5 keys to Georgia surviving as the SEC’s fittest

Georgia has been in one stage or another of offensive rebuild ever since. One offensive coordinator came, another one went. Two quarterbacks transferred in, one opted out. One receiver’s knee was healed, then it was injured again. And so on.

Then there was COVID-19.

After a couple of stops and starts while the world figured out with what it was dealing, the SEC joined Power-5 conferences convinced that college football could be played in amid a contagion. It resolved to play a 10-game, conference-only schedule over 12 weeks, and that starts this Saturday.

So, nearly 10 months removed from the end of the last season, the next one finally begins. And despite all the tumult in between, the Bulldogs will start with same national ranking than it ended (No. 4). It almost defies logic.

Here are five keys to Georgia living up to that billing and winning the SEC’s Eastern Division for a fourth consecutive year:

1. Coping with COVID

More than any season in history, this one promises to be decided by Darwinian Theory, as in “survival of the fittest.” Between fighting an unseen enemy in the lab and having to play 10 SEC opponents in a row, science and luck will play a major role in deciding this year’s winner. No matter how well a team scouts an opponent and prepares, it won’t mean a thing if it can’t suit up at least 53 able-bodied players.

There were no trumpets sounding from atop the houses of power proclaiming success as college football got under way in earnest this past weekend. Of the 61 games scheduled, 13 (or 21.3 percent) had to be postponed due to a shortfall of healthy participants. It remains to see if that was a fluke or will be a trend.

By all accounts, the Bulldogs have been both smart and fortunate in regards to health and safety. While Georgia hasn’t shared its infection numbers from preseason practice, it never had to cancel a practice or scrimmage because too many players had been exposed to the virus. That’s a fate that befell some other SEC teams and many in other conferences. More importantly, there were no known instances of a position getting wiped out due to contact-tracing protocols.

While coach Kirby Smart speaks proudly of Georgia’s good work in this area, he also knows the Bulldogs must stay prepared for the worst. The Bulldogs cross-trained its best players to play multiple positions, in hopes of limiting the drop-off wherever possible.

Mostly, Smart says, they just need to expect the unexpected.

“I’m very comfortable with the fact that (the season is) not going to go perfect as planned,” Smart said last week. “Who can handle those adjustments? Whose team cannot get lost in worrying and concerning themselves with things they can’t control and really worrying about things they can?”

2. Quarterback quandary

Georgia was thought to have won the quarterback sweepstakes in the offseason when it landed graduate transfer Jamie Newman from Wake Forest. The 6-foot-4, 230-pound Newman was just what the doctor ordered with his unique combination of size, athleticism, arm talent and experience.

No one will ever know if Newman actually would have lived up to that billing. On Sept. 2 — or 24 days before the Bulldogs' season opener — the fifth-year senior opted out of the 2020 season, citing COVID-19 concerns. He was the projected starter at the time.

It was at this point that Georgia’s offseason acquisition of Southern Cal’s JT Daniels via the transfer portal began to make sense. It was instantly assumed that the redshirt sophomore, with 742 career snaps under his belt, would be the next man up at quarterback. And Daniels could well be, pending a final exam his anterior cruciate ligament and continued competition into this final week of preparation.

In the meantime, redshirt freshman D’Wan Mathis emerged during preseason camp. Previously, the 6-6, 210-pound athlete was best known for surviving a brain cyst, which required emergency surgery in May of 2019 and months of meticulous medical care to ensure that a continued football career was even possible. But when he was finally cleared for participation over the summer, Mathis reminded everyone why he was a 4-star prospect and one-time Ohio State commitment coming out of Detroit’s Oak Park High. His has been the most highlight-filled video of the Georgia quarterbacks in camp, and he was the first under center with the No. 1 offense in the last scrimmage.

Georgia has more options still, with junior Stetson Bennett and early-enrolled freshman Carson Beck in the fold. In the end, the Razorbacks very likely will see at least two quarterbacks on Saturday as this competition continues into the season. But whoever assumes Fromm’s snaps will have earned them.

