Georgia OL meeting Kirby Smart's high expectations
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia had some turnover in its offensive line room after winning the 2021 National Championship. It almost had even more.
Two starters left for the 2022 NFL Draft, both were selected. Matt Luke, Georgia’s offensive line coach for two seasons, decided to step down and away from football. Amarius Mims put his name into the NCAA’s Student-Athlete transfer portal with intentions on leaving Athens. Georgia eventually got him back into the fold.
Stacy Searels stepped in for Luke and the Bulldogs had experienced, redshirted players to step in for the two NFL draftees. The Bulldogs have rotated to build depth and they’ve protected the quarterback extremely well for all but three quarters of one game. The run game has consistently gotten better save a big-play skewed performance against Mississippi State last time out.
All in all, the man in charge of it all has no complaints — at least not on the record.
“I think we spoke about it before, I had high expectations of this offensive line from the beginning, and I’ve been very pleased with this offensive line group,” Kirby Smart said on Tuesday. “I try to compare them relative to other offensive lines, not other Georgia offensive lines, other offensive lines we face in the current year. Because collectively, I don’t know that the quality of football right now is as good as it’s been in two, three, four years ago. It’s just hard to find really good quality units in all aspects. That’s across the NFL, it’s across college football, it’s across high school football, everybody you talk to. I’m very pleased with the way our unit has performed.”
The run game was slow to get going early on in the year. Georgia looked clunky up front against Oregon and Samford. It gained some momentum against South Carolina before its worst showing of the season.
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The first three quarters at Missouri were a disaster. Stetson Bennett took shot after shot. The run game hit some chunk plays but was wildly inconsistent. The Bulldogs trailed 13-0 nothing at one point in that game and they were down 22-12 in the fourth quarter before coming alive and winning 26-22.
The next four games were nothing short of stellar. Georgia gashed Auburn, Vanderbilt, Florida, and Tennessee, before the rain had its say in the third quarter and Smart let the air out of the football. It has had over five yards per carry in every game since the Mizzou debacle except for that Tennessee game.
The Mississippi State game had some turning to the vernacular they used to talk about the Missouri game. It was understandable because the Bulldogs from the SEC East couldn’t run it. They did, however, protect the passer extremely well and ran away with the game.
“Could they do better?” Smart said. “Yeah, but I’ve been I’ve been very pleased with the depth, the use of the depth and how hard those guys work. So, I think Stacy’s done a tremendous job with them.”
