Perhaps the most important group for the Georgia Bulldogs this season has been the offensive line.
Kirby Smart hired a new offensive line coach in January, Phil Rauscher. He was an offensive assistant for the Dawgs last season and served in several roles in the NFL before that. Between the staff change and a lot of continuity in Georgia’s offensive line this year, the position room has been successful and vital for the Dawgs’ offensive production.
Here are several stats to confirm the success of Georgia’s offensive line this year:
Georgia is averaging 46.17 points per game. That is good for first in the SEC and second in the country.
Georgia is totaling 211.83 rushing yards per game. Georgia averaged over 250 yards per game on the ground in the first three games. The Dawgs just ran for over 200 yards on the road at Alabama at night without its two starting running backs. That was an Alabama team that was allowing fewer than 100 yards on the ground per contest heading into the clash against Georgia.
Gunner Stockton has only been sacked six times. The Arkansas game is an outlier where Sotkcotn went down behind the line of scrimmage three times. He has only been sacked one time in each of the last three conference battles, including the games against Oklahoma and Alabama - two of the better defenses in college football.
Georgia typically rotates their offensive linemen during the game, but it hasn’t happened as much this year. The primary starters, from left to right, are Earnest Green III (redshirt senior), Dontrell Glover (sophomore), Drew Bobo (redshirt senior), Zykie Helton (freshman) and Juan Gaston (sophomore). All of them had starting experience heading into the year outside of the true freshman Helton, who rose quickly up the depth chart this offseason upon his arrival in Athens.
Glover said on Tuesday that this group is staying in the building late every night to watch film together. He also said that the group is very connected and are like brothers, talking all day long.
The connection, the continuity, the hard work and the staff change are paying off. This Georgia offense is among the best in college football, and at least some credit has to go to the performance of the offensive line to this point.
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