UGA Football: Georgia Faces Samford in Home Opener

Fresh off an impressive 49-3 rout of No. 11 Oregon in Atlanta, third-ranked Georgia (1-0) plays host to Samford (1-0) Saturday at 4 p.m. on the SEC Network. The Bulldogs of Samford upset No. 8 Kennesaw State 27-17 in Birmingham, Ala., on Sept. 1. The Samford Bulldogs are part of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). They are led by Chris Hatcher, who hired Kirby Smart for his first coaching job at Valdosta State in 2000. Smart served as the defensive backs coach, and the defensive coordinator at that time was Will Muschamp. In 2001, Muschamp left to become linebackers coach at LSU and Smart was promoted to defensive coordinator. Georgia is 1-0 all-time versus Samford, winning 42-14 in 2017.

Saturday will mark the home opener for Georgia where the Bulldogs are 368-107-9. In the Smart era, the Bulldogs are 31-4 at home including 29-1 since 2017. Georgia’s .886 winning percentage at home under Smart is the best in school history. The Bulldogs were 3-3 at home in his first season (2016), and the only loss since then came in double overtime to South Carolina in 2019. Georgia has won 12 straight home games.

Georgia has a streak of 58 consecutive sellouts that began Sept. 15, 2012 versus Florida Atlantic. The last non-sellout was Sept. 1, 2012 versus Buffalo. The school record for consecutive sellouts is 64. The record streak began Sept. 1, 2001 versus Arkansas and lasted through Sept. 10, 2011 versus South Carolina.

Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium grew to its current capacity of 92,746 in 2004. It ranks fifth among capacity for SEC stadiums and ninth for largest on-campus stadiums across the country.

After helping lead Georgia to the 2021 national championship, senior QB Stetson Bennett returns to the quarterbacks room in 2022. In this year’s opener, Bennett was named the Walter Camp National FBS Offensive Player of the Week after leading third-ranked Georgia over 11th-ranked Oregon 49-3 during the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game.

Bennett was 25 for 31 (80.6 percent) for a career-high 368 yards and two touchdowns to go along with one rushing score. Assuming the spot behind center for three-plus quarters against the Ducks, Bennett helped the Bulldogs go 8-for-8 on third downs while he was in the game. Ten different Georgia players hauled in catches in the season opener.

Bennett is 15-3 as a starter, including getting the nod in the final 11 games last season. He set the school record for Passing Efficiency at 176.7 during the 2021 national title campaign.

Senior OLB Nolan Smith, redshirt sophomore DB Kelee Ringo and senior S Christopher Smith are the Bulldogs’ three returning defensive starters from last season’s championship team. Eight Georgia defenders were taken in the 2022 NFL Draft, including the No. 1 overall pick in Travon Walker (Jacksonville) and four others in the First Round (Jordan Davis, Philadelphia; Quay Walker, Devonte Wyatt, Green Bay; Lewis Cine

, Minnesota). For the third time in school history, Georgia led the nation in Scoring Defense. The 2021 unit allowed just 10.2 points per game and only 153 total points in 15 games. The 2022 unit allowed just a field goal in the season opener for the second year in a row. This was the first time since 2017 that Oregon failed to score a touchdown in a game.

A 2021 College Football Playoff national championship, a 2018 CFP title game appearance, 2017 Southeastern Conference Championship, four SEC Eastern Division titles, 67 wins and six bowl victories are more than respectable rewards as Kirby Smart rolls into his seventh season. That’s what Georgia got when it hired Smart, the former Georgia player and Alabama defensive coordinator, to head the program in December of 2015.

His impact, along with a stellar coaching staff, players, and a passionate fan base has put Georgia on the national stage six years running. His 2021 team became UGA’s first national champion since 1980, the first since 1982 to go undefeated in the SEC regular season, a No. 1 national ranking by all the major polls and the first ever to win 14 games. It marked the fifth straight team to finish the regular season ranked in the top ten of the College Football Playoff rankings. The team set 21 school records, highlighted by the nation’s top-ranked defense. The third-ranked Bulldogs defeated #2 Michigan, 34-11, in the Capital One Orange Bowl in Miami and then No. 1 Alabama, 33-18, in the championship game in Indianapolis. The senior class also set the mark for most career wins by going 45-8. After the regular season, Smart was named SEC Coach of the Year for the second time in five years.

