Georgia’s football team knows its fans are eager to see how four new coaches, including coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, will transform the Bulldogs’ defense.
Just don’t expect to get too many clues in the G-Day spring intrasquad game, which starts at 1 p.m. Saturday in Sanford Stadium.
“I think we’ll line up and play some good solid fundamental defense,” coach Mark Richt said. But beyond that, the coaches are keenly aware that the game will be televised (on CSS) and that Clemson and South Carolina — next season’s first two opponents — are just as interested as UGA fans in learning Pruitt’s plan for a unit that struggled mightily last season.
“People try to see what they can figure out,” Richt said. “Clemson will be getting (film of) our spring game; we’ll get their spring game. South Carolina will get ours; we’ll get theirs. They’ll be looking for any clue they can get that might help them over the offseason as to how to prepare.
“So I doubt we do everything we’ll do in the fall, obviously. I would think it’s going to be pretty basic.”
Even so, Georgia’s defensive players believe fans will get a good glimpse of some differences.
“I think they’ll see a lot less confusion between us all as a unit,” linebacker Jordan Jenkins said. “And more unity and a little bit of that nastiness-to-it attitude (and) having more people hustling to the ball, a lot less people watching things happen.”
In the annual spring skirmish of Red vs. Black, Pruitt will coach the Black team, which will feature the No. 1 defense and No. 2 offense, while offensive coordinator Mike Bobo will lead the Red team, which will have the No. 1 offense and No. 2 defense. The teams will play four 12-minute quarters, and a few players might change sides at halftime, Richt said.
G-Day, which has had attendance of 40,000-plus in each of the past three years, will mark the Sanford Stadium debut of the overhauled defensive coaching staff. Georgia hired Pruitt in January from Florida State, which won the national championship in his one season as defensive coordinator, to replace Todd Grantham, who left for Louisville.
Within weeks, the entire defensive staff was replaced, with line coach Tracy Rocker and linebackers coaches Mike Ekeler and Kevin Sherrer also coming aboard. Pruitt coaches the defensive backs.
It’s the first time since the spring of 1964, Vince Dooley’s first season as head coach, that the Bulldogs have an all-new defensive staff.
As for players, Georgia returns nine starters from the defensive unit that last season ranked 78th nationally in scoring defense (29 points per game), 45th in total defense (375.5 yards per game) and 109th in turnovers gained (15). Not surprisingly, Pruitt has made it clear that last season’s starting lineup means zilch to him.
“After every scrimmage, he changes the depth charts around,” Jenkins said. “He tells us, day in and day out, ‘Nothing you did before matters; it’s a clean slate.’”
In a manifestation of that philosophy, Pruitt has had walk-on cornerback Aaron Davis working with the first team, ahead of scholarship players.
Davis said Pruitt stresses “doing the right thing all the time and not just when we want to or when we’re fresh. Even when you’re tired, maintain your technique and just give him what he wants.”
Quarterback Hutson Mason said he has noticed a difference in the defense.
“I see a lot of guys flying around to the ball. I see guys hustling, rallying to plays,” Mason said. “Some of that you didn’t see last year. I see a lot more effort and intensity by far. I mean, it’s night and day.”
If Pruitt doesn’t see what he wants from his defensive backs, he quickly looks for someone else.
“I’ve seen people get ‘fired’ for messing up two or three plays in a row,” Jenkins said. “He told Corey (Moore, a rising senior safety) one day, ‘You’re fired. Get off the field.’ He doesn’t mean it all the time, but it’s definitely pretty funny watching them practice, guys getting subbed in and out.”
Well, there’s something to watch for on G-Day.
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