If you’re fretting about Georgia’s running game, Josh Hancher is here to settle you down.
Offensive Rush Success Rate
- 2018 48.0%
- 2019 47.3%
- 2020 49.6%
- 2021 50.6%
- 2022 64.8%
Offensive Rush Yards Per Attempt
- 2018 6.5
- 2019 5.6
- 2020 5.3
- 2021 5.8
- 2022 5.9 (current Official is 5.4 but includes sacks, etc)
Georgia is actually incredibly successful and is top 5 in rush success rate this season. These are actual rush attempts, not short passes, screens, etc which can be debated as extension of the run game. Pretty good, right?
I’d take it. More importantly, consider the overall context. As he concludes, “I am not worried about the run game or who is the RB. This offense is humming.” True dat!
Get The Picture 
All I got to say is, “In Todd we trust.”
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That’s reassuring as my perception is the running game doesn’t pass the eye test. Maybe it’s simply the starters are going down too easy but only after they’ve busted through a hole opened by the O line?
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Not gonna go as far back as Todd Gurley, having fresh memories of Zeus, James Cook, Mr. Nick Chubb, D’Andre Swift, makes expectations for the current UGA football RB room tough, even though this group is very, very good…UGA football “OC” runs when the opposition says he can, passes when they say he can’t…GO DAWGS!
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That’s what I’m missing. Coming through a hole, shedding an arm tackle or three and sprinting down the field for a TD. With the TE’s and receivers blocking as well as they do I expect to see more of that from Georgia RB’s.
Yeah, I’m spoiled.
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If you don’t mind the company, I’m spoiled with ya…SIC ‘EM DAWGS!
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Welcome, DIW. Glad to see you made it through the most recent unpleasantness down South.
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When clouds were passing by at 50-60 mph, buckets upon buckets of water falling from those clouds, all is good…Mother Nature Rules…our brothers and sisters to the north not so much, god bless them and those performing rescue and infrastructure repairs…GO DAWGS!
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We got so lucky here on the golden isles. A little wind and not much rain.
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My sentiments exactly Russ.
It just seems like we aren’t getting ground yards, RB’s going down too easy, and jus tween slow. I think that they’re good enough but it just isn’t showing .
If it weren’t for those damn stats man .
What’s Twains comment?
“Lies, damned lies and then there’s statistics.”
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I agree. I think Monken’s offense should have room for that. White and Cook did it last year. We miss it
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Zamir was getting his speed back every year. I wish he had stuck around one more year. We don’t have a Dawg like him right now.
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Ranger your not wrong about passing the eye test the RB’s don’t. We are blessed with the best OC in Georgia history who puts his guys in the best possible position to hide any faults. Not that they are bad they aren’t. We’re just spoiled by a recent history of game changing backs available when needed.
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When was the last long run for a TD we had? Zeus against the Barners last year, and the Gators in 2020, a season we otherwise have no need to revisit. Cook broke a long one off in the natty and came close. Kenny has gotten so close and probably will soon once he’s healthy. We’ve just been blessed with generational RB talent during the Gurley/Chubb/Sony era all of who compensated for inconsistent line play (imagine Gurley + Pittman?!) A return to earth was inevitable. Just wondering what happens when an elite defense like Bama shuts down our perimeter game.
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I would love to see those numbers with the TE and WR sweeps taken out. Granted a rushing yard is a rushing yard no matter who gets it, but the RB’s just have not passed the eyeball test for me.
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Exactly. These numbers are smoke and mirrors.
Brock fucking Bowers.
Our run game is an enormous concern. If we can’t do some grinding against UT, no matter how well our defense plays, we will be in trouble. It’ll only become more important in the post season. Branson Robinson needs to get the ball more and more each week.
Don’t get me wrong, Monken is an absolute genius. I have faith in him.
But we have got to show the ability to control the game on the ground.
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Brock is 4th on the team in rushing, with 85 yards. Milton and Edwards both average nearly 6 YPC.
Settle down, Beavis.
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Averaging 27.33 ypc, Butthead.
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Yeah. He popped one for 75. So, if you’re saying his one run of 75 yards is the “smoke and mirrors” that KS is being fooled by when he explains the run game is successful, then you’re stretching your poor argument about as far as he toted the rock on that one carry.
