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Chuck Culpepper
Reporter covering national college football, college basketball, tennis, golf and international sports.
Just 1,041 days ago, a new Georgian football coach showed up in front of the introductory desk and opened with phrases such as: "Our student-athletes will represent the 39, university with class and integrity "and" Our ultimate goal is to educate students. It must have been disheartening for Georgia fans who are usually Americans, whose ultimate goal is to defeat Lucifer, his living, out of his neighbor on Saturday, especially because of this obnoxious clown in the work stall too close. .
Instead, two seasons and a change later, the affair spread everywhere, to all those who face Georgia, as always claimed intellectual academics worthy of the empire's football . Since Kirby Smart started to play 4-4 in 2016, Georgia has recorded a 23-3 and 23-2-1 regularization, as it moves to LSU this weekend. The regulatory bond itself was, of course, imposing and faced Alabama in the College Football Playoff National Championship game.
Before his first season in 2016, Smart said he spent nearly 10 years at Nick Saban in Alabama. "He learned to tell the difference between a team and a program. That's where I want to mark the University of Georgia, it's the difference between a team and a program. Already, the school where Smart has met and played his wife is a lot like a program, including second place at least in part by reputation while undefeated lower ranked teams have recorded higher victories.
[Barry Svrluga: This college football season, there’s Alabama, and there’s everybody else]
As everyone knows, and his air-conditioned niche bulldog knows it, Georgia has already qualified as very good before Smart. He scored 10-3 and 10-3 in Mark Richt's final two tries during the season, 145-51, which prompted Saban to say after Richt's departure: "I do not know what the world will do in our profession. "
Of course, as the world approaches the Saban dynasty fools, Georgia was clever and attracted a coach who could give him the last push to win a title. Explore statistics as all lost souls do, and the changes are not particularly obvious.
Maybe Georgia has improved in this old variable that has raised or ruined many American university cities: the turnover margin. No, while Georgia ranks 13th today in good health, it ranked fourth in 2014 under Richt, while the five – year line ranks fourth, 39th, 18th, 44th and 13th.
It could be the penalties. No, his last four seasons and more, the first two under Richt, go like this: 22nd, 30th, 16th, 76th and 75th.
Offensive rimes per game: seventh in 2014, then 40th, 86th in the first year of Smart, 12th and sixth. In the 12-2 season of 2012 under Richt, Georgia's ranking was No. 1.
Defensive yards per game: 17th and 13th in the last two years of Richt, then 36th, 10th and 12th, or pretty much the same thing.
Passive offense? The bottom half in both regimes, though it improved this season from 105th to 65th.
Offense rush? Stalwart in both regimes. Offensive and defensive third downhill conversions, offensive and defensive bag statistics, punting. . .
Punting could be the secret of a happy life?
Perhaps! Here are the five seasons: 112th, 87th, 121st, ninth, 26th.
The red zone statistics have also improved, as if controlling the details that influence the thumbs in the red zone could bring an entire entity up.
[The college football games you need to watch this weekend]
Of course, while the Empire is looking for subsistence, much attention will be given to the area that illustrates Smart's unusual energy: the recruiting area (although recruitment only partially explains what happened passed until now). This concern stems from the introductory day of December 2015, when Smart seemed eager to talk about the eighth most populous state and its talented players: "They are here in this state. They are here within five hours, you have to pick them up and integrate them into your program to play explosive parts. "
This has been manifested by the thickening of the recruiting staff – "Yeah, there's a lot more people to recruit," linebacker Lorenzo Carter said during the Rose Bowl week last December – and even in a story of cruelty published last January in two media outlets in Alabama, including this passage:
"The Tuscaloosa News learned that on coming out, Smart photographed the Alabama Recruitment Committee, hanging in the Alabama Football Building Sanctuary, and showed it to recruits who were not necessarily at the top of this committee. . Her message was simple: Alabama does not want you as much as she says. Several people close to the Alabama program told the same story at the Tuscaloosa News, but none of them wanted to talk about it. "
From 2002 to 2015, Georgia had 11 top-10 and 9-of-seven categories, according to Rivals.com, which led to the ridiculous sneer, Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson, to win another 28-27 win over La first team of Smart in 2016 and sneering, "Not bad for a group of recruitment classes ranked 80th." For the 2017 promotion, Georgia ranks third behind Alabama and Ohio State. For 2018, he reached first place with eight five-star players and 15 four-star players.
The trophy-less title came a month after Smart sat on a platform in Atlanta, discouraged by a Alabama winning touchdown, and was forged in the second and 26th overtime rounds of the final game of the season. He said: to be a force to be reckoned with. I am very proud of this team and this university and we are not going anywhere. "
A month and a week later, Carter, of the Giants of New York, had said, "He taught us that there are many things that people do not see, a lot of things that you simply need – you do not can not make a choice. . . . Yes, there is an illusion of choice. All great, if you want to be big, you have to do some things. You can say that you have the choice of staying in bed or pressing the snooze button, but if you try to be good, it is an illusion. You do not really have a choice. You must do it. "
The ascension of Georgia from a rare air to a rarer air seems to be the product of a hundred unprecedented efforts and subtleties. If this is not seen so much in statistics – with the exception of the red zone and the crucial importance of punting – it seems to be playing at stake, as in a defense that could do more harm than 39, before to have played there. While this defense lost some of the pillars such as Roquan Smith and Carter to the NFL, we could conclude that, on the way to Louisiana, ranked 12th in the country by the number of yards per game, this looks less like a team only to a program.
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