Georgia special teams going to be an emphasis in fall camp

Special teams is the often forgotten third part of the game. Offense and defense steal center stage, but special teams is equally as important for the Georgia Bulldogs.

Need proof? It was a topic of conversation with head coach Kirby Smart at SEC Media Days. Georgia faces an offseason of uncertainty when it comes to kicking, and the Dawgs are doing everything possible to add the element of return game back into the mix too.

At kicker, Jack Podlesny is off to the NFL. Having held the job the last three seasons since legendary Rodrigo Blankenship left Athens, Podlesny signed an undrafted free agent deal with the Minnesota Vikings back in the spring. Podlesny won SEC Special Teams Player of the Year in 2022, capping off a career in which he connected on 61 of 74 attempts (82.43%) including a career-best 26-for-31 season as a senior this past season.

Without “Hot Pod,” attention turns to Jared Zirkel and Peyton Woodring. Both top-10 kickers in their respective recruiting classes (2020 and 2023), Smart says that the competition will be fierce during fall camp.

“The problem is we haven’t had the young kid there (Peyton), we know what he can do but we don’t get to go out there and work with him over the summer,” Smart said at SEC Media Days. “They kick, and they work amongst themselves, but we don’t go out there and say ‘OK, who hit what from where?'”

“It will be a big focus for fall camp because we will have some pressure kicks in practice to try and decide,” he continued. “It goes back to the year of Rodrigo Blankenship for the last time we had an opening at that position. There will be some battles in fall camp and there will be, ‘OK, we’re on the line and we’re going to run sprints if he doesn’t make’ to try and put pressure on that guy to decide who that guy is. I will say this. I was very pleased with Zirkel. He had his best spring by far, and it will be a good competition.”

Georgia’s also got to replace its holder. Quarterback Stetson Bennett handled the job last season after punter Jake Camarda was the owner of the responsibility since 2018. There’s a couple of candidates to fill Bennett’s shoes, but it’s a decision that probably won’t be made until after the kicking job is settled.

“We have had some, I can’t say competition. We’re trying to determine who our field goal kicker is before the holder. I usually defer to the kicker to decide who the holder is,” Smart said. “I like for it to be a quarterback, not necessarily THE quarterback, but we’ve opened up this year to try Ladd, and other guys back there. Stetson had done it for so long and he made me comfortable with his athleticism and speed. Of course, he could throw, but we don’t know who it is yet. We’ll decide it in fall camp.”

Speaking of Ladd McConkey who factors in as a returner at times, it brings up an area of special teams that hasn’t been featured prominently the last few years. Many punts are simply being fair caught while kickoffs go for touchbacks more often than not. With the likes of Kenny McIntosh and Kearis Jackson gone, there could be some re-evaluation of the goals for the unit as Georgia turns over a new leaf.

“We want to be great at all special teams. Somebody sent me a stat the other day that said every single player that’s been drafted since I’ve been at Georgia has been a starter on special teams. I take a lot of pride in that. We want our best players on special teams,” Smart said. “We have not been superior at kickoff return and if you ask me what makes a superior kickoff return unit, I’d tell you a superior kickoff returner. I’m a big person that believes in trust, decision making, ball security over anything else when it comes to that. Security of the ball is the No. 1 factor. I think we’ve had some games that we’ve dominated that unit. We’ve had some that we didn’t. We’ll figure out who the best is for it, and it’ll probably be based on the same criteria of who’s going to make good decisions, who’s going to protect the ball, who’s going to know when to fair catch it. Those things are critical.”

The Bulldogs, who return Brett Thorson at punter after a freshman season in which he averaged 48 yards per attempt, are less than two weeks away from the start of fall camp and not much further away from kickoff to the 2023 campaign. Georgia opens its season September 2nd at Sanford Stadium against UT-Martin (6:00 p.m. ET, ESPN+/SECN+).