Georgia vs. Clemson Recap

Georgia football is back and in a big way. Last Saturday the Dawgs took the field in Atlanta, and took care of business in a good, but not great Clemson team, and a lot of people are going to want to talk down upon Clemson right now because they just ran into the giant that is Georgia. But don't be surprised when Clemson is sitting their a 11-1 or 10-2 playing in the ACC Championship and competing for a spot in the playoff, bolstered by their top level defense.

Offense

The Dawgs gave themselves a pretty good test in week one of this year with Clemson. Clemson has top level talent on their defense, and we got to find out pretty quick on what the offense was going to look like without the likes of Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey. The first half was a rock fight with both teams trying to establish themselves in the trenches, but when the teams came out of the locker room for the second half we got an idea of what this offense is truly capable of. Starters, Carson Beck is the best quarterback in college football, he is an elite processor of the game, throws with anticipation, and takes care of the ball better than anyone in the country, but we knew this. But we got to see who Mike Bobo wants with the ball in his hands. Over the last couple of seasons I have been so high on Arian Smith, just to watch him run deep routes every now and then and have a case of the drops. It left me thinking will Arian Smith ever be anything other than fast? Well he answered, we saw Arian Smith running routes over the middle fearlessly, getting the ball on end arounds, and most importantly getting after it blocking on the outside in the run game. If he can stay healthy Kirby and Bobo have shown us who they expect to take over as Carson Beck's favorite target for Ladd McConkey and that is Arian Smith. The other big question for Georgia's offense is how do you replace Brock Bowers, and we saw the answer at least for now on Saturday. Instead of putting all the pressure on one of the three good tight ends that Georgia has, they chose to play all three. While Lawson Luckie was the only of the three to pull in a pass, I think this decision will prove to be fruitful for the Dawgs. Instead of relying on one guy to go be the "Brock Bowers" of this team, Georgia has given all three tight ends a chance to be the guy. With all three guys getting reps in games Georgia has put themselves in a spot where a bad game or an injury to one of these tight ends does not bring the offense to a halt, but we have become so nonchalant to great coaching decisions from Kirby, I just wanted to make sure that he got his flowers.

Defense

We are back! This is the most confident that I have been in a Georgia defense leaving week one of a season since we beat this same team in Charlotte. Daylen Everette and Julianne Humphrey really got a lot better over this offseason, and we needed that because unfortunately they were the second weakest area on the Georgia defense last year. Second weakest behind the pass rush, and boy oh boy the pass rush is back. Jalon Walker should never play another snap at inside linebacker, I don't know if it's that number eleven that he wears, but he looks like Micah Parsons coming off that edge. He finished with 1.5 sacks and 6 total tackles. There are plays where he is getting held and fights off the blocker to get to the running back. Jalon Walker has put on a lot of size this offseason, but was able to keep his quickness, and that has given him a very unique skill in today's game. His ability to set the edge on early downs, once Mykel Williams went down, and still have the quickness to speed rush and beat the slower tackles. The next guy we need to talk about is KJ Bolden, how about this kid, stepping into an atmosphere like that, and starting when he maybe was looking at playing snaps here and there, and he didn't miss a beat. KJ Bolden looked like a veteran out there reminding me of another true freshman who started his career in that same stadium. Unfortunately for Dan Jackson, I think his job is in real jeopardy once Joenel Aguero can return and Malaki Starks can slide back to his true position. This defense is fun, suffocating, and is going to give opposing offenses trouble all year long.

Go Dawgs!