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The Georgia offense looks starkly different than in years past.
David Greene set the SEC record for career passing yards, a mark later broken by Aaron Murray who currently owns that record and the record for career passing touchdowns. D.J. Shockley tossed an impressive 24 touchdown passes in his one season as the Bulldog starter. Then there was Matthew Stafford who threw for nearly 8,000 yards and 51 touchdowns in his three years in Athens.
This year? Georgia’s averaging 304 rushing yards per game. The ‘Dawgs boast as talented a group of running backs as you’ll find in college football. Its trio of backs – Todd Gurley, Sony Michel and Nick Chubb – are all averaging nearly 10 yards a carry, and the Bulldogs have scored 12 touchdowns via the run versus just five passing touchdowns.
So what’s it like being a receiver on a team that runs the ball at will?
“You’ve got to really focus on your blocking mainly, because we’re really running the heck out of the ball,” Michael Bennett told the Athens Banner-Herald. “You really have to put an emphasis on that and then definitely it draws a lot of single coverage outside so you’ve got to be ready when your number’s called.
Bennett answered the bell on Saturday, catching a pair of touchdowns, his first of the year.
No Georgia wideout is averaging more than 40 yards receiving per game, markedly lower than at any point in the Murray era. It doesn’t help that injuries have plagued the Bulldogs specifically at the wideout spot. It also doesn’t help that Georgia has yet to show any real confidence in Hutson Mason and his ability to throw the ball down the field with consistency.
The Bulldogs have leaned heavily on its running game this season in part, perhaps because receivers Malcolm Mitchell and Justin Scott-Wesley have yet to play. Considering the talent in the backfield for Georgia, it may have been this way even with Mitchell and Scott-Wesley on the field.
Bennett has a modest 10 catches for 116 yards on the season. He doesn’t rank in the top 175 nationally in catches per game. However, he knows that if it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it.
“We have a lot of great running backs,” Bennett said. “As much as a receiver, I’d like to throw the ball more, if you are winning games and putting up 66 points and putting up a ton of yards in the run game that’s working, why not stick with it?”
After living in Birmingham, Ala., Jordan left the ground zero of SEC Nation to head south to Florida to tell the unique stories of the renowned tradition of SEC football. In his free time, his mission is to find the best locales around.
