Communication key for Georgia as it heads to Auburn

ATHENS, Ga. — Looking for a buzz word in the Georgia Football building this week ahead of the Bulldogs’ trip to Auburn? Look no further than “communication.” Both sides of the ball have harped on it, and there may not be a greater key to victory than being affective in that area.

“We have speakers in our indoor. Coach turns it up loud as you can turn it up…. He makes it super loud in there so when game day comes, it should be easier,” Georgia linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson said. “It’s lower on game days than you expect because our ears are blasted out from Monday through Thursday. That’s what he does, turn the speakers all the way up, just has the little static sound just blasting.”

For Dumas-Johnson and the defense, they have to deal with the loud crowds every time they suit up between the hedges. So far this season, that’s been every week.

After last week’s win over UAB, several Georgia defenders said that they were disappointed with the communication, and that it was something that must be improved. Dumas-Johnson was among those, as was cornerback Kamari Lassiter.

“We’ve got to go back to the doctor on Monday and see what we did wrong,” Dumas-Johnson said after the defense allowed a season-high 21 points to UAB on Saturday. “I know what we did wrong. Lack of communication, lack of urgency, lack of eyes … If you don’t talk, how do you know who’s got who? How do you know what the other man is doing? How do you know where your help is at? Lack of communication, that’s a big part of why people scored. We’ve got to get that cleaned up.”

“We really just want to clean up our overall communication,” Lassiter added. “Coach puts us in very tough, hostile situations (in practice) and makes us communicate on the fly very fast. Keys, checks, stuff like that.”

The Dawgs’ defense does get a bit of a break this week considering they’re on the road. Auburn fans won’t want to make noise while the Tiger offense is on the field – something that should make communication easier on that side of the ball. Flip it over to the offense though, and it’ll be anything but easy.

“I remember going there my freshman year and it was just loud,” tight end Brock Bowers said. “This week is going to be all about preparation and preparing for that …  It’s always a challenge. It’s just a whole different energy going into those big away games. Just kind of being the villain and trying to silence the crowd early. Just get after them.”

Bowers isn’t the only one on offense who has played at Auburn before. Sedrick Van Pran has more pressure on him this week being the man in the middle and having to work silently with the snap count since it’ll be tough on him, and everybody else on offense, to hear quarterback Carson Beck‘s cadence.

“I think the biggest thing is having one set of eyes. That’s huge. Making sure pre-snap you have all your reads, checks are in place, making sure you’re both identifying what’s going on because the more you do that, the more you can communicate non-verbally,” Van Pran said about him and Beck having to work together in the road environment. “If everybody’s on the same page pre-snap, eyes are in the right place, things like that, there’s less verbal communication. Throughout the week, we’re trying to make sure we prepare the right way to have one set of eyes.”

“Ultimately, I think it will be a challenge, but it’s a challenge that you try to embrace as best as you can,” he added. “Roll out there and depend on each other. That’s the biggest things, understanding that each place, each year, each game is all unique and different. So you have to understand to not be overly confident but also have enough confidence to understand that at the end of the day, you’re here to do a job but you’re not doing it alone. You have your brothers with you.”

Georgia feels prepared for the noise. The Bulldogs have been blasting the speakers all week – and all season. In fact, Kirby Smart and the coaching staff might’ve turned them up too loud as Bowers said he was pretty sure they got blown last week.

“We use crowd noise year round. We use it in spring. It’s a great changeup. Coaches can’t coach the players. They don’t necessarily like it because people get a headache, but we’ve done it since the first day of practices since camp. We did it four practices in the spring. We do it all the time,” Smart said. “It doesn’t matter though because the crowd noise doesn’t always create the anxiety, you know? So you can’t simulate that. You simulate the communication it requires. And we play at home in one of the loudest stadiums in the country, so our defense has to communicate during it. I like it doing it both ways. You find out what they know when nobody’s out there yelling and screaming at ’em, so it’s important.”

“To be honest, the fake crowd we’ve got in the indoor, because it’s closed off, it’s really loud. I think it’s louder than any stadium we play in,” wide receiver Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint added. “It does a great job of helping us prepare for the Auburn stadium we’re about to play in. The fans get crazy and wild and loud, so it’s helping us prepare to make our calls and execute even though it’s loud and we can’t really hear.”

Kickoff time for Saturday’s matchup between the Bulldogs and Tigers at Jordan-Hare Stadium is set for 3:30 p.m. ET, 2:30 locally, on CBS. It’s the 128th meeting between the two teams, the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, with Georgia holding an all-time advantage in the series of 63-56-8, including six straight wins.