Georgia working on run defense after shaky showing

ATHENS, Ga. — The Georgia Bulldogs ran all over North Carolina during last Saturday’s Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game in Atlanta.

To a lesser but still significant extent, the Tar Heels ran over them.

“They had some big plays, and that’s what we tried to stop,” Bulldogs junior outside linebacker Lorenzo Carter said. “We’ve got to get in the film room, talk about what we did and work hard to stop those big plays from happening again.”

While Georgia tailback Nick Chubb stole Saturday’s show with 33 carries for 222 yards and two touchdowns, the North Carolina tandem of Elijah Hood and T.J. Logan had their moments as well. The two combined for 152 yards and one touchdown on 16 carries, with the pair averaging a staggering 9.5 yards per carry.

North Carolina averaged 8.4 yards per rush as a team, with Georgia’s lone sack of Mitch Trubisky figuring into that stat.

“We’ve got to play with better technique,” first-year Georgiai coach Kirby Smart said. “We’ve got to tackle better. It’s always your fear the first game that you don’t tackle well, and that’s exactly what it was. We did not tackle well, especially on the edges and the perimeter.

“We’ve got to put those kids in those situations. It’s like that first scrimmage where you go in and you tackle live, and you worry you’ll have a lot of missed tackles.”

Georgia’s biggest run-defense debacles of the 15-year Mark Richt era occurred against Florida two years ago, when the Gators rushed for 418 yards, and against Georgia Tech in 2008, when the Yellow Jackets amassed 409. The Gators (7.0) and Yellow Jackets (7.3) didn’t match North Carolina’s yards per carry from last Saturday, but they didn’t implode, either.

The Tar Heels might have netted far more than 159 rushing yards had they not been their own worst enemy after taking a 24-14 lead midway through the third quarter. After Georgia pulled within 24-21, North Carolina’s ensuing possession contained penalties for an ineligible man downfield and for unsportsmanlike conduct, and it ended with a safety that made it a one-point game.

North Carolina’s first possession of the fourth quarter contained two false-start penalties, and its second possession had a flag for offensive pass interference, so the Tar Heels repeatedly put themselves in passing situations due to lengthy down-and-distance combinations.

Tar Heels coach Larry Fedora was lamenting 13 penalties for 101 yards afterward. Smart simply saw too many missed tackles, and his players agree.

“I don’t want to take anything away from them, because they’re great backs,” Georgia defensive back Maurice Smith said, “but if you look back, you will see there were things we could have done better. Everything they got, we gave it to them, basically.

“When we clean up those mistakes, I don’t think you’ll see anything like that again.”

Smart admitted he felt pretty good going to bed Saturday night but was somewhat nauseated after watching the tape. He added that some of the issues against the run may have stemmed from Georgia’s preseason, when the Bulldogs did not get to tackle Chubb for most of August or Sony Michel at all.

“Sony wasn’t out there, and Nick was getting limited reps,” Smart said. “Brian Herrien had a pretty good scrimmage, and he was similar to No. 8 (Logan). It showed up. We did not tackle where we need to tackle to play well on defense.

“We’ve got to address that and improve on it.”