The Bulldogs defense focused on fundamentals in their first practice back on Monday after suffering their first loss of the season, especially on the defensive line with coach Tray Scott.
The first thing that was noticable was that the defenaive line coach was working with his groups on moving laterally and wrapping up when tackling. They ran through this drill multiple times and Scott seemed to get more and more pleased with each rep.
The defensive line then focused on their burst and using their hands to get through blocks. Scott stopped one group during the drill, showed them what he wanted, and then after they did it he excitedly said “Hell yeah!” The group seemed to want to continue to improve and get better and that seemed to be in the air ll throughout practice.
A couple of interesting things to note on the defensive line was that three players were wearing the number 95, which means they are using a few different guys to imitate Kentucky freshman defensive lineman Quinton Bohana, who is listed at 6’4″ 320 lbs. They also had two guys wearing the number 35 to imitate defensive end/outside linebacker Denzil Ware. So the Bulldogs seemed to be placing a lot of emphasis on stopping them.
No major injuries to report. I do not recall seeing Rashad Roundtree out there today, but I may have missed him. Also, defensive lineman John Atkins had his hand wrapped up similar to what wide receiver Terry Godwin had last week as the thumb was what had most of the wrap. However, it did not appear to have any effect on him in drills.
As I mentioned before, there was a large focus on fundamentals and that could be seen with the outside linebackers as coach Kevin Sherrer stopped both Walter Grant and Robert Beal and physically showed them what he was looking for and what they needed to do differently.
The coaches seemed to be looking to perfect their players’ fundamentals and it seemed that the players responded very well. It will be interesting to see where the defense’s focus shifts through the week as Georgia continues to prepare for Kentucky.
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