As College Football gets in full swing this weekend, Georgia is eyeing an intriguing opener with a ranked opponent in Oregon. It's sure to be a partisan crowd in Atlanta, as the Bulldogs begin their title defense. The most intriguing factor to the game is that Georgia will face a man who helped them win their first national title in 4 decades, last season. Dan Lanning, now Oregon's Head Coach served as the Defensive Coordinator at Georgia, building one of the college's games historically great defenses.
That Georgia defense has seen changes in leadership and heavy turnover in personnel since last season. Kirby Smart is going with a two-headed leadership strategy on that side of the ball. Will Muschamp and Glen Schumann have been Co-Defensive Coordinators. As terrible as Muschamp was as a Head Coach at Florida and South Carolina, he has always been a quality DC and Schumann has been considered a "guru" of a defensive assistant .Georgia is replacing 15 players who were selected in the 2022 NFL Draft, a record for most players in a single draft from a single school. Five of those guys were chosen in the 1st round off of that vaunted defense.
The Bulldog defense will be inexperienced, but years of high level recruiting will keep them stock piled with talent. The defense is expected to have to learn on the job and grow up on a weekly basis throughout the season. But, they likely won't have to be as great as last year's unit, because the offense could well be the strength of this year's squad.
The Dawgs return a ton on that side of the ball and the offense was pretty legit last year, while the defense was historically great and got the headlines. The Bulldog offense averaged nearly 450 yards of total offense and 38 points per game. Yes, I realize the defense created turnovers and put them on a short field quite a bit, but don't sell the offense short. Stetson Bennett may not be an NFL prospect at QB, but he showed immense progress last year from the 2020 season. Bennett's numbers were sneaky good in '21, as threw for 29 TD's and just 7 picks, while averaging 10 yards per completion. Georgia is inexperienced at QB behind them though, as J.T. Daniels transferred to West Virginia in the off season. So the Dawgs will need Bennett to stay healthy.
The Dawgs bring back 3 starters on the O-line, which high level line play has become a staple of the program in recent years. Last season, the O-line ranked 6th in the nation in sacks allowed and third in tackles for loss allowed. With starters back at Center and the right side and talented guys who played snaps but didn't start returning, this year's line should be pretty close to last year's.
Georgia also brings back playmakers at Receiver and All-American TE Brock Bowers. While they also lost a pair of ballers at Running Back, it's Georgia Running Back U., it's always been "next man up" at that position and they seemingly never have any fall off in the backfield.
Many are wondering will Georgia take a step back? Now are that they are the defending National Champs and are the "hunted" instead of the "hunter", how will they respond? Many questions abound because of new faces, but one thing I know is Georgia per capita puts out more high level football prospects than anywhere else. Many of the questions will be answered and luckily for us as people who love college football, we get to see some of those answers unfold as early as week 1. Georgia takes on Oregon Saturday in Atlanta, that game is set for a 3:30 kickoff on ABC.