Georgia’s championship season enjoyed a fitting exclamation mark at the 2022 NFL Draft. The Bulldogs set a Draft record with 15 players taken, including five defenders in the first round, led by the first overall selection, junior Travon Walker.

%Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic; ^Liberty Bowl; $Rose Bowl Game; ~Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl; !CFP National Championship

Rushing Yards: 222, Nick Chubb vs. #22 UNC (9/3/16)
Rushing TDs: 3, Sony Michel UK (11/18/17); vs. #2 Oklahoma (1/1/18)
Longest Rush: 83-TD, D’Andre Swift @ #9 UK (11/3/18)
Passing Yards: 401, JT Daniels MSU (11/21/20)
Passing TDs: 5, Stetson Bennett UAB (9/11/21)
Receiving Yards: 197 (8 rec.), Jermaine Burton MSU (11/21/20)
Receiving TDs: 2, by 7 different Bulldogs multiple times
Longest Pass/TD Pass: 89-TD, S. Bennett to Brock Bowers UAB (9/11/21)
Tackles: 15, Nakobe Dean vs. #8 UF (11/7/20)
Sacks: 3, Trenton Thompson vs. TCU (12/30/16); Azeez Ojulari vs. #8 UC (1/1/21); Channing Tindall @ UT (11/13/21)
TFL: 3, Azeez Ojulari #7 AU (10/3/20); Thompson vs. Nicholls (9/10/16); 3, Azeez Ojulari vs. #8 UC (1/1/21); Channing Tindall @ UT(11/13/21)

Under Kirby Smart, Georgia has registered 25 scores on defense and special teams. The Dogs are 22-1 (loss came versus #8 UF in 2020) when they register a non-offensive score under Smart.

In 2021, Georgia had six of these scores: Christopher Smith’s 74-yd INT return (#3 CU); Jamon Dumas-Johnson’s 20-yd INT return (UAB); Safety (SC); Zamir White 0-yd return of blocked punt (#8 ARK); Nakobe Dean’s

50-yd INT return (UF); Safety (UM); Kelee Ringo’s 79-yd INT return (UA-2).

Kirby Smart is one of 11 Power 5 head coaches who are leading their alma maters.

Offensive Coordinator – Quarterbacks Coach – Todd Monken
Fain & Billy Slaughter Co-Defensive Coordinator – Inside Linebackers – Glenn Schumann
Co-Defensive Coordinator – Will Muschamp
Passing Game Coordinator – Wide Receivers – Bryan McClendon
Run Game Coordinator – Running Backs – Dell McGee
Defensive Backs Coach – Fran Brown
Assistant Coach – Tight Ends – Todd Hartley
Offensive Line Coach – Stacy Searels
Assistant Coach – Defensive Line – Tray Scott
Assistant Coach – Outside Linebackers – Chidera Uzo-Diribe

The Bulldogs will feature four new on the field coaches. Bryan McClendon, who won an SEC title with Georgia as a receiver in 2005, returns as passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach. He most recently held the same spot for Oregon from 2020-21. McClendon was a graduate assistant at UGA in 2007-08 and was the running backs coach from 2009-15. Stacy Searels will be Georgia’s new offensive line coach after serving in the same role for the Bulldogs from 2007-10. He has most recently been North Carolina’s OL coach for the last three years. Another pair of coaches will join UGA for the first time in their careers. Fran Brown was named the defensive backs coach after serving as the secondary coach at Rutgers. Chidera Uzo-Diribe is the Bulldogs’ new outside linebackers coach following a stint in the same position at Texas Christian University.

Georgia’s offensive line returns three of five starters after Jamaree Salyer and Justin Shaffer had a combined 50 starts between them and have since moved on to the NFL. C Sedrick Van Pran (16 consecutive starts), RT Warren McClendon (team high 25 consecutive starts) and RG Tate Ratledge all got the nod in the opener along with LT Broderick Jones and LG Xavier Truss. Jones started the final four regular season games last year when Salyer went down with an injury. Ratledge also started the 2021 opener but was lost for the year with an injury sustained in the fourth series of that contest. Warren Ericson relieved Ratledge for the final 14 games of 2021 and returns this year.

Amarius Mims is also back and will be lining up at either tackle while Devin Willock has earned a spot in the regular rotation as well at OG.

