This time last year, all the talk heading into Georgia’s spring football practice was about the Bulldogs’ 13 midyear enrollees trying to fit in. This time around there is more talk about new faces, but this time they’ll all be wearing whistles around their necks.
For the first time in a half-century, Georgia enters spring practice with an all new defensive coaching staff. Jeremy Pruitt takes over as defensive coordinator after helping Florida State win a national championship last year. Joining him will be defensive line coach Tracy Rocker, insider linebackers coach Mike Ekeler and outside linebackers/Star position coach Kevin Sherrer.
So rather than introduce new players to a system, the Bulldogs’ task is to teach a new system to the players.
“We’re very anxious,” said senior cornerback Damian Swann, who will also have Pruitt as a position coach. “We’ve see what he’s done in the past. That’s got a lot of guys ready to play for him. He’s won a couple of national championships, so he’s done it before. That makes a lot of guys feel comfortable about playing for him.”
Pruitt was a part of the last three national championships in college football. He was at Alabama for its last two titles before joining the FSU staff about this time last year.
And while his depth of experience in college football is not vast — he’s 39 and this is just his fourth season as an on-field FBS assistant — Pruitt obviously knows what a championship-caliber defense looks like.
“We’re going to work on fundamentals,” Pruitt said. “We’re going to see who practices hard every day and who can carry out some details and we’ll figure out that and who are the best players to coach this fall. You (want to) find out who likes to compete. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
It makes for an interesting dynamic. Even with the offseason dismissal of starting safety Josh Harvey-Clemons, the Bulldogs have nine starters returning on defense. But the new coaches have made it clear that they will base playing time only on what they see with their own eyes.
“My guess is that their main thought right now is that they’re just trying to win a job,” Georgia coach Mark Richt said of the defensive players. “What do I have to do to prove to Coach that I can win this job? … And I think they’re excited about seeing what’s in store because Coach Pruitt obviously has had a lot of success where he’s been. The coaches that we’ve brought in besides him on defense have all had a lot of success. So there’s an expectation of things getting better.”
None of the returnees have complained about previous defensive coordinator Todd Grantham or expressed doubts about the ways and means of the defense under his guidance. But the unit clearly underperformed last season when it gave up nearly 376 yards and 29 points a game.
So there is definitely a spirit of “new life” emanating from the Bulldogs’ locker room that extends beyond the defensive side of the ball.
“There are a lot of guys excited for this spring, most guys actually,” said tailback Todd Gurley, a rising junior. “I know the whole defense is excited. New guys, older guys, everybody feels like they’ve got something to prove. That’s going to be good for the offense, too, because we’re going to be out there competing with them. So we’ve got to step our game up.”
Georgia’s spring to-do list is long. The Bulldogs featured some of the poorest special teams play in the country last year. They’ll also be looking to break in a new starting quarterback (Hutson Mason), replace three-fifths of the starting offensive line and All-SEC tight end Arthur Lynch and re-tool a receiving corps that will still be without injured starters Malcolm Mitchell and Justin Scott-Wesley and tight end Jay Rome until preseason camp.
“This whole (offseason), I’ve seen this team have a lot of life, a lot of energy,” senior center David Andrews said. “February is kind of the hardest month. There’s no game you’re preparing for and everything seems so far away. To see everybody come to work every day and never get monotonous with it and try to attack it every day shows me it’s going to be a fun, high-tempo spring with a lot of energy.”
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