G-Day Grades
Grading the Bulldogs: Black Team 21, Red Team 13
By Dylan Webber
Offense: B-
There were a handful of good plays made in today’s game—Jake Fromm’s 57-yard touchdown pass to Riley Ridley, Justin Fields’ 15-yard touchdown to Matt Landers. For each quality play made though, it seemed like Georgia had two sloppy passes to compensate. Both Fields and Fromm had, for the most part, lousy days throwing the ball. From ended the day 19-of-38 with 200 yards, a really nice touchdown, and two not so nice interceptions. On the other side, Fields had 207 yards to go with a touchdown and interception on 18-of-33 passing. On the receiving end, it was the same story: a lot of good plays, several glaringly bad plays. He had a nice touchdown catch in the middle of the fourth quarter, but Landers also had a bad drop as did Jayson Stanley.
Defense: A-
Usually, Deandre Baker kind of goes unnoticed in a game. He doesn’t mess up often and quarterbacks don’t generally throw his way in games. Today, Baker got noticed by everybody who saw the game. His first-quarter pick-six on Fromm opened the scoring for the day and set the pace for the defense for the game. William Poole III and Richard LeCounte joined Baker, helping record three interceptions for the black team, although LeCounte’s came from a pass from the hands of Mecole Hardman. For the red team, KJ Smith hauled in the only turnover off of Fields. Although it’s hard to gauge pass rushing in a spring game, Georgia still looked very solid. D’Andre Walker recorded half of the black team’s sacks for the day with two while Tae Crowder and Jonathan Ledbetter followed in line with one apiece. As for the second-team defense, the group of pass-rushers almost doubled the black team’s sack total with seven. Both Keyon Brown and David Marshal each put up two sacks with young guys like Brenton Cox also contributing a sack to the high tally.
Special Teams: B
It’s difficult to assess special teams. On one hand, Rodrigo Blankenship kept up the hot hand (foot?) he had in both the Rose Bowl and National Championship game. He drilled both of his attempts from 35 and 41 yards will relative ease and found little difficulty kicking the ball out of the end zone on kickoffs. On the other hand, you can tell this punting unit has changed with the loss of Cameron Nizialek. Marshall Long’s three punts for 106 yards and Bill Rubright three boots for 113 yards are just fine. But the accuracy and hangtime of the punts are nowhere near what Niziolek's was. That combined with the two punts the coverage team failed to stop on the goalline lead to an overall mediocre day for the special teams.
Coaching: A
In a spring game, there are really two things that should be focused on—Slinging the ball and rushing the passer, and those two things are exactly what Georgia focused on. This got everyone on the field working at all times. The quarterbacks got to show their arms, the offensive line worked a lot of pass protection against the defensive line and the linebackers and defensive backs got to work coverage. The running backs didn’t get a whole lot of handoffs, but they got some much-needed work on pass blocking and catching out of the backfield. It’s hard to knock on coaching when it’s against yourself, but Kirby Smart did exactly what he should have to help the team and the program today.