ATHENS \u2014 Kirby Smart and the Georgia defensive have the blueprint for stopping Florida\u2019s run game, but the trick will be in the execution of it.<\/p>\n
The No. 3-ranked Bulldogs play the No. 17-ranked Gators at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in a matchup featuring SEC championship game and College Football Playoff field implications.<\/p>\n
Smart has essentially come right out and said Georgia will have its ears pinned back in an attempt to stop Florida tailback Jadan Baugh, who spearheads the Gators\u2019 ground attack with 109 yards rushing per game at a 5.7 yards-per-carry clip.<\/p>\n
Missouri and South Carolina handed Florida its only two losses of the season largely on the strength of their ability to stop the run game.<\/p>\n
Baugh had just 13 yards on 12 carries against the Tigers and 59 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries in the loss to the Gamecocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to set edges and track down the back side on the outside zone (run),\u201d Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said on the SEC coaches teleconference on Wednesday, asked how his Tigers held Florida to just 42 rushing yards on 25 attempts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we were violent on their counter (run) scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drinkwitz said that stopping the run was a big part of the equation because of the unfavorable down-and-distance situations it created for Florida offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, whose play calling wizardry is most effective when the Gators are operating on schedule in down-and-distance situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing with Florida is not allowing them to be in an advantageous down a distance,\u201d said Drinkwitz, whose Tigers rolled to a 45-17 win in holding the Gators to just 42 yards rushing on 25 attempts.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to win first down \u2014 if you don\u2019t win first down, I think their coordinator (Faulkner) has play designs, and his ability to have plays off of plays really becomes challenging, because you don\u2019t know what\u2019s coming next; run, pass, screen (or) trick play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beamer, whose Gamecocks held the Gators to 120 yards rushing on 38 attempts (3.2 yards per carry), indicated his staff learned much from the Missouri game film.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw Missouri on tape playing Florida the week before we played them, and and watching that tape, Missouri played really, really hard and were in the right gaps and set really good edges and kept the ball from getting outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then they tackled well, and that\u2019s what we had to do,\u201d Beamer said. \u201cWe needed to be able to load the box and adjust to their formations, and really, just play with great technique and fundamentals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beamer said that even with the right Xs and Os, Baugh and the Gators will be hard to stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a big challenge. It\u2019s easier said than done,\u201d Beamer said. \u201cJadan Baugh is one heck of a running back, they\u2019re good on the offensive line and they\u2019ve got a dynamic group of receivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge, plus the problems the formations and motions and everything else they present makes it hard to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Georgia assistant and current Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp found that out the hard way when the Gators rallied for a 27-24 win over the Longhorns with 158 yards rushing on 46 attempts (3.4 yards per carry).<\/p>\n
Texas\u2019 defense certainly isn\u2019t exactly like Georgia\u2019s, but there are enough similarities that Smart and his staff will be able to apply when game-planning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATHENS \u2014 Kirby Smart and the Georgia defensive have the blueprint for stopping Florida\u2019s run game, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[28438,399,133523,6747,398,396,397,11004,5614,99],"class_list":["post-899611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-eli-drinkwitz","tag-football","tag-georgia-uga-georgia-football-kirby-smart","tag-missouri","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-shane-beamer","tag-south-carolina","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}