ATHENS — Plants do not have calendars. They respond to environmental influences, some being temperature, day length and light quality. As the seasons shift, temperature and sunlight drive the chemical production inside the leaves. Different chemicals trigger different growth responses.
The same can be said of running backs. Take, for instance, Georgia’s Kendall Milton.
He came to UGA from Fresno, California, with the greatest of expectations. So promising was his physical stature and résumé, the thought was Milton could be transplanted easily from northern California to northeast Georgia and immediately bloom into an All-SEC running back, as have so many before him.
It hasn’t exactly gone that way. While it has taken a while, maybe longer than anybody wanted or expected, Milton most definitely is in bloom now. Heading into Saturday’s SEC Championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (4 p.m., CBS), Milton’s foliage has gone from green to suddenly spectacular.
“He’s running with confidence,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart remarked this week. “I feel like he’s hitting the hole a lot harder because he’s more confident, and (he’s) being explosive in getting to the secondary. You’re not going to be an explosive-run offense if you don’t get your backs to the secondary, and that’s one thing we’ve been able to do is get him past that first level. And he’s running through a lot of arm tackles, too, which is really important.”
Last year Milton gained 595 yards in 13 games. He had 193 and 264, respectively, his first two seasons while playing in less than half the games. Now a 6-foot-1, 220-pound senior, Milton is beginning to consistently perform at a level he displayed only in glimpses previously in his college career. In Georgia’s past three games, he rushed for 349 yards and scored five touchdowns. He’s averaging 11.25 yards per carry.
Milton scored two TDs and recorded a career-high 127 yards in a win over No. 9 Ole Miss on Nov. 11. Two weeks later, he bested that with 156 yards and a pair of scores against Georgia Tech. It was the first time since 2019 that a Georgia back ran for more than 150.
Milton has produced those numbers despite being sidelined, as usual, with various injuries. A chronic hamstring issue that has dogged Milton throughout his career followed him into this season, too. Then a sprained knee ligament (MCL) in the South Carolina shut him down in games 4 and 5 against Alabama-Birmingham and Auburn.
“I think it’s just a culmination of all his hard work,” senior center Sedrick Van Pran said of Milton. “Kendall does great job, in all honesty, of taking criticism well at all times. I think he took things to heart and went back to work and really tried to create the best version of himself and show the world what he’s about. That’s the biggest thing, understanding that he’s playing for something bigger, and that’s us. Kendall wants to be the biggest asset he can be for this team.”
He’s also feeling much better. Milton’s production has been ramping in the seven games since his return. He took it to another level against the Yellow Jackets. Smart remarked that he saw Tech players having to come off the field after tackling him.
“I don’t even think about that,” Milton said of his rugged running style. “… When everything’s over, and I’m in the film room, and I’m watching the runs, I’ll look and go, ‘sheesh!’ But at the time I don’t even think about it.”
Alabama has taken notice. The Crimson Tide heads into Saturday with a respectable defense that ranks 33rd nationally against the run (128.4 ypg). But they’ve been vulnerable to the run, at times.
Auburn hit Bama with 243 yards last week. That represented the fifth time the Tide allowed 177 or more. Georgia averages 178.6 yards per game, which ranks 40th in FBS.
“They’ve got a big offensive line, and they block together to create lanes for the backs,” Alabama sophomore linebacker Deontae Lawson said. “They also have great backs that can make the yards after contact and just make the plays. We’re looking forward to the challenge that we have coming up.”
In addition to Milton’s ascension, Georgia’s ground-game improvement probably also corresponds with the return of right tackle Amarius Mims. The 6-foot-7, 340-pound junior missed six games before returning recently from an ankle injury and TightRope surgery. He got his first start since Game 3 against Tech on Saturday.
Meanwhile, running backs coach Dell McGee also seems to have found a rhythm when it comes to the backfield rotation. Senior Daijun Edwards, who also missed two early-season games with a knee injury, remains the Bulldogs’ leading rusher, with 780 yards and 11 touchdowns on a 148 carries. Flanker Dillon Bell has continued to get rush attempts (25 for 157) out of the backfield, and redshirt freshman Andrew Paul recently has emerged (a year after an ACL replacement) to get 26 carries in six games.
The results have been positive. After failing to gain more than 189 yards on the ground the first half of the season, the Bulldogs have gone over the 200 mark three times in the second half, including a season-high 300 in a 52-17 domination of Ole Miss. And even when they haven’t been focused on running the football, Georgia’s yards per carry average has increased down the stretch.
That was about the time Milton made his migration from the training room to the practice field. He acknowledged possibly being overly cautious with injuries during his career.
“Dealing with the hamstring and the MCL, there was just a whole lot of mind games being played,” said Milton, who received some 5-star recruiting ratings coming out of high school. “Once they say you’re back and you’re ready, it becomes kind of a mind game to convince yourself, you know, that you’re 100% ready. So, there was a lot of trial-and-error, a whole lot of different cuts I had to make. I had to feel what it was like to get tackled again, to get twisted up sometimes. There was a whole lot of things I just had to put my body through again to get that full confidence back.”
He said Smart and McGee have been patient with him when it comes to injuries. But he showed a wide grin when asked if Smart ever got on to him about it.
“If he felt like I was babying it, not giving it my all (in practice) he’d be on that mic letting me know that I wasn’t pushing it,” Milton said with a laugh. “… Y’all might have heard him talking about ‘the baby-back bull.’ He might’ve thrown one of those out.”
Milton’s improved health certainly has made a difference in his play and Georgia’s run game. But so has the play of the offensive line.
“As a running back, you can never have success if your O-line is not performing,” Milton said. “I feel like they’ve taken it very seriously in practice. Also the scout-team defense. They give us the game-reps and game-looks that we’re going to get. Gabe (Harris) and Jordan Hall and young guys like that, they challenge our offensive line because they give such good effort every single day. It prepares us for the games and makes it easier on game day to kind of be comfortable and have fun out there.”
To have fun against the Tide on Saturday will mean getting off to a quick start, and that’s something the Bulldogs haven’t been great about this season. Heading into the 13th game of the season, Georgia has scored only 82 points in the first quarter, an average of 6.8 per game.
Some of that might have to do with the Bulldogs’ penchant for prioritizing the establishment of their ground game. After throwing the ball more than running it early in the season, Georgia’s rush attempts (423) have surpassed its passes (399).
No doubt, Milton will play a major role in trying to get the ground game going against Bama’s stout defensive front. He’s ready and willing to take that on.
“I have the utmost confidence at this point,” Milton said. “There’s a whole lot of different factors that kind of go into it. The O-line, the whole team, plays a big role. At the end of the day, you want to be trusted, you want to know that your brothers believe in you. … I always tell (offensive coordinator Mike) Bobo and coach Smart after games, ‘thank you for believing in me.’ At the end of the day, speaking for the entire team, everybody just wants to the opportunity to be on the field. I feel like those are the things that have led me to have the confidence and just trust my game.”
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