georgia football pass rush florida

Kirby Smart knows Georgia’s pass rush hasn’t been as ferocious as it was a season ago. He acknowledges it has to get better as the Bulldogs navigate the trickiest part of their schedule.

Last year, led by a defensive front that featured multiple first-round draft picks, the Bulldogs finished the season with 49.0 sacks, good for fourth in the country. Heading into the Florida game in 2021, Georgia had notched 24.0 sacks already.

The Bulldogs have just 7.0 at this point of the 2022 season.

The talent drain is part of the reason for the drop-off. As Kirby Smart mentioned all offseason, this isn’t a defense with five first-round draft picks, as was the case last season. Georgia has also been missing Jalen Carter for the better part of the past three games as he deals with an MCL sprain.

But personnel isn’t the only reason for the change. Teams are also playing Georgia differently, doing their best to get the ball out quicker this season.

“There hasn’t been a lot of opportunities, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do a better job,” Smart said. “We’ve studied that really, really hard, in terms of just looking at ourselves, and we’re telling them, ‘Hey, it’s 2.6 seconds that you have to get there by.’ So, you have to get there in 2.6 seconds or you have to affect the throw.”

Smart added that only the game against Auburn saw a team hit over 3.0 seconds per pass and the Georgia coach pointed out those numbers were inflated by Robbie Ashford’s scrambling ability. Georgia did not finish with a sack in the 42-10 win against Auburn.

To this point, edge rusher Nolan Smith is the team’s top pass rusher. He’s notched 3.0 sacks including one this past weekend against Vanderbilt.

The Bulldogs had to replace four of the five players that posted more than 5.0 sacks last season. While Jamon Dumas-Johnson has done well in stepping in for Nakobe Dean, he isn’t a Butkus Award-winning blitzer just yet for Georgia. The same goes for Smael Mondon as well.

Georgia will take on more potent passing offenses in the coming weeks, as the Bulldogs face Anthony Richardson, Hendon Hooker, Will Rogers and Will Levis in the upcoming four-game stretch.

All four have NFL-level talent and options on the outside to really test the Georgia defense.

No matter how quick those quarterbacks pull the trigger, Smith knows the Georgia pass rush has to deliver.

“Eventually it’s going to be that time when some people are really going to try to take those deep shots and really go downfield and we’re just going to be prepared for when our number’s called,” Smith said. “Just keep working week in and week out. Just trying to affect the quarterback. If we can’t sack him, then affect him. If we can’t affect him then we don’t even need to be out there.

“So we can’t really get frustrated. We’ve got to keep working. I know that’s what me and (Robert) Beal harp on.”

Tennessee is coming off a 52-point performance against Alabama, while Florida scored 35 points in a loss to LSU. Those two foes, next on Georgia’s schedule, have offenses that can test a Georgia defense that has done everything well, with the exception of sacking the quarterback. The Bulldogs rank in the top 15 in scoring defense, rush defense, yards per play allowed, third-down conversion rate and fewest plays of 10-plus yards allowed or more.

Sacks aren’t everything to this season, as good pressure is often just as impactful as a sack. Quarterback pressures are down as well compared to last year, with Georgia having just 84 to this point in the season compared to 142 at this point last year.

Georgia has made life difficult for opposing offenses. But as the schedule gets tougher, Georgia knows it will need to ratchet up the pressure during the closing stretch.

“It needs to get better, but we need an opportunity,” Smart said.

Nolan Smith talks Georgia football pass rush

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