Senior PK Jack Podlesny is back in 2022 for his third season as UGA’s top kicker. Podlesny has made 35 of 43 field-goal attempts in his career (81.4 percent) and drilled 116 of 117 PATs. Early enrollee Brett Thorson, a native of Australia, handled the lone punt (a 53 yarder in the fourth quarter) in this year’s opener. The Bulldogs are without four-year starter Jake Camarda (4th Rd. pick, Tampa Bay), who averaged 46.7 yards on 47 punts last season. Camarda’s career mark of 45.8 yards set the UGA record, topping the previous mark set by Drew Butler (45.4). The Bulldog snappers return in senior Payne Walker and junior William Mote. Walker handles the snapping duties on field goals and PATs while Mote is called on for punts.

Senior

Stetson Bennett, a native of Blackshear, Ga., began his career with the Bulldogs as a walk-on in 2017 when he was redshirted. Bennett transferred to Jones College (Miss.) where he started in 2018 and then returned to the Bulldogs on scholarship in 2019. He saw action that season in five games including throwing passes in four of them. In 2020, he started five games and then got the nod in the final 11 contests of the 2021 national championship season.

In his Bulldog career, Bennett is 15-3 and has completed 63.2 percent of his passes (316-for-500, 4,669 yards, 41 TDs, 14 INTs).

Bennett earned Walter Camp National FBS Offensive Player of the Week honors while leading No. 3 Georgia to a 49-3 rout of No. 11 Oregon in this season’s opener. He directed the Bulldogs to seven touchdowns on their first seven drives and finished 25 of 31 for a career-high 368 yards and two touchdowns. Bennett also had a 1-yard rushing score against the Ducks.

In 2021, Bennett played in 14 games (11-1 as a starter) and was 185-for-287 (64.4%) for 2,862 yards with 29 TDs and seven INTs.

He ranked fourth nationally in Passing Efficiency (176.7) last year, which broke the school record in that category previously belonging to Aaron Murray (174.8, 2012).

Bennett helped Georgia complete a historic 8-0 SEC regular season and its first undefeated regular season since 1982.

During the CFP National Championship Game versus No. 1 Alabama, Bennett finished 17-for-26 passing with 224 yards, two touchdowns and no picks. Trailing 18-13 with 10:14 left in the game, Bennett directed a four-play, 75-yard scoring drive that gave the Bulldogs a one-point lead at the 8:09 mark (a two-point conversion failed). Georgia never relinquished its lead to collect its first national championship in 41 years. Bennett was named the game’s Offensive MVP.

Bennett was named the Offensive MVP of the Orange Bowl/CFP Semifinal win over No. 2 Michigan. He completed 20 of his 30 attempts for 313 yards and three touchdowns against the highly-touted Wolverine defense, including Heisman Trophy runner-up Aiden Hutchinson.

*Ties school record

Brock Bowers burst on to the scene last year and had one of the finest seasons ever by a Bulldog pass catcher in earning All-America honors, and he was just a freshman. A 6-4, 230-pound native of Napa, Calif, he was named the FWAA Freshman of the Year, the Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year and the SEC Freshman of the Year. He tallied 56 receptions for 882 yards and 14 touchdowns (13 receiving, 1 rushing), all team-bests and school records for a tight end. The 13 TD catches was the most ever by a Bulldog. He was utilized as an H-back too for his superior blocking skills and running ability. In fact, he had four carries for 56 yards and one touchdown. His first career rush resulted in a 12-yard TD at Vanderbilt.

Bowers has had three 100-yard receiving games in his career; four TD receptions of 25+ yards; his first career TD catch covered 89 yards against UAB, and he had a 77-yard TD at Georgia Tech.

Georgia’s tight end room is loaded. Along with Bowers, the top targets here include 6-7, 270-pound junior Darnell Washington, 6-5, 255-pound redshirt sophomore Arik Gilbert and 6-5, 225-pound freshman Oscar Delp.

With Zamir White and James Cooks off to the NFL, Georgia’s veterans in the backfield are senior Kenny McIntosh, as well as juniors Kendall Milton and Daijun Edwards.

McIntosh had nine catches for 117 yards (both career highs) to go along with five carries for 18 yards and a touchdown during the rout of No. 11 Oregon in the 2022 opener.

Milton was the leading rusher versus the Ducks with 50 yards on eight carries (6.2 avg.). He scored both a rushing and a receiving touchdown against No. 11 Oregon for the first time in his career.

