the football, they’re making plays. But then, when they make mistakes, the issue is they’re making the mistakes pretty fast, as well. So all of a sudden, guys are kind of out of position, trying to do too much, and then you see gaping holes on that side of the football. They’re going to make mistakes. They’re young, they’re inexperienced. But they’re very talented. They have tremendous athleticism. They’re going to make a lot of plays in this defense.

“I don’t think the defense necessarily takes too big of a step back this year. Obviously, it is a step back. It’s hard to replicate what they did on that side of the football last year. But I think there’s enough good pieces at every single level … that return from last year. It’s the rest of the guys catching up and getting up to speed. The good thing for them as a team in general this year, I don’t think the schedule’s very hard. I think it’s a very manageable schedule. I think the offense is going to be relied upon a little bit more heavily than it was last year as those young guys get going on that side of the ball on defense.”

Georgia brought in the No. 3 recruiting class in the country this year, according to the 2022 On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Ranking, and the Bulldogs’ six highest-rated prospects are all on defense. The class’ headliners are five-star defensive lineman Mykel Williams and five-star safety Malaki Starks — the No. 6 and No. 10 prospects in the nation, respectively, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.