Kentucky’s offense is far from scary and is completely one dimensional. Having said that, the one thing they do well offensively is running the football which happens to be Georgia’s weakness on defense.
Georgia is 8th in the SEC in rushing defense and has struggled all season to dominate the line of scrimmage.
“You know, it’s tough in the midst of a season to just magically get better,” head coach Kirby Smart said. “We try to do it through fundamentals, technique, individual block destruction, demeanor, and attitude. But you can’t go out and replace players. We have what we have. We’d love to have some more depth at those positions, but we don’t. And we have to do a better of job of helping the guys we have to be successful, whether that be by scheme or that be by effort or fundamentals. And at the end of the day you have to block protect and you have to tackle. It’s hard to say, well, we’re going to just change all that in one week and get better.”
Georgia had a solid defensive performance against the Gators, but still at times had problems stopping the run especially in short yardage situations.
“When you look at it, 3rd and 1s haven’t been our flavor on either side of the ball and haven’t been as successful as we would like to be,” Smart said. “I think it comes with a combination of things. Sometimes it may be putting too much on one player, asking them to do too much. Some of it is execution. At times we’ve had some really good play calls that we didn’t execute, and then other times it’s on play design and play call that we didn’t do a good job as coaches. I think a combination of those things you have to improve on. Third and short is what you should want to be in from an offensive perspective. Not defensively, but we gotta do a better job executing in those.”
Kentucky brings a new challenge and a lot more talented running back in Benny Snell.
Benny Snell is the leading rusher in the SEC (935) yards and is a nightmare when he can get into a rhythm. The only way Kentucky knows how to move the football consistently is by getting this man the football.
Limit Benny Snell and Kentucky’s offense will have no answer.
The run defense will need to play its best game of the season and really mature Saturday for the Bulldogs to win in Lexington.
“We’re just going to keep working at it,” Smart said. “That’s all we know how to do, and there are no magical defenses that we can call that say, this defense stops every run. It’s not. You have to physically whip a man in front of you, get off a block and go make the tackle. They do a really good job of blocking you, and they have one of the premier guys in the country toting the ball, who’s probably the best I’ve ever seen with his vision. I mean, he never misses a hole. He sets his blockers up, and he does not want to be tackled. You have to go in with a willingness to be more physical than him. To answer your question, it’s not going to be easy. We have to do a good job of playing with a little better demeanor.”