In one week, Georgia opens its 2022 season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium against Oregon. By that time, Kirby Smart should know what type of team he’s going to have.
Smart’s defending national champions enter the 3:30 contest on ABC as 17-point favorites, but knowing how Georgia’s head coach feels about point spreads, that doesn’t give him much comfort.
Speaking with Buck Belue on 680 The Fan last Thursday, Smart expressed those concerns.
“It’s new every year. You never get comfortable with a first game, because you don’t really know what kind of team you have,” he said. “The one thing I’ve learned is to expect the unexpected. You don’t really know until you get to that first game exactly how guys are going to respond. I didn’t know exactly what kind of team we had last year until we played Clemson, and you find out early when you play a team of that caliber.”
The gamesmanship has already begun.
Former Auburn quarterback Bo Nix is expected to start Saturday’s game for the Ducks over third-year player Jay Butterfield and redshirt freshman Ty Thompson, although former Bulldog defensive coordinator and Oregon head coach Dan Lanning wouldn't confirm that.
“I’m not telling you,” Lanning told Oregon beat writers when they asked.
“The only reason I'm not really talking about it with you guys is I don't know why that's an advantage for us," Lanning said, later adding. “If I felt like it was an advantage, I would tell you guys. I don't. When you guys see that first snap, we'll see who's out there on the field.”
Assuming it's Nix, he’ll certainly be no stranger to the Bulldogs.
Georgia is 3-0 against the former Auburn quarterback. In those three games, Nix has completed 72 of 128 passes for 639 yards with just one touchdown and two interceptions.
Although Smart has more questions he needs answered, he’s happy his Bulldogs will be figuring it out against a team the caliber of the Pac-12 Ducks.
“It's always been my philosophy to go play quality opponents, Power-5 opponents, a good matchup. I don't care if it's home-and-home. I don't care if it's a neutral site. Go play a good team that helps your team get better. When you play in the SEC, you're going to run the gauntlet anyway. What's playing one more, good, physical team?” Smart said. “We don't run from that at Georgia. We try to embrace that. Our fans want that; I want that. It generates a lot more excitement, and you recruit off that. You go and get to sell the opening game, playing in big-time games. I think that's important.”
Despite the 17-point spread, there’s one area of next Saturday’s game that Smart is truly anxious to see.
Winning the line of scrimmage is a major key in any game. That will be especially true as it pertains to Georgia’s defensive front against an experienced Oregon offensive line.
The Bulldogs’ losses up front have been well-documented, with three of those players—Devonte Wyatt, Jordan Davis, and Travon Walker—now in the NFL as first-round picks.
While Smart feels good about his team’s depth at the position, he’s got no idea how the group will respond against what could be one of the best offensive lines his team will face this year.
“Absolutely, it is a big matchup. They have 85 or 90 percent of their snaps coming back across the offensive line,” Smart told Belue on 680 The Fan. “That’s really incredible when you think of five position players with the majority of playing time back. That’s a strength of those guys that we have to try to answer, and our guys have to play physical up front.”
Can the Bulldogs' defensive front be as physical as Smart wants? We will see.
“It’s not the three first-rounders we had last year, I can promise you that. It’s a group that will do it by committee, they will work really hard, they will play hard,” Smart said on his Thursday night’s coaches show. “We’ve got good depth, but we obviously don’t have the quality at the top we had last year. We don’t have three first-rounders across our defensive line, so we can’t ask them or expect them to do what last year’s group did.”
