Georgia football’s offense is trending toward something it hasn’t done for nearly 30 years
The switch in Georgia football offensive coordinators from Todd Monken to Mike Bobo didn’t change the offense the Bulldogs are running or the terminology, coach Kirby Smart has often said.
It’s clear the change in personnel due to departures to the NFL and an assortment of injuries has impacted how heavy the Bulldogs are in the passing game.
Georgia enters Saturday’s game against No. 20 Kentucky having run the ball 48.1 percent of its offensive plays. That’s down from 57.2 percent in 2021 and 53.1 percent in 2022.
The Bulldogs are on pace for their lowest percentage of runs per game going all the way back to 1994 when the team ran just 38.7 percent of the time.
That 6-4-1 Bulldog team with Eric Zeier at quarterback led the nation in passing at 338.3 yards per game.
Hason Graham was 18th in the nation in receiving yards per game and Brice Hunter was 29th.
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Georgia this year is 10th in the nation in passing offense at 332.6 yards per game, its highest total since that 1994 season. The only other season Georgia has hit 300 passing yards a game since then was 2013 when Bobo was offensive coordinator and Aaron Murray was throwing to the likes of Chris Conley, Michael Bennett, Todd Gurley and Arthur Lynch.
“The offensive identity is do what it takes,” Smart said Monday. “I mean that’s essentially what it always comes down to, right? You’d love to have this defined that we’re just going to bully you and run it through you. Nobody really does that. Now Kentucky did it last week against Florida but they haven’t done it every single game that way. They’ve done it different ways. If you have one identity, then that’s probably what they’re probably going to stop.”
This year, Carson Beck is ninth in the nation in passing yards per game after he threw for 338 against UAB and 313 against Auburn. Brock Bowers is eighth in the SEC in receiving yards with 413 and fifth in catches per game with six.
“I knew we had playmakers and I knew we’d find a way to get it to them,” offensive guard Tate Ratledge said. “I thought we’d end up being explosive in the pass game.”
There may be an asterisk with this year’s Georgia run game numbers.
Smart views RPOs — run-pass options — and bubble screens as extensions of the run game.
“In football now, those are runs because they’re run down calls,” Smart said. “We’re running the ball, but we elect to throw it on the perimeter and we get five, six yards. So to us, that’s a run play. To you, that’s a pass play because that’s what the stats say. That’s not the case.”
Smart said after the South Carolina win that a good chunk of throws to Bowers and Missouri transfer wide receiver Dominic Lovett “were catches that were runs.”
It doesn’t help that Georgia had just one scholarship running back carry the ball against Auburn.
Daijun Edwards had 19 carries for 83 yards and two touchdowns.
Wide receiver Dillon Bell had four carries, quarterback Carson Beck three, tight end Brock Bowers one and walk-on running back Cash Jones one.
Bell is Georgia’s second leading rusher in a season when Georgia’s running back group has been decimated by injuries.
Smart said on the radio show last week he thought he’d have a “three-headed monster” with Branson Robinson, Kendall Milton and Edwards.
Robinson was lost for the season to a ruptured patellar tendon. Milton, who has battled hamstring and knee injuries, has rushed for just 38 yards since the season opener. Edwards missed the first two games with an MCL injury but leads the team with 260 rushing yards and 5 touchdowns.
Georgia has a generational talent at tight end in Bowers who is anything but a typical tight end. It lost someone that Smart also views as a generational type player in Darnell Washington, a physical specimen who was like an extra blocker on the field every play
“As far as whether it’s about the backs or not, we don’t cry over what we don’t have,” Smart said. “You figure out what you’ve got and you figure out what they can do.”
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia football passing more than it has since mid-1990s. Here's why
