Georgia’s average of 42.8 points per game and 512.6 yards of offense both rank third in the SEC.
However, there’s still a category that head coach Kirby Smart wants to see increase: explosive plays.
“Am I happy with the offense? Yeah, I’m happy with what we’ve been able to do. Do we want to be more explosive? Yes,” Smart said during Monday’s press conference to preview Saturday’s game against South Carolina (Noon, ESPN). “We want to be more explosive.”
It’s not like there haven’t been flashes of explosiveness, but there haven't been enough, at least in Smart’s eyes.
The Bulldogs are averaging 7.9 yards per play, 10.2 per completion. By comparison, the visiting Gamecocks are averaging 6.10 per play. Yet, South Carolina is averaging 12.1 yards per completion.
“We have a goal of one of every eight plays to be explosive. In this last game, we were 1.1 out of 8.3 so we missed our goal offensively of being explosive. That’s our standard. Some teams may have one of every five. We have one of every eight; that’s our goal,” Smart said. “We just missed it, and they did a good job of coverage, but you make one or two more blocks downfield, and one more play is explosive, you make that goal. We’re always looking to improve. The same thing on defense: not to give up explosives.”
Back in August, Smart said he characterizes explosive plays as anything longer than 12 yards. Against Tennessee, 9 out of the Bulldogs' 70 plays went for 13 or more yards.
Wide receiver Tyler Simmons agrees, noting there’s going to be come a time this year when the offense is going to need to take more deep shots.
“I feel it's a concern to some extent, that we will need those big shots every now and then. If we’re backed up, we’ll need those big shots to get out of those predicaments,” Simmons said. “We’re working to improve every week, and that’s something we’re looking to improve on.”
Just don’t blame quarterback Jake Fromm, or as Smart suggests, offensive coordinator James Coley.
“It’s not a matter of him (Fromm) not reading his keys correctly or us not calling it, because the progressions are deep to short, or short to deep, or across the board,” Smart said. “He (Fromm) does a good job of finding the right guy with the ball.”
Statistically, that’s very true.
Fromm is off to the best start of his career, having completed 86 of 111 passes (78 percent, third nationally) for 1,076 yards and eight touchdowns with no interceptions, the junior quarterback has completed passes to 16 different players during the first five games.
“He’s taking some shots and hits some. We take shots in practice. He has the progressions that he reads, he goes through those projections, and he looks for the right throws,” Smart said. “But being explosive is a lot of things—it’s blocking downfield, it’s winning one-on-ones, it’s speed, vertical speed versus horizontal speed. There’s a lot of things combined in that.”
Defensively, the opposite is true. Obviously, the fewer explosive plays Georgia gives up, the better.
“You look at us defensively in reverse—what are we giving up explosively? Well, two of our explosives this year were busts,” Smart said. “We gave up the play early against Murray State, so we give up a big play in that game on a bust and another really big one in that play on a bust. But we haven’t had a lot of busts in coverage, where they’ve left a guy free or somebody messed up.”
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