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I took the WR and TE rushing yardage out and ran the numbers. That 5.9 yards per attempt falls to 4.8 per attempt. Bowers and McConkey have skewed the numbers.
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Why would you take them out? Do those not count as rushing plays bc they aren’t from someone labeled as a RB?
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Because at some point you are going to need to have your RBs take control of the game to pound it. If you have been following the above discussion, you would see that people are saying that the RB’s are not passing the eye test and the numbers seem to bear that out. Monken is a wizard at scheming around the RB deficiencies but at some point, they have to produce. Just like so many air raid teams that put up incredible yards (a yard is a yard correct) but can’t run it for shit. How many of those teams have you see in the CFB playoffs? How many short yardage failures have we had? Other than you, we seem to have a LOT of people concerned with this. Even Kirby has talked about failure in the red zone. You have a problem if your RBs are having trouble pounding it in when it is first and goal from the 4 or 5 and we wind up settling for a field goal. It’s going to come back and bite us in the ass if this does not get fixed. The numbers would say that Edwards needs more of the workload. So does the eyeball test.
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I have been following and just don’t believe its as dire an issue as some are making it out to be. How many times have we been inside the 5 and “had to have” a touchdown and failed? We’ve hardly used our jumbo package to this point and have yet to put 13 personnel on the field. I agree that our true RBs could and need to perform better, but Bowers has scored on end-arounds in 2 red zone situations as well as the long one he broke off vs. Kent this year. He’s a weapon wherever you line him up. The only time I see taking his numbers out of our rushing totals to make a point as being valid would be if he wasn’t available.
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Milton – 5.62 YPC
Edwards – 5.88 YPC
Kenny is the one the lagging at 3.88, for whatever reason… and nobody here is going to have a good answer for that, other than “because my eyes say so.”
As for Edwards getting more workload, he’s second on the team in carries.. pretty much right where he should be.
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I appreciate your faith in our running backs. I wish I shared the same feelings.
Check those game logs though. Milton had a big game against Samford. Edwards had a big game against Kent St.
In my opinion, Robinson is the only back on our roster built to have a pounding big game against SEC opponents. I’d just like to see more of him.
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Our rushing numbers are skewed because we have so few TFL. The line is good enough to prevent the backs from going down below the LOS, but the backs, particularly Milton, aren’t good enough to take real advantage of that.
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14% of the runs this year have been for longer than 10 yards.
16% of the runs last year were for longer than 10 yards.
That’s a decrease, but not a statistically significant one… and on a much smaller sample size.
What we’ve been missing, thus far, has been the second-level run fits we’ve had in the past. Those are what spring the big runs. A lot of that has to do with Guard play… getting up off an initial block to the next level of the defense. Those big breakaway plays are the ones that boost the YPC and make people feel a lot better about the running game… but those can be smoke and mirrors as much as anything else.
I hold to this: the fans have seen Running Backs carry the ball 107 times this season. Coaches have seen it.. I don’t know – a few more times than that… this week.
I’ll defer to their understanding.
Go Dawgs
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I still think that Monken will play whoever can run the ball since we have a depleted running back room. He wants to be a successful scoring OC. Bodies running balls and protecting them and getting them to 1st down or in the end zone counts as a run to me. I’m not particular about who runs the ball. A lot of people here seem to, but this old lady trusts what’s going on and I believe we will see more people running, like Jalen Carter, if he’s put in at fullback again. Perhaps this interests a recruit or two to choose Georgia since we need running backs. I don’t know why elite skill players are hard to come by lately, but the jobs are open, even for freshmen. Last year it was WR and this year RB…and so college ball goes.
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I am not fretting.
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Running backs dancing too much to me. Go Down hill with the ball!
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Yeah, but when you realize all that is Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey on jet sweeps and reverses, and NOT our RBs, it should make you worry more, not less.
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I was just chastised for making that very point above. I was told that a rushing yard is a rushing yard no matter how you got it or who got it.
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That pair has combined for 111 yards rushing.
The RBs have 525.
Methinks you exaggerate.
