Under Coach Smart and his staff, the Georgia defense has taken a step forward every season because of his coaching ability to develop players, and his ability to recruit talent from all over the world to come to play at the University of Georgia. Smart has been signing four and five-star recruits at an unbelievably high rate. In Coach Smart's first three recruiting classes (2017,2018,2019) Smart has signed 15 five stars. Which is one of the contributing factors of what makes this Georgia team so good. Georgia under Coach Smart is becoming a National Championship contender every season. Which under Richt in his final few seasons, Georgia was just lucky to win the SEC East. Coach Smart and his staff have recruited linebackers, safeties, and defensive backs at a high rate. Smart has signed linebackers exclusively for the past four years, as he has been able to pitch to them about the past UGA linebackers who came into the program and developed into an NFL ready career. Players like Roquan Smith and Leonard Floyd, Thomas Davis have all came from Georgia and went onto NFL careers. Kirby was the coach for one of them, but still, it is a great heritage at linebacker. The same can be said for the secondary, as Smart played at Georgia as safety and became an All-SEC Safety in time at Georgia. Smart then went on from a playing career to coaching the defensive backs and being the defensive coordinator to the greatest coach of all time, Nick Saban. Who wouldn't want to play for a man that has brought in and developed so many defensive backs in his coaching career? Then we look at the defensive line which hasn't always been the best attribute of Georgia's football program. It is very rare that Georgia gets a transcendent defensive line talent, the last one was Geno Atkins. Atkins has gone on to a career in the NFL and is being successful. But that is not enough to pitch to a five-star lineman. The defensive lineman is always one of the last priorities on Georgia's list when it comes to recruiting new talent. The list goes Quarterback, Offensive Line, Running Back, receiver, defensive back, safety and then we get to the defensive line. Now that is nothing against Georgia for the way they set their priorities because they are being very successful in the way they are recruiting. But it is rather an explanation for why the defensive line hasn't been producing like expected. When I asked Brent Wilson of Bulldog Maven, he said this, "Georgia has never really been a place that develops a lot of defensive linemen. It’s harder to recruit the best defensive linemen when the program hasn’t been known for it. But, you can definitely see they are turning the corner. Tyler Clark has been the stud of Kirby’s first full class. I’m a firm believer Malik Herring is going to come alive. Jordan Davis has been a beast so far, and they recruited one of the highest DL in school history in Travon Walker." Wilson makes the exact same points that I have been trying to make. He then added this, "Also have to remember Georgia runs a 3-4 base defense. There are more linebackers on the field than defensive linemen, so you’re going to see more production out of the linebackers." Wilson is speaking 100% truth about the whys. I then looked for a second opinion that might give another reason, so I turned to another contributor, Stepfan Salter a military veteran, and he said this "Under Tucker in 2016 - Played in multiple fronts, with blitzes, and the secondary killed us. In 2017 Multiple Fronts, blitzes, secondary killed us. 2018 - Stayed in basic a 3-4. A banged up D line scheme required punch, shed blocks to keep everything in front to protect the secondary. Couldn't establish the edge basically, the defensive coordinator kept them in bad fits & schemes. " Nothing against Coach Tucker, but Salter is right for the first two years Georgia had a pretty average secondary that if exposed would be a liability for the defense. Tucker wanted to play aggressive up front but couldn't because of a weak secondary. So just like any good coach would, in 2018 he tried to keep away from blitzes and help out the secondary a little. And it did wonders for the secondary last season, as they looked a lot better. But still in big games, the secondary looked tired going into the fourth quarter and they couldn't hold it together. Never mind the fact that the offense went stagnant. This Georgia defensive line will not change unless we start getting highly touted recruits to come in and play in that front. Wilson said that he has been very high on Herring, Davis, and Clark. So if those three guys can produce numbers this year then there is no doubt in my mind that we will win the National Championship. But it could also be the play calling at times, we saw the difference in the defense against Alabama. Tucker was sending the pressure and forcing quick decisions very early on and it worked for 3 quarters. But the defense got tired. Coach Lanning needs to find a balance so that doesn't happen again. We need our defensive line just like we need our offensive line. Brent Wilson: ContributorFollow on Twitter @RodrigoSpecs Stepfan Salter: ContributorFollow on Twitter @StepfanSalter
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Harrison Reno
Is the founder and author of Top Dawg Blogging. Harrison has been blogging for the past 4 years Archives
April 2020
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