Kamari Lassiter reveals Georgia's key improvements in secondary

Kamari Lassiter and Georgia have a tall defensive order on Saturday. The Bulldogs secondary are tasked with handling Marvin Harrison Jr., CJ Stroud and the rest of the Ohio State passing attack when the squads face off in the Peach Bowl in a College Football Playoff semifinal.

The cornerback and his teammates are feeling confident they’ll be up to the task. Lassiter and Co. have handled the likes of Tennessee and LSU’s receivers already this season and came out victorious.

“In the secondary, we’ve just been harping on technique and working on our base coverages. Working on, you know, Day 1 things and just mainly technique and gaining more confidence and stuff like that,” Lassiter said.

Georgia ranked 14th nationally in passing yards allowed per attempt and only allowed opponents to score 11 times through the air. There’s no doubt the Bulldogs are up to the task, but Ohio State and the Buckeyes high-flying offense will surely have their own ideas of how things will go.

Kirby Smart emphasized conditioning, tempo ahead of the CFP semifinal

Come Saturday evening, it will have been four weeks exactly since Georgia last played. Fittingly enough, the last venue the Bulldogs played in was the same Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta when Georgia bested LSU for the SEC Championship.

Speaking with ESPN’s Holly Rowe as his team arrived in Atlanta, Smart said that the biggest difference between then and now is the long off period for the players — though it certainly wasn’t an issue last year when Georgia waxed Michigan in the Orange Bowl.

“Well the different part is we haven’t played in a while. So I think the time off and the break for Christmas. They’re excited, big opportunity. Only four teams left and a great opponent like Ohio State, that motivates you,” Smart said.

As for the specific challenge at hand, Smart said it’s mostly making sure their players are in the right shape to keep up with a fast, athletic Ohio State offense.

And Smart couldn’t have been clearer with his answer.

“Condition. Condition. Condition,” Smart said. “They’re going to go fast, they’re an up-tempo team. They use it a lot. We gotta do a great job of being in great shape so we can play our players and play a lot of snaps. But they do a great job. And we’ve got to try and control that tempo by how we play.”

The layoff problem does cut both ways, for what it is worth. Ohio State has had a longer layoff — five weeks — last playing the final Saturday of November and not advancing to the Big Ten Championship game.

The break certainly gives players time to get their legs back under them and heal up from nagging injuries, but Smart is keenly aware it can mean losing a bit of an edge, too.