Georgia’s James Coley will be calling plays from the sideline on Saturday in Nashville and not from the press box, where he has been positioned that last couple of seasons.
That was one small reveal offered by coach Kirby Smart in advance of the Bulldogs’ first game of the season at Vanderbilt. Otherwise, Georgia’s head coach, who met with reporters for a second straight day on Tuesday, has been keeping his cards pretty close to chest ahead of the rare SEC opener.
“James will probably be on the field,” Smart said following the Bulldogs’ two-hour, full-pads practice. “That’s what we’ve done in the scrimmages, it’s what he and I have talked about doing. We’re open to looking at it different ways, but right now that’s probably what we’re going to do.”
Last season, as co-coordinator and quarterbacks coach, Coley sat next to play-caller Jim Chaney in the coaches’ box at games. He had a stint where he spent games on the sideline when he was wide receivers’ coach in 2016 and ’17.
Coley said at the outset of preseason camp he hadn’t decided. He hasn’t been available for interviews since.
Not surprisingly, Smart didn’t offer much clarity for the highly-debated topic of what Georgia’s offense might look like in this first season under the direction of Coley. He assisted Chaney last year, was coordinator and play-caller for three years at Miami, and served in a co-coordinator role at FSU under head coach Jimbo Fisher.
“You always have more offense than you show, and you try to use what you need, and what you don’t need you don’t use.” Smart said. “So there (are) things that we had in games that we didn’t use in the past, and I’m sure it’ll be that way now.”
Perhaps realizing he wasn’t making a lot of sense, Smart just skipped ahead to clichés.
“We want to be explosive. We want to score points,” he said. “I think in college football nowadays, you’ve gotta be able to score points. You look at the best teams in the country they can do that. So, we’ve got to be able to score points. And whatever it takes to do that, whether it’s wearing people down, or throwing the ball, we’ve got to be flexible enough to do it.”
Indeed, scoring points is a good plan.
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