The Georgia Bulldogs have reached the midway mark of the regular season having long disposed of the notion that their offensive line would be a weak link.
Second-year Georgia coach Kirby Smart gave the game ball to the offensive front after Saturday’s 45-14 dismantling of Vanderbilt, in which the Bulldogs rushed 54 times for 423 yards and 7.8 yards per carry. The rushing output was the most for Georgia since the next-to-last year of the Vince Dooley era, when the 1987 Bulldogs amassed 454 yards, also at Vanderbilt’s expense.
“Every game we want to come out and do the same thing,” junior center Lamont Gaillard said in Nashville. “We don’t focus too much on other teams. We just come out to play, and I’m proud of everybody.”
Sony Michel rushed for 150 yards against the Commodores, while Nick Chubb added 138 and now leads the Southeastern Conference with 618 yards through six games.
The Bulldogs’ monstrous output inside Vanderbilt Stadium vaulted them to 11th nationally in rushing offense at 268.3 yards per game. Should Georgia maintain that average for the season, it would be the highest since the 1987 Bulldogs averaged 274.5.
The Bulldogs averaged 192.2 rushing yards per game in 2015 and 191.2 last season, which was the first with Smart’s staff that included offensive line coach Sam Pittman.
“I would say that Sam Pittman did a good job last year,” Smart said Monday during his weekly news conference when asked about the vastly improved unit. “Everybody does everything based on results, and that’s the world that we live in, but he did the same job last year as he’s doing this year. It’s just to the tune of different results.
“We have a little more vertical threats with our receivers, and we’re running the ball a little bit better. There are not a lot of secrets to it. He’s working the same number of hours, and he’s working just as hard as he did last year. We’re just getting better production right now.”
Pittman’s line last season featured three senior starters, which left Gaillard and Isaiah Wynn as the lone returners this year. Those two were the starting guards, with Wynn moving to left tackle and Gaillard to center back in the spring.
Wynn was recognized Monday as the SEC’s offensive lineman of the week after grading out at 92 percent with eight knockdown blocks at Vanderbilt.
Left guard Kendall Baker, right guard Solomon Kindley and freshman right tackle Andrew Thomas now comprise the rest of the starting front that Smart believes has improved each week. Kindley has been battling ankle problems all season and came out during the fourth quarter against the Commodores, but he was practicing Monday and is expected to be fine for this week’s home game with Missouri.
“We still haven’t seen a front quite as big and playing as many people as Mizzou does,” Smart said. “They play about 10 guys up front, and we’ll face better fronts than we’ve faced in the last couple of games in the coming weeks.”
Missouri ranks 98th nationally in run defense, allowing 193.4 yards a game.
Playoff picture?
The first weekly release of the rankings for college football’s four-team playoff won’t be until the end of the month, but the Bulldogs are No. 4 in this week’s Associated Press poll.
“You address it with the kids, but you don’t talk about where you’re ranked,” Smart said Monday. “We didn’t talk about where we were ranked last week, because none of it matters. All we talk about is the race, and the race right now is at the 50-meter mark (of 100).
“I don’t know a person who talked about (Justin) Gatlin being ahead of (Usain) Bolt at the 50-meter mark. They only care about where you finish and what you do next, and our objective is to do what’s next.”
Odds and ends
Georgia is 5-1 all-time against Missouri but 1-1 in Sanford Stadium. … Smart on junior defensive tackle Trenton Thompson, who missed the win in Nashville with a sprained knee: “He’ll be day-to-day and week-to-week, and we haven’t ruled him out for this game. I hope to be able to get him back. He’s battling back and moving now and running some.” … Thompson was not spotted during the portion of Monday’s indoor practice open to the media, nor was senior inside linebacker Reggie Carter, who suffered an injury early in the win at Tennessee.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.