In the race to prepare for 2020 season, Georgia has ground to make up on offense
Experience has never been more important for a football team than it is right now.
With the COVID-19 pandemic wiping out many colleges’ spring practice and part of summer workouts, teams are losing out on time normally used for developing players and, in the case of Georgia’s offense, installing new schemes. With that being the case, veteran players will play an even bigger role in the success of their teams this fall.
“We have obviously been shortened in terms of spring practice, in terms of meetings, in terms of summer conditioning we are already being shortened, so a lot of those things have shortened us and we will have to be wise in the decisions we make,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said during a Thursday Zoom call with reporters.
The Bulldogs are allowed to report back to campus and resume workouts June 8, and they will need to gel quickly in order to develop championship-level chemistry. As far as experience goes, however, the two sides of the ball couldn’t be more different.
Defensively, Georgia is loaded with veterans who have played key roles. Eight of the top 10 tacklers return from last year’s team, including top tackler Monty Rice and third-leading tackler Richard LeCounte.
The secondary loses only safety J.R. Reed from the starting lineup, while the linebackers saw only second-leading tackler Tae Crowder depart. The Bulldogs did lose four seniors from the defensive line, but an experienced group at a rotation-heavy position should be able to remain stout.
That much returning talent should be enough to keep Georgia’s defense near the top of the national rankings. On offense, however, new faces abound.
The Bulldogs lost their starting quarterback, top two rushers, second-leading receiver, top two tight ends and four starters from last season’s offensive line. Because of the pandemic, that group didn’t even begin to go through the process of scheme installation.
“We don’t even know the threshold or the capacity of some of our players,” Smart said. “We did not get to go through spring ball with necessarily some of the positions, especially on offense, of guys to see what they can handle.”
Further complicating matters is the turnover at offensive coordinator. Todd Monken brings in a new playbook and a new philosophy, but he hasn’t seen his players in person since the middle of March to further aid the installation process. That lack of interaction could be a huge setback for new starters.
Transfer quarterback Jamie Newman is believed to be the favorite to land the starting job. J.T. Daniels, who announced Thursday he was transferring to Georgia from Southern Cal, would factor in if he’s granted an eligibility waiver.
For now, Smart is left trying to figure out how much to put on his players’ plates.
“Our jobs as coaches is to try to determine what that volume is,” Smart said. “Have we said, ‘OK, are we only going to put 50 percent in, we are only going to put 70 percent in, we are only going to put 90 percent in.’ I can’t say that.”
Those decisions will become more concrete as June 8 approaches and then passes. The coaches will do all they can, but it will be the veteran players who will determine how the 2020 Bulldogs will fare at the end of an offseason of chaos.