Georgia junior running back D’Andre Swift notched his fifth collegiate 100-yard rushing performance last Saturday against South Carolina, but there was no celebrating afterward.
Or in the days that have followed.
Swift’s 23 carries for 113 yards and a touchdown were not enough to overcome the four turnovers that doomed the Bulldogs in their 20-17 loss in double-overtime. None of the turnovers involved Swift, but the 5-foot-9, 215-pounder from Philadelphia could not shake Georgia’s infrequency this season in reeling off explosive plays.
“I need to do a better job of breaking tackles and stuff like that,” Swift said this week in a news conference. “I can’t put it on anybody else.”
Swift’s longest rush against the Gamecocks was 14 yards, which represented Georgia’s top run of the game. Georgia had only one offensive play longer than 18 yards, with that being a 33-yard pass from Jake Fromm to George Pickens to South Carolina’s 44-yard line late in the third quarter.
The 10th-ranked Bulldogs (5-1, 2-1 SEC) rushed for 4.0 yards per carry last Saturday, having entered the game with a 6.7-yard clip, so renewing their respected ground attack is among the many objectives heading into this Saturday’s game against visiting Kentucky (3-3, 1-3).
“The biggest thing for our guys will be whether they block Kentucky, whether they move Kentucky and whether they create movement to create some explosive runs,” Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart said. “Can we block on the perimeter well enough that a 12-yard run is a 50-yard run? We’ve got pretty good backs to do that with.
“We’ve opened up a lot of 10- to 12-yard runs. We haven’t had the explosives that we need greater than 12.”
Swift was breaking free with regularity last season, producing a 33-yard touchdown run, an 83-yard scoring run and a 77-yard score in consecutive wins over Florida, Kentucky and Auburn. His longest runs this season of 39 and 36 yards occurred in whippings of Arkansas State and Vanderbilt, but it’s been different against stiffer competition.
In the 23-17 triumph over Notre Dame on Sept. 21, Swift’s longest run was 15 yards.
“Teams are putting a lot of people in the box, so it’s kind of hard,” Swift said. “When you get past one level, there are three guys right there, and you can’t really make that many people miss. More teams are loading the box and taking away the running and making Jake Fromm beat them, and I think Jake is going to do that.
“I think we need to take more shots down the field and get the ball to our playmakers in space.”
Georgia likely will face the Wildcats without receiver Lawrence Cager (shoulder and ribs) and guard Justin Shaffer (neck), while guard Solomon Kindley continues to battle a nagging ankle injury. Whether that hinders the Bulldogs offensively remains to be seen, but they won’t get any sympathy from a Kentucky team that beat Arkansas last Saturday without its top two quarterbacks from the start of the season.
The Bulldogs are halfway through their 12-game regular season, and Swift is convinced the offense is nowhere close to reaching its potential.
“We haven’t played a complete game offensively at all,” Swift said. “The first half of the Tennessee game wasn’t too good. It’s bound to happen, but we need to get back and refocus and start over.
“We need to treat every game like a playoff game.”
Odds and ends
Smart said after Tuesday’s practice that freshman defensive lineman Travon Walker underwent wrist surgery earlier this month but could return to action as early as next week. … Freshman quarterback D’Wan Mathis, who had surgery this spring to remove a cyst from his brain, is doing more work in practice but still hasn’t been cleared to take live reps.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.