Film Room: How the Georgia Bulldogs earned their sacks

In light of Georgia racking up seven sacks and eight quarterback hurries in the stat sheet on Saturday during the Bulldogs’ 30-15 win, a lot of scrutiny went toward both quarterback Quinn Ewers and the Longhorn offensive line.

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Seven sacks is a lot. That was part of an evening where the Bulldogs tallied 10 tackles for loss across Texas’ 76 plays.

Sacks are drive killers and three times on Saturday, those sacks resulted in turnovers. Texas turned the ball over four total times and Georgia was able to score 17 points off of those turnovers.

How did Georgia manufacture pressure and get the quarterback (or the ball) on the ground? The film room takes a look.

Q1: 3rd and 5 (-28)

“The sack fumble on the corner blitz was a communication error at the line of scrimmage,” Steve Sarkisian said Monday. “Quinn thought he was protected on the backside and clearly he wasn’t. So for all the Monday morning quarterbacks who say Quinn was late with the ball, that was incorrect. He thought he was protected, and he wasn’t.”

In search of the miscommunication, it appears the responsibility falls on skill players and not offensive linemen. Georgia changes their front before the snap and Daylan Everette gives the appearance of playing man coverage on Ryan Wingo, the only receiver on that side of the field. The way he’s lined up though should probably have tipped Wingo off that something was up. At no point does Wingo point to Everette to let Jaydon Blue (or anyone) know there may be someone coming off the edge.

It’s a confusing front, and Blue does what he thinks his job should be well. He finds work from inside out and helps get to a rusher in the A-gap. But the line could have taken the responsibility of the rushers at the front while Blue attended to Everette.

Without the play-call it’s not easy to know what the miscommunication was. But Sarkisian identified one here as being the primary culprit as opposed to Ewers himself.

Was Silas Bolden open? He appears to be the second read after Gunnar Helm‘s deep route. The thing is, Bolden is on his way directly into the dropping MLB. It’s a tough call. With half a second more, Maybe Ewers gets to Wingo on his progression but he’s hit by Everette before he can get there.

Q2: 3rd and 7 (-11)

Georgia is playing 2-man coverage. The safeties drop deep, every other DB is assigned a receiver, and the linebackers cover the backs and tight ends.

Isaiah Bond has three players in his vicinity near midfield. DeAndre Moore is being tightly covered by the Star. Helm, the third option on this play, is also swarmed.

On the other side of the field, two players not involved in the play in Blue and Matthew Golden are also being hounded. No one is open and the deep ball is triple covered.

By the time Ewers decides to step up, too late anyway, Kelvin Banks‘ four seconds of blocking Jalon Walker doesn’t turn into five. Ewers had a lane to run through but doesn’t get to that decision in time before Walker is able to trip him up.

Q2: 3rd and 11 (-24)

The Bulldogs shifted their fronts most of the night and tried to time it up with the snap, but this time Ewers waits a second before starting the play and sees Georgia with two linebackers in the A-gap.

Both pressure and it’s a six-man blitz with a six-man protection plus a very small bit of help from Helm. Blue tries to do his job.

“We have another one where the running back gets run over through the A-gap, and the running back is on his back,” Sarkisian said. “He can’t step up, and then Kelvin ends up giving up some pressure.”

Ewers tries to do the right thing and escape a collapsing pocket by moving forward, but there are just too many white jerseys around him. Any throw to Helm would be with a swarm around him and without a platform, a risky move of course.

At this juncture, Sarkisian makes the change to Arch Manning.

Q2: 1st and 10 (+48)

Manning learns quickly how quick Georgia players are compared to UTSA Roadrunners. He’s flushed from the pocket because of poor protection from Cam Williams and DJ Campbell, and Walker tracks him down in the backfield for a sack. One play later…

Q2: 2nd and 21 (-41)

“We have another one where Cam loses his fundamental and technique, gets wiped, and gives up a sack there,” Sarkisian said.

Williams loses the battle with one-time Texas recruiting target Damon Wilson and Walker is there to pick up the football. The fumble puts Georgia in field goal range and gives Kirby Smart‘s crew the chance to enter halftime up 23-0.

Q3: 1st and goal (+9)

The first play after the bottle throwing incident, and the Bulldogs react to the motion. While on first glance this may appear to be an RPO, it’s a play-action pass the whole way as the O-line jumps into pass-sets. Mykel Williams plays this about as good as a player can, but this could have been the play Sarkisian was referring to when he said this.

“We have another one where we don’t block a Mike linebacker coming off the edge,” Sarkisian said.

If this was a RPO, it would be a give to Blue. It’s unknown if Blue even has the capability to abandon the play-fake in order to get to Williams, nor if Banks stepped down to block the wrong player. Hayden Conner and Jake Majors have things pretty well-handled.

Even if Blue made a mistake here, he helped put the Longhorns into the end zone one play later.

Q4: 4th and 6 (+42)

This goes down as a sack and was yet another fantastic play from Williams, who ended the night with two sacks and this forced fumble.

Of course, these are just the sack numbers. According to Pro Football Focus, the Georgia defense generated six QB hits and 17 hurries for 30 total pressures on the evening. Texas dropped back to pass 59 times.

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Half of the Longhorn pass attempts had pressure. Georgia generated pressure on a consistent basis on Saturday and the Texas offense suffered greatly for it.