Georgia offensive line puts added emphasis on pushing the pile
Several times this season, and especially in Georgia’s 42-10 win over the Auburn Tigers this past Saturday, the Bulldogs’ offensive line has made tremendous effort plays far down the field, pushing the pile an extra five or ten yards. With Georgia focused on imposing their will against defenses all over the country, “cover downs” may be the best example of the Bulldogs’ desire to take everything they can get from their opponent.
In case you’re still not sure what I’m referring to, here’s an example of one of those “cover downs” against the Tigers. It’s a phrase both Broderick Jones and Xavier Truss mentioned on Wednesday while meeting with the media but one I wasn’t all too familiar with myself before. You see the plays and the effort, but the name, that’s not as well known.
“I think that that’s always been the thing really here at Georgia,” Truss said. “I think it’s always been emphasized, but I think this year just the group of guys that we have, it’s something that’s stressed so much more. It’s part of the game, it’s part of our identity. You’ll hear every day, every play we have a practice you’ll hear Coach Searels and Eddie (Gordon) screaming, ‘Cover down, cover down, cover down!’ So eventually you get secure in it and it’s just secondhand nature. If we can do that every play, that’s really our goal at the end of the day.”
Unlike Dell McGee’s “Dawg Yards,” “cover downs” aren’t kept track of for statistical purposes, but Jones believes that they don’t need to be. Instead, it’s just part of the mentality that the group has to take everything they can from the defense.
“We don’t really measure them, but you know when we looked at it, we were like ‘Dang!'” Jones said. “We go from blocking to running down the field, ‘covering,’ so it just amazes us sometimes. I think we had like three or four last game. That’s just a mindset the o-line tries to have, play physical, cover down, get after it, just basically trying to wear your opponent down.”
According to Kirby Smart, offensive line coach Stacy Searels encourages the group to push the pile downfield as often as possible, and the group has exercised this message.
“That’s something that Coach Searels takes a lot of pride in and I thought the two or three plays, Warren McClendon ignited our entire offensive line because on the play you can see he never broke down. His goal was ‘I’m charging on’ and everybody saw him and it was like, ‘Well, if he’s gonna do it, I’m going to do it,’ and they all piled in,” Smart said. “Really special when you got five guys doing that relentlessly. I would say Warren was doing it relentlessly and the others joined. I don’t know what the yards were, but it definitely helped big time.”
While the majority of “cover downs” only result in a couple extra yards, Jones and the offensive linemen know that anything is possible when a ball carrier is about to be tackled. When asked if “cover downs” were an added emphasis in their first year under Searels’ direction, Jones didn’t think so. He explained how the room keeps each other accountable, even in practice.
“I think that’s just something we pride ourselves on, you know, ‘covering down,’” Jones said. “You never know what can happen, the ball can end up on the ground, or anything. So in practice, that’s our mindset, just cover down always, always there holding your brother up because you know he’s going to run the ball, he’s going to break loose, he’s going to try and run somebody over, be physical. So if we’re able to get down there and push the ball for five, six, seven extra yards, it’s great.”