Georgia’s offense generated 49 points against No. 11 Oregon in the 2022 season opener. The Bulldogs tallied 571 yards of offense on only 62 plays and scored touchdowns on their first seven touchdowns of the game.

UGA finished nine for 10 on third down conversions against the Ducks.

Ten different Bulldogs caught a pass in the win over Oregon as Georgia amassed 439 yards through the air, which is the most ever in the Kirby Smart era.

Georgia’s leading receivers against the Ducks were Kenny McIntosh (9-117-0), Ladd McConkey (5-73-1) and AD Mitchell (4-65-1). Also of note, McConkey scored receiving and rushing touchdowns in the same game for the second time in his career.

This marks the third year that Todd Monken is directing the Georgia offense. The Bulldogs averaged 38.6 points/game and outscored their opponents 579-153 last year.

The Bulldog defense kept No. 3 Oregon to only a field goal in the season opener as the Ducks collected 313 yards on 68 plays.

Late in the fourth quarter, Georgia had an impressive goal line stand late in the fourth quarter that ended at the two yard line following a 19-play, 87-yard drive that lasted 8:47.

This marked the first time Oregon had failed to score a touchdown in a game since 2017.

In 2021, Georgia featured the nation’s top Scoring Defense allowing just 10.2 points/game. In six games last year, Georgia did not allow an offensive TD and that led the FBS.

The Bulldogs finished second nationally in Total Defense (268.9 yards/game) and second in Rushing Defense (78.9).

The Bulldogs led the country in Red Zone defense. Opponents advanced to the Red Zone only 32 times and 12 times came away with no points.

The defense allowed 13 TDs in 2021 while it scored four TDs.

Georgia’s leading tacklers in the win over No. 3 Oregon were senior Christopher Smith and freshman Malaki Starks who finished with six and eight stops, respectively. Both Bulldogs also registered interceptions that eventually turned into 14 points. The picks came on the Ducks’ second and third possessions and helped Georgia build a 21-0 lead.

This marked Smith’s fourth career pick and his second in a row in a season-opening game after returning his interception for a score against No. 3 Clemson in 2021 for the game’s only touchdown.

The Bulldogs had 16 interceptions on the year last season.

The Bulldogs had six first-time starters on defnese in their opener versus No. 11 Oregon: ILB Jamon Dumas-Johnson, DE Mykel Williams, ILB Smael Mondon, DB Javon Bullard, DB Kamari Lassiter, N Nazir Stackhouse. Williams became just the ninth true freshman starter to make his debut in a season opener in the Smart era.

Georgia had seven first-time starters in the 2021 season opener against No. 3 Clemson in Charlotte. The Bulldogs had 19 first-time startersin 2020, including seven in the opener.

Georgia featured 12 true freshmen in its 2022 opener against No. 11 Oregon after having an NCAA record 15 players selected in the 2022 NFL Draft.

During the 2021 season opener, six true freshmen saw action against No. 3 Clemson in Charlotte at Bank of America Stadium. In 2021, a total of 24 true freshmen played for the Bulldogs.

#11 Oregon:Nolan Smith, Kenny McIntosh, Christopher Smith, Sedrick Van Pran
Samford:
S. Carolina:
Kent State:
Missouri:
Auburn:
Vanderbilt:
Florida:
Tennessee:
Miss. State:
Kentucky:
Georgia Tech:

GAME ONE:
UGA: 7 (Longest: 38-yd pass, Bennett to McIntosh)
#11 ORE: 0

GAME TWO:
UGA:
SAM:

GAME THREE:
UGA:
USC:

GAME FOUR:
UGA:
KENT ST.:

GAME FIVE:
UGA:
MIZ:

GAME SIX:
UGA:
AUB:

GAME SEVEN:
UGA:
VAN:

GAME EIGHT:
UGA:
UF:

GAME NINE:
UGA:
TENN:

GAME 10:
UGA:
MSU:

GAME 11:
UGA:
UK:

GAME 12:
UGA:
GT:

Georgia is +2 in turnover margin. The Bulldogs have 14 points off two turnovers. Opponents have not created any turnovers.

#11 Oregon: UGA got 14 pts. off 2 TOs; UGA did not have any TOs.
Samford:
S. Carolina:
Kent State:
Missouri:
Auburn:
Vanderbilt:
Florida:
Tennessee:
Miss. State:
Kentucky:
Georgia Tech: