The Georgia Bulldogs are returning their blue-collar quarterback this season.
Does that mean they’re destined to be a blue-collar offense?
Gunner Stockton is back for his second full season guiding Georgia, having led last year’s Bulldogs to the Southeastern Conference championship. Yet enhancing the big-play potential of the Bulldogs has been a huge emphasis this month for offensive coordinator Mike Bobo.
“It comes down to a lot of things,” Bobo said Wednesday afternoon in a news conference. “It’s identifying playmakers who make plays. You can’t script those in camp, because the offense is installing and the defense is installing, but opportunities are going to come your way, and when the opportunity comes, you make that play for the offense to be explosive.
“We’ve got to protect. We’ve got to see things better at the quarterback position, and I think all of that has been improving since the spring.”
The Bulldogs are 21-3 the past three years in SEC regular-season games with Bobo calling the plays, winning league crowns the past two years. Georgia’s 2023 offense ranked fifth nationally with 496.5 yards per game, with that attack also averaging a healthy 7.26 yards per snap.
Georgia averaged 6.03 yards per snap two years ago and 5.65 yards last season, when the Bulldogs averaged 402.4 yards per game, their lowest clip since Kirby Smart’s first season as head coach in 2016.
“We’ve got to be more aggressive at times to push the ball down the field,” Bobo said. “We had a first-year starter last year at quarterback, and we wanted to protect him some with the run game and some easy outlets to Zach Branch. I think the more he matures, the more we’ll be able to evolve as an offense.”
Branch has relocated roughly an hour away as an NFL rookie receiver with the Atlanta Falcons. His 81 receptions last year dwarfed the 53 catches that Georgia’s next two receivers — Dillon Bell and Colbie Young — had combined.
Bell and Young are now in NFL camps, too, as is former Bulldogs tight end Oscar Delp.
“We lost a lot of production, and a lot of that production was Zachariah Branch,” Bobo said. “We lost a lot of experience with some skill players, four receivers and a tight end, and that’s what we’re in the business of doing right now. We’re trying to find out who we are and the best way for us to move the ball offensively.
“We want to be able to control the game, and we want to be able to be explosive. We’re trying to find a balance of what we do best as an offense.”
Bobo said the basic objectives of running the ball and stopping the run will never be abandoned under Smart, and the Bulldogs return the 1-2 punch of Nate Frazier and Chauncey Bowens, who each averaged more than 5.0 yards per carry last season.
Yet so much of Georgia’s big-play potential this season is dependent on Stockton himself. Stockton was only 10th among SEC quarterbacks with his 206.7 passing yards per game in his first full season as the starter for the Bulldogs, but his efficiency rating of 150.6 ranked fourth.
“When you push the ball downfield, and you’re a little more aggressive, sometimes turnovers happen,” Bobo said. “With spring practice and these six practices, we’ve talked about learning what you can and can’t do. We’ve watched NFL scrambles of guys making plays, and Josh Allen makes this unbelievable throw. I told our quarterbacks, ‘Don’t overestimate your throws. You’re not Josh Allen.’
“You’ve got to know what you can and can’t do. Gunner had a lot of scrambles on broken plays last year where he made plays, but sometimes he didn’t give enough space between him and the defender and took some wicked hits. A lot of that was on Gunner, and I told him that. We’re working on trying to extend plays and being a little safer in and out of the pocket.”
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Bobo praised Stockton for having the mentality of never feeling that he has arrived and for always wanting to be coached. Stockton was the preseason All-SEC third-team pick at quarterback last month, while Frazier made the second team at running back, and left tackle Earnest Greene III and center Drew Bobo, Mike’s son, earned first-team honors.
The Bulldogs had six defenders land on the first, second and third teams, and that fact is not lost on Bobo and the development of his offense.
“We have two big scrimmages in our stadium, and we feel like whenever we scrimmage, we’re going against one of the best defenses in the country,” Bobo said. “We get a chance on a daily basis to practice against them.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.