“I would argue that we have a talented quarterback room in terms of depth,” Smart said. “The important thing is getting the right one to lead this group.”

3. The Todd Monken Experiment

Complicating the quarterback competition and offensive rebuild is the Bulldogs' offseason decision to install a new offense. Smart hired coordinator Todd Monken off the proverbial waiver wire from the Cleveland Browns and asked him to finally bring a true spread offense to Athens.

While Georgia’s offense has been good enough to win three consecutive East titles, it increasingly has lacked the “explosivity” factor displayed in championship-winning groups fielded by LSU, Clemson and Alabame the last few years. Monken made his football reputation on designing explosive plays.

Considering that body of work, there’s no doubt that Monken eventually will get the Bulldogs where they want to go. But whether he can do that in his first year with an offense that was completely re-tooling as it was and had the added complication of cancelled spring and summer practices due to the coronavirus is a matter of great debate.

It would appear Georgia has the required parts, with highly touted skill players like wideout George Pickens and running back Zamir White suiting up. But the Bulldogs are pretty much brand new everywhere else. Monken’s a proven coach, but getting this group to function at an elite level will be the greatest challenge of his illustrious career.

“It’s a really, really good group,” Monken observed. “We have good-looking players, as good as anywhere I’ve been in college. It’s impressive, and I’m excited to see how they develop.”

4. What’s my line?

Any offense is only as good as the guys up front. While many of the linemen the Bulldogs will employ in 2020 will be making their debuts as regulars, it’s not like they were devoid of talent or experience. Thanks in large part to the good work of the coach they’ll be opposing on Saturday — Arkansas' Sam Pittman — Georgia had recruited well for a year of expected turnover.

Center Trey Hill, who started 14 games last season and has played in all 43 since arriving at UGA, provides a good nucleus. And Hill will be flanked by guards Justin Shaffer and Ben Cleveland, who had the most playing experience of the remaining group of linemen. Where the Bulldogs are brand new are outside at tackle. Former 5-star prospect Jamaree Salyer made the formidable move from guard to left tackle and 6-7, 315-pound redshirt sophomore Owen Condon has stayed healthy long enough to win the job at right tackle.

The mix-and-match possibilities from there are endless. In total, first-year offensive line coach Matt Luke has 13 offensive linemen from which to choose, and all of them came to Georgia carrying lots of recruiting stars and promise.

Of this, Pittman is acutely aware. He jokingly admonished himself for helping the Bulldogs recruit so well while he was in Athens.

“I talked to Kirby about that and he mentioned the same thing when we went to play Alabama in the national championship (in 2017),” Pittman said. “It was two years after he left Alabama and he’d recruited a lot of good players for them.”

5. Surviving Octoberfest

Ultimately, Georgia’s fate will be decided by its defense, which should again be among the best in the nation. The Bulldogs return eight starters on that side of the ball. More importantly, more than 30 defenders are back who logged 100 snaps or more from a unit that led the nation in points (12.6) and rushing yards allowed per game (74.6). As it was, only LSU’s generational offense led by quarterback Joe Burrow scored more that 20 against Georgia last season. Defense alone should keep the Bulldogs in business.

But it’s going to be that first full month of play that will dictate Georgia’s fate in 2020. The narrative is that the Bulldogs made out well adding Arkansas and Mississippi State to the SEC’s reconfigured schedule. Where they didn’t make out so great was the new slate being overwhelmingly front-loaded.

Georgia will face Auburn, Tennessee and Alabama in successive weeks in October. Then there’s a trip to Lexington Oct. 24 to face a Kentucky squad that’s carrying its perennial darkhorse reputation.

Ultimately, the East will be decided as always against Florida on the banks of Jacksonville’s St. Johns River. The question is just how bruised and battered will the Bulldogs arrive for that Nov. 7 tilt?

If they can somehow show up unscathed or barely so, the path back to Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be smoothly paved the rest of the way. Then the Bulldogs would indeed be the fittest.