Kirby Smart shares outlook on offensive line after tough outing
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia’s offensive line has been a scapegoat for any problems that the Bulldogs have had so far this season on that side of the ball, but Kirby Smart said on Monday that that’s not necessarily the truth. As opposed to the blame falling all on the offensive line, Smart sees it as something that the entire offense has to fix.
“Can we do some better things in the run game to help them? Absolutely. Can they do a better job in the run game? Absolutely. But it’s not totally on the offensive line,” Smart said. “It never is. It’s a team sport. Everybody wants to point the finger at them. They’re not to blame for anything. We all got to improve.”
Early on, Georgia was rotating through several different looks on the offensive line in game. While that seems to have been cut down some with Amarius Mims and Devin Willock only playing six snaps while the starting five plays the other 75 together. Still Smart was asked if there was any considering being put into ending the rotation all together and sticking to the starting five.
“I don’t look at it as a trim up. Why would you trim up your offensive line? If you have guys that play quality football and go against good players every day in practice, I think they earned the right to get an opportunity, right?,” Smart said. “Who plays at receiver? Do we play three guys? Not last time I checked. Tight end, Brock and Darnell rolled in with 11 personnel. You earn the right by how you play. If those guys continue to earn the right and play well, they’ll probably play. It has a lot to do with conditioning and stamina. You got guys coming off injuries out there, guys that hadn’t played a lot of football, and some guys have. We want to play the best five, but if that’s not clear, we feel guys that can play winning football should play. I’m very pleased with that part of it.”
After the game, he put his finger on “getting yo’ ass whipped up front” as the issue in the run game during the first half when Georgia rushed for just 34 yards including five carries for no or negative yardage. Smart went back to what he said on Saturday night on Monday when asked about what could be better.
“It’s not a lack of execution or scheme. They didn’t play anything different. It’s physicality, winning up front, and more than that, giving them an opportunity to be successful,” Smart said. “Sometimes that falls on me as a coach, on us as coaches, not just them. So it’s not a lack of execution. Sometimes you get whipped. Sometimes we got whipped and sometimes we didn’t. And when you didn’t, you got to capitalize. There is still some big runs in there and then we fumbled the ball on a big run. We had big runs in the fourth quarter. The offensive line you could say didn’t allow them to get the ball back. So that was a very big positive, when they had every guy on their team in the box and we blocked them and got first downs. So there is a lot of the positives, and we’ll draw on the ability to come back from that.”
