KNOXVILLE - Tennessee's annual October encounter with Nick Saban and Alabama isn't for a couple more weeks, but the Volunteers are expecting a preview of sorts at Georgia on Saturday.
Kirby Smart is in his first year as the head coach of the Bulldogs after spending nine seasons with Saban and the Crimson Tide, and he brought Mel Tucker, Alabama's defensive backs coach, with him to Athens to be his defensive coordinator.
As he's prepared for Georgia, Tennessee offensive coordinator Mike DeBord noticed similarities in the schemes and styles between what the Bulldogs are using now and what Saban has done at Alabama.
"This all comes, I think, from Coach Saban, all these guys that have worked under him and et cetera," DeBord said Wednesday. "We get into this conference, and you're going to have a lot of that influence with a lot of these defenses, so you see a lot of the same things that you see from his package.
"Georgia ran a lot of this stuff last year, and that defensive coordinator (Jeremy Pruitt) is now with Coach Saban. You see a lot of carryover throughout this conference with his background."
Smart's defenses at Alabama always were among the best in the Southeastern Conference, but his first Georgia unit is going through some early growing pains. The Bulldogs gave up 471 yards to Missouri and 510 to Ole Miss last week. In the first four games Georgia allowed an average of 30 points per game.
Missouri's Drew Lock passed for 376 yards and three touchdowns with three interceptions, and Ole Miss's Chad Kelly threw for 282 yards, ran for 51 and totaled three touchdowns.
Last season Tennessee rolled up 519 yards and 38 points against Georgia behind the stellar play of quarterback Josh Dobbs, who threw for a then-career-best 312 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 118 yards and two scores.
"I always look at any defense, not just Georgia's defense, I always look at it (like) it starts in the front," DeBord said. "Then you work on the linebackers and then you look at the secondary that way. Their front, I feel like, is really good. They're big and powerful up front. That's where it all starts, and we've got to do a good job of blocking them that way.
"Their linebackers are really good, too. They do a great job of running downhill when you run downhill plays, and they also have good speed and run laterally when you have outside plays. Their linebackers are really good, and their secondary's done a nice job, too."
Tennessee's offensive success hinges on the play of its offensive line, which struggled in the first three games of the season before allowing just one sack and one lost-yardage rush against Florida.
"We played our best game as a unit Saturday," center Dylan Wiesman said. "Every week you can see us progressing and us getting better, but still there's a lot of things to work on. We have to keep Dobbs clean. Personally I have to have my snaps better. I had five snaps that weren't up to the standard, so I have to get that corrected.
"As an offensive line, I think you can have five guys that are solid and play, or you can have six or seven guys that can rotate in. It just depends on how well they communicate and how well you know that other guy, because playing the offensive line, you have to know what the other guy is thinking.
"You have to be on the same wavelength as him, and it just all really depends on how well you guys communicate as a unit."
DeBord said Georgia does a nice job of mixing up fronts and coverages, traits of a Saban defense.
"Kirby's adjusted some things to it a little bit to have his own little taste to it," he said, "but there's still a lot of similarities that way."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.