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Georgia football offensive line eager to fix all the ‘small things’ heading into South Carolina game

ATHENS — All the, small things. Missed cues, missed reads.

Say it ain’t so, the offensive line has to grow. Worry not though, Georgia isn’t so.

For some of the concerns about the Georgia offensive line, Georgia coach Kirby Smart is more likely to sing “Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na,” than fret too much over the group after the first two games.

The Bulldogs averaged 4.0 yards per rush on Saturday, though that number would’ve been 4.6 had Stetson Bennett not taken a 17-yard sack. Add in the red zone issues that saw the Bulldogs kick more field goals than score touchdowns and the offensive line is under a microscope heading into Week 3.

Smart mostly downplayed any long-term concerns about the offensive line, even before he had a chance to review the tape from Saturday’s win. He scoffed at the idea that Georgia rotating so heavily on the offensive line had any negative impact on the unit.

“I think that’s a little overrated,” Smart said. “You’re doing your job. He’s doing his job. It’s not like they speak a different language. The pieces, they practice all week that way. I think it gives us more stamina, more depth, more ability to go fast. But at the end of the day, there better not be much difference in the guys if you’re going to play them all.”

Related: ‘We can be 10-times better’ Georgia football offense knows it needs to be better after Samford performance

Smart did later joke in his Monday press conference he was more worried about how his team would execute combo blocks than where it is ranked at the moment. He was making a joke, but perhaps there is a kernel of truth in his jest.

The members of the Georgia offensive line expounded a little bit more on the state of the group’s play. They didn’t come out and say that their work sucked on Saturday but they know they’re capable of playing better.

“The first week I thought we played really well. Last week I don’t think we played to our standard,” Warren McClendon said. “We have some things we need to fix, some things we need to prevent from happening and some pre-snap things we need to get better at,” McClendon said.

With all the shuttling in of Amarius Mims — he once again entered the game at right tackle on Georgia’s third drive of the game — Georgia has gotten taken to playing McClendon more on the left side of the line in addition to starting at right tackle. It’s clearly a move to help further develop depth.

Smart did call the offensive line’s depth as one of the strengths of the team. Having nine guys that could reasonably start is undoubtedly a positive for the team, especially as injuries mount over the course of the season.

The issues were most apparent in the red zone on Saturday, with Georgia settling for four red zone field goal attempts. Kenny McIntosh has just 33 yards on 12 carries thus far, good for a very inefficient 2.75 yards per carry. He’s been Georgia’s leading receiver through two games, but the Bulldogs have been unable to create many explosive runs with him in the backfield.

The Bulldogs have found slightly more success when Kendall Milton has carried the ball, as he’s turned 18 carries into 135 yards to this point. But the success of the Georgia rushing game, or really the discussion of it, can’t be boiled down to looking at yards per carry or other stats.

“I think people look at statistics and that’s all they look at,” Smart said. “You know, when you talk about passing and yardage, I would say probably 30 to 40 percent of the plays you’re calling a pass or yardage is a run play. And they can be very successful run plays. The question is: Are they more successful as a run play or more successful when we decide to throw the ball out of that run play?

“So the evaluation, for us, is those plays are running plays. And a lot of times, we put them in rushing yardage. Because they’re actually replacing rushing yardage.”

The Budllgos are moving the ball up and down the field with no problem. Were Georgia able to convert some of those field goals into touchdowns, perhaps we’re not over-analyzing the offensive line after a performance against Samford.

“We left some things out there for sure, but I think in general, we lost a few things out there - pass protection, run protection,” Sedrick Van Pran said. “Just in general, we can be better, we will be better. That’s something that we look forward to and something I’m excited about going into this week in practice.”

Georgia will face a more athletic front this week in South Carolina than it saw against Samford. But as is often the case, the opponent doesn’t matter for Georgia.

The offensive line has a standard to meet. It did that against Oregon. It didn’t do so against Samford. Whether Georgia shortens its rotation or continues to rotate heavily on the offensive line, there will be pressure on this group to put forth a strong effort on Saturday in a hostile environment against South Carolina.

“We’ll continue to evaluate it and see who plays well and who competes,” Smart said. “And we get to go against a really good team three days in practice, then we get to go against another good team on Saturday. So we’ll figure it out.”

Kirby Smart discusses the Georgia football offensive line

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