Last season, Georgia’s football team ranked 79th in the nation in stopping opponents on third down. So far this season, the Bulldogs rank second.
Last season, Georgia was 23rd in the nation in yards allowed. This season, the Bulldogs are tied for seventh.
The statistics confirm what has become apparent the past few Saturdays: Georgia’s defense, after several substandard seasons, is on the upswing.
The sampling size remains small — five games out of a 12-game regular season — and it will be instructive to see what happens Saturday against Tennessee’s prolific passing offense, which figures to be the Georgia defense’s sternest test since it was shredded in the season opener by Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore.
But, for now at least, there is a strong statistical case to be made for the defense:
- In the past four games — versus South Carolina, Coastal Carolina, Ole Miss and Mississippi State — as many points have been scored against Georgia's offensive and special-teams units as against its defense.
- During that four-game stretch, 34 points (including the PATs) have been scored against the defense. Reduce it to 27 points if you absolve the defense of responsibility for a South Carolina touchdown set up by a 56-yard return of an Isaiah Crowell fumble to the Georgia 5-yard line.
- In the four games, 34 points (including the PATs) have been scored against Georgia's offense and special-teams units. (South Carolina scored three touchdowns on an interception return, a fumble recovery/return and a fake punt; Ole Miss scored one on a punt return; Mississippi State scored one on an interception return.) Increase it to 41 points if you blame the Georgia offense, specifically Crowell's fumble, for a fourth South Carolina touchdown.
- And since the 45-42 loss to South Carolina, Georgia's defense has allowed one touchdown in three games.
You get the idea. So far so good. Much better than the past few seasons.
“It feels good, especially to hear the stats that we have put up,” inside linebacker Michael Gilliard told reporters this week. “It’s amazing. ... We made up our mind to go out there and be one of the best defenses in the country.”
In scoring defense — a statistic that includes all points scored against a team, whether the defense was on the field at the time — Georgia ranks sixth in the SEC and 32nd nationally, allowing 20.6 points per game.
But in statistical categories that reflect only on the defense, Georgia generally ranks higher — first in the SEC and second nationally in third-down conversion defense (holding opponents to a 25.3 percent success rate), tied for second in the SEC and seventh nationally in total defense (258.6 yards allowed per game), second in the SEC and fourth nationally in passing defense (151.6 yards allowed per game), and fifth in the SEC and 32nd nationally in rushing defense (107 yards allowed per game).
“They are just playing good defense overall and playing good coverage behind [the pass rush], which gets the quarterback looking around,” Tennessee coach Derek Dooley said of the Bulldogs at a news conference in Knoxville this week.
“They have some massive guys up front, and they just take the O-line and throw them back into the quarterback — 350 pounds. Then they have some good speed on the edge.”
Now the question is how a defense that stymied Ole Miss and Mississippi State the past two weeks will fare against Tennessee quarterback Tyler Bray, the SEC’s leading passer. Complicating the test, Georgia will be without outside linebacker Cornelius Washington, its leading pass rusher, who is suspended from the next two games because of his arrest last weekend on a DUI charge.
Third down will be a particularly interesting matchup. While Georgia’s defense ranks No. 2 nationally (behind only Arizona State) on third down, Tennessee’s offense ranks No. 1 in converting on third down, succeeding 62.1 percent of the time.
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