Back-To-Back

to learn? Why? Like, it doesn’t take that to
learn that.
“And this team is special because they
didn’t have a flaw,” he said. “They had two
games in which they came back in the
fourth quarter, Missouri and Ohio State, with
incredible comebacks and led by Stetson
and the offense.
“So, it makes it more special, I think, when
you come back and look at it, because when
you want to compare teams you’ll say, ‘hey,
look at this team.’ There’s some parts of me
that think, if the team last year played this
year’s team, last year’s team probably had
more talent on it. But this year’s team was
different. Like, they just had this eye of the
tiger; they weren’t going to lose!”
Smart said he had great admiration for
the uncanny consistency of the 2022
champions.
“I keep thinking that if you press the gas
pedal too hard, you’re going to run out of
gas and they’ll be exhausted,” he said. “I kept
thinking mentally maybe the LSU game.
And then doing this, and doing that and
then practicing this, and going to the Ohio
State emotional, just roller coaster. Maybe
we’re just out of gas. And they never run
out of gas. So that goes a lot of credit to our
strength and conditioning program, our
training staff, our kids committing to actually
doing that. Like, they actually go out and hit
each other in the 15th week of the season
over and over again, and they enjoy doing it.”
Smart pointed to senior tailback Kenny
TOUCHDOWN
KENDALL MILTON!
PHOTO BY: ROB SAYE
McIntosh and redshirt freshman quarterback
Gunner Stockton as just two examples of the
Bulldogs’ toughness this past season.
“Kenny, I can’t believe he would even be
considered a three-star,” declared Smart.
“That’s just disgusting to even think about
because this guy is an incredible athlete. His
brother plays in the NFL. He’s got great DNA.
Kenny is a great example of our program. He
came in as a chubby kid with a great smile,
playing behind people and didn’t know how
to play on special teams. He left as an alpha
leader.
“And when he spoke, people really listened
to Kenny. I’ve never seen a person will a
team to a win like he did in Missouri. The
guy was basically running crippled out there
against Missouri and pounding people
and running the ball. He took over games.
I can remember the Florida game, after the
fumble, I’ll never forget the visualization I
have of he fumbles and we say, you know
what, we’ve got to come back to Kenny. He
comes back with a vengeance running the
ball just mad. And those memories stay with
me forever.”
In commenting on Georgia’s returning
quarterbacks for next season, Smart lauded
the example set by Stockton.
“We’ve got some good quarterbacks in
there,” he said. “We got one that took a black
jersey off and took hits all week so he could
be Max (TCU QB Duggan). Gunner Stockton
said, ‘Coach, take my shirt off. I’ll take the
hits.’ And Brock Vandagriff is down there
learning all year. Carson Beck got a lot of play
time and has a lot of
composure to come
back and be able to
play. So those three
guys will get to battle
it out. And they’ll
learn a lot.”
Often times, the
toughest, and most
unheralded, players
on a football team are
the guys that toil up
front in the offensive
line. Georgia’s 2022
offensive front, which
inexplicably was
again overlooked for
the Joe Moore Award
for the nation’s best
OL (the Michigan line
whose team lost to
the same TCU team
that Georgia routed
won the award
again) paved the way
for Todd Monken’s
offense to put up
some impressive
numbers this season:
No. 5 in the nation
and second in the
SEC in total offense,
the Dawgs’ 501
LADD MCCONKEY =
TOUGH DAWG!
PHOTO BY: ROB SAYE
yards per game bettering the 2021 offense’s
production; No. 4 in the country in scoring
offense with a 41.1 per game average, which
was also above last year’s per game average.
And at the National Championship
Celebration on Sept. 14 at Sanford
Stadium, one of the three team captains,
redshirt-sophmore center Sedrick Van
Pran, spoke of his unit’s accomplishments.
“Starting off I just want to look at all these
guys (fellow offensive linemen) over here,”
said Van Pran. “Y’all did a tremendous job
this year and this wouldn’t have been
possible without all the work y’all did. It
means so much to me be a part of that
and be the only offensive line ever to give
up nine sacks in 15 games. It was truly a
blessing. I’m super proud. We couldn’t do it
without Coach Stacy Searels, Eddie Gordon
and Devonte Danzey. We really appreciate
all the work that everybody put in. We were
able to do something special.”
And, certainly, SEC and National
championships aren’t attained without
plenty of toughness on the other side of
the ball as well. Again, final statistics tell a
true story for the Bulldogs’ defense also.
Playing in somewhat of a huge shadow of
maybe the program’s best-ever defense in
2021, these Georgia defenders were pretty
special themselves. They ranked 10th in the
country in total defense, and first in the SEC,
with the 296.8 yards per game surrendered.
They were 5th in the nation, and again first
in the SEC, in scoring defense, the 14.3 pts
average the Bulldogs allowed just being
right at four points more than the 2021 unit
gave up. And, get this, the 2022 defense
of co-coordinators Will Muschamp and
Glenn Schumann, paced the entire country
in rushing yards allowed, with opposing
offenses running for a meager 77.1 average.
Again, that was slightly better than the 78.9
yards average the powerful ’21 UGA defense
surrendered.
Toughness personified. That was the
Georgia Bulldogs, 2022 edition.
BULLDAWGILLUSTRATED
31 2022 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS EDITION