How to fix the Georgia offense
Kirby Smart emphasized two things to his team heading into the matchup with Clemson: composure and attention to detail.
The Bulldogs had the composure part down throughout the 10-3 win over Clemson. The details, however, escaped Georgia early and often.
It's that aspect of his team's performance that Smart wants to fix ahead of his team's next contest against UAB.
"We had a lot of bad discipline eyes, undisciplined decisions, missed blocks," Smart said. "You think that’s just on offense, that’s not the case. We had a lot of busts that we didn’t see during the game defensively that really could have cost us and haunted us if we’d been exposed on it. Moving forward, we’re really concerned about that."
The miscues showed up especially on offense, where the Bulldogs mustered just three points. Missed blocks, improper alignments, not converting on third down - it all added up to a mediocre performance.
Smart gave an example of a run play where three players didn't execute properly. Freshman tight end Brock Bowers missed a block, redshirt freshman receiver Arian Smith lined up in the wrong place, and freshman receiver Adonai Mitchell blocked the wrong defender.
"We have to make sure that doesn’t happen again," Smart said. "It happens once, nervous energy, different things, you miss things. These guys are going to grow and get better and we’re going to develop them from it. But my expectation is they do it from day one all the way through."
Run blocking also saw its share of mistakes. While pleased that the Bulldogs were able to run the ball when needed against Clemson in the closing minutes, there were plenty of modest gains that could have been bigger if properly executed.
Junior Warren Ericson played most of the game in relief of an injured Tate Ratledge. On film, he saw runs that could have been explosive had the linemen maintained proper eye discipline or employed better technique.
"Having played them, you have to be precise to be effective against them," Ericson said. "Credit to them and how they played. The details were everywhere as we went through the game. We just had to try to hone in on everything we could."
Ericson said he's not disappointed in all the little details that could have been better. Rather, it excites him knowing how close the Bulldogs are to being that much better on offense.
There were some good moments, to be sure. In addition to the final drive where they ran the ball at will against the Tigers, Smart thought his team did a good job of protecting quarterback JT Daniels and avoiding third-and-long situations. The Bulldogs just didn't do all that consistently enough to put up more points.
Smart chalked up the mistakes up to several factors - youth, inexperience, nerves playing in a huge game. He sees both the positives and negatives as he looks for Georgia to tighten things up moving forward.
"It frustrates me because I’m like, 'We did that, we practiced that, we showed that look. How can you see yourself doing it here and then not doing it here?'" Smart said. "But it also excites me because it’s not a lack of ability. Some coaches have to go out and coach and they couldn’t do any better than they did. That’s not the case with us. We have the ability."
