Jeremy Pruitt concerned about Georgia defense’s game experience

ATHENS, Ga. -- Jeremy Pruitt has every reason to be excited about what’s returning to Georgia’s defense this season.

Four defensive backs who saw plenty of playing time last year are back. His outside linebacker group is stocked with three quality players, with one in Leonard Floyd who can play three positions. While Pruitt lost starters on the defensive line and at inside linebacker, there are numerous contributors from the 2014 season returning to fill those spots.

But following Monday’s practice, Pruitt lamented the lack of experience on his roster that has him concerned for the upcoming season.

“We’re very inexperienced, first of all,” Pruitt said. “You’ve got (linebackers) Jordan Jenkins and Leonard Floyd, that’s the two guys that have played a lot of football. (Defensive back Dominick) Sanders started every game last year. Besides those three guys, there’s a couple of guys that have started some games here, but other than that, there’s not a whole lot of experience. We’ve tried to define our expectations for the guys daily and create goals that they can accomplish each day so see what we’re building.”

Pruitt could be trying to temper expectations for a defense that does run deep, numbers-wise, at most of its spots. But it’s the game experience, or lack thereof, that Pruitt stressed. Defensive linemen Sterling Bailey, Josh Dawson and John Atkins played in a combined 36 games a year ago but only made a collective total of five starts.

Inside linebackers Tim Kimbrough and Reggie Carter played in 25 games but logged zero starts behind Ramik Wilson and Amarlo Herrera. The fact that Georgia is replacing five key members in the front seven -- Herrera, Wilson and defensive linemen Ray Drew, Mike Thornton and Toby Johnson -- is troubling for Pruitt.

“They’d been around for a while, so it’s going to be hard to replace those guys,” Pruitt said. “It’s hard to just plug 17-, 18-year-old guys in place for guys that are 22, 23 years old. We’re in the process of trying to build our identity, and we have a ways to go with that.”

In the secondary, cornerback Aaron Davis and safety Quincy Mauger started a collective 17 games, with the two totaling 25 games played. Combined with the 13 games Sanders started, there would appear to be plenty of experience, and talent, in the back end.

Both Prutit and outside linebackers coach Kevin Sherrer have said they don’t operate practices with a depth chart. Players are constantly rolled in and out during practice, perhaps to earn more experience within the defensive system. If one player runs with the first team during one practice period, he could be with the third team the next. If one player has a bad week of practice, he might not start that week, despite having started the week before.

“(Pruitt) likes to play by committee,” Sherrer said. “A lot of it has to do with how you practiced that week.”

At this stage of the preseason, Pruitt, at least publicly, doesn’t want to appear comfortable with his defense. Perhaps that persona changes if early season results return in a positive fashion. But as it stands, Pruitt is stating his defense has a long way to go before reaching the level he wants them at.

“It’s a work in progress,” Pruitt said. “The guys are grinding it out every day. Are they where we need them to be right now? Probably not. But they’re working hard at it. We have the confidence they’ll get there.”

This story was originally published August 24, 2015 at 8:35 PM with the headline "Jeremy Pruitt concerned about Georgia defense’s game experience ."