Spread the damned offense, Chaney.

Jason Butt has a good piece about the formation adjustments made against Tennessee that opened up Georgia’s running game.

Georgia was having a hard time running the ball out of traditional pro-style sets. The linemen and tight ends weren’t able to move men off the line of scrimmage and teams stacked the box to prevent the runners from finding any space.

So Chaney adjusted accordingly.

While Georgia didn’t run out of the shotgun against Mississippi as much, it did against Tennessee last week. Georgia ran for 181 yards and was able to churn out runs to put itself in third-and-short situations throughout the game.

The reason the running game worked in this capacity is that the offensive sets moved defenders crashing the box to the perimeter. By splitting two receivers wide and putting one in the slot, it forced Tennessee to use five defensive backs to defend the passing game — three corners and two safeties.

Sometimes, the nickel defender or a safety would crash down. But even then, it meant six or seven defenders were in the box as opposed to the eight or nine Georgia was facing in previous weeks.

Added benefit of playing more out of the shotgun was it made the wunderkind more comfortable running the offense.

Running out of the shotgun has also helped freshman quarterback Jacob Eason when it comes to reading the defense and adjusting any calls.

“It gives Eason — he’s a young, 18-year old quarterback back there — a chance to read the defense,” Pyke said. “And we can help him out with the calls.”

My only concern is that Kirby “Every week, there may be a different game plan. It’s going to depend on what gives us the best chance to be successful against that defense” Smart decides that, between the bad weather and South Carolina’s admittedly porous run defense, it’s the perfect time to muscle up, go back to man ball and allow Boom to load the box on defense all game long.

And, yeah, there’s a cautionary tale for Smart here.  South Carolina’s defense, as Butt reports, is giving up over 200 yards rushing a game.  That’s next to last in the conference.  The last place team?  Well, that would be Ole Miss.