Kentucky Football Film Review: Scouting Georgia's Offense

Georgia aligns in a lot of two tight end and one back sets ("21 Personnel"), and one tight end and two back sets ("12 Personnel"). This results in defenses playing a lot of Cover 3 with eight down in run support.

So, naturally, UGA runs Cover 3 beaters such as Flat-Curl, and Flood routes.  These route combinations are intended to put stress on a particular defender or zone by placing two or more receivers at opposite ends of the defender's coverage area.

Here is one example of their Flat-Curl concept. The H-back will run the seam and take the safety with him. The #2 receiver (numbered from outside-in) will run an arrow to the numbers aiming to run out of bounds at four yards to widen the overhang linebacker (see the red square). The #1 receiver runs vertical and will speed cut inside the widening linebacker and back down through the hallway.

This stretches the linebacker horizontally as he can't contain both the arrow and the curl.  The corner has deep coverage so his duty is to ensure the curl does not get behind him.  The safety has to ensure the seam route does not get over the top of his coverage, and thus there is a soft spot where the curl route should end.

The defense gets spread out by design with the intent of making the choice easy on the quarterback.

Here is another version with an attached tight end instead of the H-back.

Next is their flood concept. They run this off their stretch run. QB fakes the stretch to the RB and then boots. The H- back, who would normally block the LB on their stretch, bypasses him and runs a flat route. The #2 receiver away from the boot will run a cross route and flood the hook/curl zone defender.

Here is the same flood from a 5 step play action instead.

Against Florida, there were some designed QB runs but the timing was off and it appears they were abandoned.

On the picture above, the QB was reading the end man on the line of scrimmage. He widened with the Jet motion so the QB kept and ran inside. The H-back sealed the strong-side linebacker, the offensive tackle pinned the defensive end, and the weakside linebacker missed the tackle. This resulted in a large gain.

I would not expect to see many of these based on the reports as to who will be the quarterback. Expect a steady dose of toss sweep and one back power.  They have a tendency to run power into the boundary and overwhelm the force players with fullbacks and pulling lineman.

Do not be lulled into believing UGA can't move the football. Their run game is physical and #26 Malcolm Mitchell is a deep threat and a crafty route runner. Against Tennessee, he was instrumental in the final drive in winning one-on-one balls against Tennessee's best cornerback.  A physical running game and a go- to receiver, alleviates the need to have a good quarterback behind center.