Kirby Smart: Tennessee's offense 'causes errors for sure'

It’s not often a head football coach is asking about dealing with crowd noise inside his own stadium. But that’s where Kirby Smart found himself Wednesday morning on the weekly SEC coaches teleconference.

How does his Georgia team plan to handle the noise at Sanford Stadium when Tennessee’s uptempo offense is running plays as quickly as it possibly can?

“Well, it’s like that every home game,” Smart said. “I guess you could say, ‘Oh, well, it’s going to be louder.’ But when you can’t hear, you can’t hear. We’ve played in games and we’ve pumped crowd noise in for the defense every day all year because we know we’re going to play at home, and we know we’re going to play on the road. 

“We try to force communication year-round, and even in walk-throughs, just to get used to communicating without (being) verbal.”

Tennessee (8-0, 4-0), which made its debut as the No. 1 team in the College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday night, visits No. 3 Georgia (8-0, 5-0) on Saturday in a 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time kick in the SEC Game of the Week on CBS.

Vols are No. 1 in scoring offense, averaging 49.4 points

The matchup pits a Tennessee offense that is No. 1 in the country in scoring, averaging 49.4 points per game, against a Georgia team that has college football’s No. 2 scoring defense, giving up just 10.5 points per game.

“They do a good job of everything … matchups, tempo — I mean, it’s a combination, right?” Smart said. “It’s not just one thing. Good football players playing in space, and physical and fast.”

Redshirt senior quarterback Hendon Hooker is the Heisman frontrunner, passing for 2,338 yards while completing 71.2 percent of his passes. He’s thrown 21 touchdowns against just one interception.

“He’s got great composure and poise in the pocket,” Smart said. 

Wide receiver Jalin Hyatt has already broken Tennessee’s single-season record for touchdown receptions, with 14. He has 11 over his last four games, including five touchdowns catches against Alabama, a single-game record for the Vols.

Hyatt in one game accounted for a third of the 15 touchdowns that Alabama has allowed this season. Opponents through eight games have yet to solve the extra wide splits used for wide receivers in second-year Tennessee coach Josh Heupel’s offense.

“It pulls you away from the box,” Smart said of the alignments. “There’s no half-in, half-out. You’re either all-in or you’re all-out. It doesn’t allow you to hide and disguise things. It makes you play, and it’s been that way for a long time with them. I mean, (Heupel) did some of the same things while at Missouri when he was there.”

Tennessee offense forcing ‘split-second decisions’

Georgia’s defense will have to make plays Saturday, with control of the SEC East on the line. The Bulldogs will have to stop what so far has been an unstoppable Tennessee offense.

“It’s probably a combination of things that you’re playing,” Smart said of the problems presented by the Vols. “The pace of play is really fast, so it requires elite communication. And you’re facing things that you don’t normally face, so maybe whatever you play all year, it’s not the same. 

“And so, then, when you change something, any time you change something, you create confusion. It would be the layman’s purpose to say, ‘Hey, don’t change.’ Well, you have to change, because they force you to change because they have a different style offense. 

“When you change and you don’t communicate well in the heat of the moment, “ Smart added, “and you’ve got to make split-second decisions, which could be 2-3 seconds between plays, it causes errors for sure.”