Georgia Football: On to Tennessee
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It’s on to Tennessee. College Football fans across the country have had their eyes on this Georgia-Tennessee matchup for a couple of weeks now, at least since the Volunteers beat Alabama two weeks ago. Now that the Bulldogs and Volunteers are through their respective Week Nine matchups against Florida and Kentucky and both teams are still unbeaten, all the attention can be on the SEC East clash that’ll happen in Athens this coming Saturday.
After his team’s 42-20 win over rival Florida on Saturday, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was asked multiple times about the Volunteers. Normally you’d hear him wanting to keep the attention on the game at hand, however, things were different. Smart was not only willing, but also prepared to answer the questions about Tennessee.
“They run the ball really well, guys,” Smart said in response to a question about if there’s any concern about the way that Tennessee attacks through the air with a secondary that gave up six passing plays of greater than 15 yards Saturday against Florida. “I know you don’t believe me, but they run the ball really well — which is why they throw the ball outside because everybody’s got people inside. They have a perfect storm: they’ve got really fast, elite wideouts, a quarterback with a really strong arm. You know, if they have a quarterback that couldn’t throw it, you’d say, ‘Well, they’re one-dimensional.’ But they have kind of a perfect storm going for his offense, and when he has that it’s really, really, really hard to stop. They go at an elite pace, and they do a tremendous job.”
“Good question. That’s will be an age-old question. I think every defensive coordinator across college football is trying to figure that out. We’re all searching,” he added, asked about how he’ll try to get his team prepared for the pace that the Volunteers go at this week during practice. “There’s no way. Let’s be honest, you can two-huddle, three-huddle, shotgun huddle, go against air but they do it and they do it really well. It’s really hard to defend.”
Tennessee came into the week with the nation’s No. 1 scoring offense averaging over 50 points per game. A 44-6 win over Kentucky on Saturday night will drop that number but has everybody’s attention. Conversely, Tennessee’s defense was averaging 30.5 points per game allowed when playing against Power Five opponents.
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On the flip side of things, Georgia entered Saturday as the No. 1 scoring defense against Power Five opponents and No. 2 overall. The Bulldogs also bring to the table a top-10 scoring offense to counter Tennessee’s seemingly one-sided attack.
Overall, Georgia and Tennessee account for 10 top-10 spots in scoring, total, rushing and passing offensive and defensive rankings including the 1 and No. 2 spots for total offense.
Kickoff for Saturday’s clash is set for 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS, but there are a couple of big things happening before then. First, the announcement of the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season comes on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. ET. There’s a possibility that Georgia, ranked No. 1 in the most recent AP and Coaches polls ahead of No. 3 Tennessee, could find itself behind the Vols. Then of course to get game day started, ESPN’s College GameDay and SEC Network’s SEC Nation will be on site in Athens Saturday morning.
