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ESPN’s David Pollack speaks candidly about UGA defense
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ESPN’s David Pollack speaks candidly about UGA defense
Georgia’s defense last year was one of the best in NCAA history, and the main reason why the Bulldogs won the school’s first national championship since 1980.
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Oh Ye of little faith! Barring significant injuries this Team definitely has the talent and Coaching to beat bama in the SECCG and win the CFP National Championship in 2022.
Hmm, on average CKS scoring defense at UGA, averages around 16 pts/gm, which would rank as a top 10 defense every year. When you compare this upcoming season with the same period last year you can see that media expectations are higher for this UGA defense than they were last season. Last season nobody projected UGA to have five 1st round NFL players taken in the draft. The most mentioned UGA 1st round prospects included JT Daniels, Pickens, Nolan Smith & Adam Anderson and none of those projected players were actually selected in the 1st round. This season the media are mentioning Nolan Smith, Jalen Carter and Kelee Ringo as potential 1st round picks on the UGA defense. So, in fact the media expectations are for a more talented UGA defense this season than they expected UGA to field last season.
I believe this years defense will allow six to seven more points per game. We have talented, high caliber athletes playing defense this upcoming season - thanks to Kirby's recruiting prowess. Doubt not! GO DAWGS!!! GATA!!!
One thing that stood out to me last year was our speed around the line of scrimmage and in the offensive backfield -- epitomized by Channing Tindall chasing down QBs and Travon Walker stopping RBs even before they could BEGIN to get to the outside. This was partly made possible by other things, such as Nakobe's field generalship and their confidence that Davis was plugging the middle. But time and again SPEED closed the gap between defenders and the ball handler.
This year, I'm sure that Smith will do an excellent job of taking over field leadership, while Carter and League may prove just as formidable as Davis and Wyatt. In general, reads may be a bit slower because our front seven won't have as much experience. But I'm eager to see if we get something close to the speed we had last year from edge rushers and inside linebackers.
Thats not what he said, he said we had a historical defense last year and that we will probably be 10 points worse and take a step back. Our defense is going to be good, but a lot of players will be 1st year starters and it will take them a little while to gel together. Nothing about beating Bama or not able to win the SECCG or NC.
Biggest needs on D: Better coverage by DB’s and LB’s must step up in replacing Dean, Walker, Tindall.
I tend to agree with this analysis, except I expect the "increase" will be 6 or 7 points. I have some questions about last year's defensive stats that someone with the data can probably answer easily. 1) PPG allowed by UGA average and PPG average scored by all of college football; 2) The same two statistics for previous "great" defensive units; 3) PPG allowed by UGA average against teams not in the championship game; 4) The same stat for previous "great" defensive units; 5) Average margin of victory for all "great" defensive units. I believe that those stats will show both that the 2021 UGA defense was truly great, and that the 2021 UGA offense was more potent than what most think. I could not believe how dominant our defense was, given the great increase in offensive scoring across all of college football in the last 10 years. And, as was mentioned in another article, when your defense dominates, you don't need to score in the second half. UGA's offense came through in the 4th quarter of the national championship game while the defense shut down a very prolific offense.