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Except because they’ve gotten those 111 yards on far less carries than the RBs got their yards, no, I’m really not. 🤷🏻♂️
Take away those yards and the few carries it took to get then, and the yards per rush average craters.
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It doesn’t. I already showed the individual rushing averages of Milton and Edwards… And those take into account, well, the rushing yards and carries of Milton and Edwards.
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Just saying, the narrative of the pass game opening up the run game hasn’t really materialized. Limited sample size and all that is part of it, I know.
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2016 – 2021: Stupid Kirby and his manball…pass more and use the TEs!
2022 (dressed in NC gear): Stupid Kirby and his TEs and passing game, we need manball!
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2016-2021, you are exactly correct. Most all of us were saying that.
2022 you have wrong. Nobody is saying we need to run it more. What is being said is that WHEN we run it, we need to run it MUCH better. It’s not about the quantity, but rather the quality that is suffering in the rung game (at the RB position).
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I laugh out loud at the angst shown toward the RB room. They’re just fine, as Hancher points out. KM2 hasn’t been healthy all year; how many of you know he wore a hamstring brace until last week’s game? KM6 is banged up as well.
Are they the type of backs we’re used to seeing line up deep in the I formation? Probably not, but our offense isn’t predicated on that style anymore. It’s all zone read and inside power. Also, rushing yards count no matter who carries the ball or how it’s done. You can’t dismiss the creativeness in Monken’s ability to get the ball to his playmakers. Monken also considers a 12+ yard run an explosive play. Go look up how many of those we have (hint- it’s probably more than you realize).
Finally, all of y’all that are “concerned” (I won’t use the term I truly want to use) about our running game would likely be the same folks “expressing concern” about the passing game if we were still lining up with Chubb/Gurley/Michel/etc, pounding the rock down the defense’s throat, and throwing 15 passes a game. You can’t have it both ways.
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I guess maybe we were spoiled with Cook last year. He was a huge threat out of the backfield in the passing game but could take it up between the tackles and get the tough yards. You don’t have to settle for one or the other. Keep laughing out loud and we will keep shaking our heads. If the running game between the tackles is unimportant, then why are we spending so much time and effort trying to flip the kid from UCLA? Apparently, the powers that be would like more than a receiver in the backfield type of RB.
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First, I never said running the ball between the tackles was unimportant. You assumed that. Second, Roderick Robinson catches the ball well. KM2 can also do both of those things well. There’s a myriad of video floating out on the internet of KM2 housing both 60+ yard runs and passes against last year’s generational defense in closed scrimmages.
I truly don’t care how we score more points than the other team. It won’t be on the same level, but this version of the Dawgs could be like the 2019 LSU team that just overwhelmed its opponents with points and the other teams just could not keep up with their scoring pace. There’s not a defense left on the schedule that will keep us under 45 ppg; we’ll either be inefficient or sloppy. And our D isn’t giving up near that many points to any offense we see in the regular season.
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You still laughing?
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This 2022 offense seems to have only one potential Achilles heel, turnovers, which was only revealed just this last week. However, not to imply a trend.
Those three TOs plus the fake FG was a point swing of any where between 14-21. Until the post-season, it’s hard to imagine any remaining regular season opponent capable of both, holding UGA to less than 35, while scoring more than that, without the aid of TO’s. In the long haul, the TO’s coming against Kent State might have been a blessing. Just respect and take care of the rock, boys!
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Not to tempt fate, But it has not been the running backs whoever dropped any balls on a fumble.
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In 2015, Chubb averaged 8 YPC.
In 2016, Chubb averaged 5 YPC.
In 2017, Chubb averaged 6 YPC.
Some of the commenters here would have us believe he was a worse back in 2017 than he was in 2015.
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Yea, it’s almost like YPC by itself doesn’t tell the whole story.
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The numbers look great, it just does not feel great.
I know that makes no since, but it is the way I feel and until our running game takes over a game I will continue to feel that way.
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I think what’s gone are the first down smash runs into the middle of a loaded box that result in -3 to +3 yards at a time.
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The reality is there are twelve SEC teams and probably thirteen that would love to have the Dawgs problems. It gives us something to talk about but nothing to worry about.
We know what this team can do.
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