Kirby Smart admits what every Georgia Bulldogs fan knows about the passing game, but still deflects blame from Gunner Stockton
“You have to have the ability to throw the ball down field”
Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs might just be two weeks into the 2025 college football season, but the passing game already looks like a real problem. Every Georgia fan and media member knows it. Coach Smart has been dancing around that fact in every single interview that he can.
However, he at least finally and consistently admitted what every fan knows about the Georgia passing game so far this season. The team must find a way to improve their intermediate and deep passing. Otherwise, they’re going to be completely shut down in the SEC, much like they were against Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff last season.
Kirby Smart admits that the Georgia Bulldogs and Gunner Stockton must “hit some shots”
The Georgia Bulldogs managed to score a meager 14 points in the first half against Austin Peay this past weekend, largely because the team cannot complete any passes deep down the field. Without any explosive passing game to speak of, Georgia still managed to come away with a 28-6 victory over a terrible FCS team, but how is that going to work against Tennessee this coming weekend? When asked about the apprehension towards deep field passing (perhaps turnover-related) in his weekly press conference this week, Kirby Smart had this to say:
“Well, as we’ve learned you can turn it over on any play, right? We had a running play that was a turnover…I think passing the ball down the field is one of the lowest turnover rate [type of play] there is. The pass that we did get as a turnover was a short-intermediate passing game that a guy fumbled after he caught it…You have to prevent turnovers. But you also have to have the ability to throw [the ball] down the field and hit some shots and be explosive.”
Georgia Bulldogs News
Kirby Smart strongly defends Gunner Stockton following lackluster passing performance for Georgia Bulldogs against Austin Peay
Gunner Stockton struggled to create big plays for Georgia, but Kirby Smart isn’t worried
Coach Smart could have just said, “You have to have the ability to throw the ball down field and hit some shots”, then left it there. When asked again about the deep passing later on, Kirby continued. However, he emphasized that he values process over results:
“I like big plays. I would prefer the big play. The correct play doesn’t always lead to a big play, but we talk about result versus process. We don’t want to get caught up in the result. Yes, we want a big play, but I want to go through the process of doing the right things. Sometimes you do the right process, and you don’t get the right result. We’re very intentional on making sure they understand that doing the right process leads to big plays and leads to more success.”
Process is great, but if execution of the process continually leads to virtually zero explosive plays then perhaps the process may be flawed. Given how good a coach Kirby Smart is, the process isn’t likely the issue here. It’s almost certainly the personnel (the QB). Georgia is currently tied for 65th in passing plays of 20+ yards. Tied for 104th on passing plays of 30+ yards. This is Georgia we’re talking about. 104th in truly explosive pass plays and they’ve faced off against Marshall and Austin Peay. Gross.
As the press conference with the media continued this week, Kirby Smart just simply began to deflect blame away from Gunner Stockton is it became abundantly clear that most every media member had some (slightly negative) questions on Stockton’s passing ability. Smart tried to focus on Stockton’s preparedness, and the possible shortcomings of those around his QB instead.
“We didn’t protect long enough in some of our opportunities to get a chance [to throw deep]. So, first thing is, what can we do? We’re running the ball successfully. We ran the ball successfully. When we do take shots we want to keep a clean pocket. [Gunner] was able to do a lot of good things for us in terms of when the pocket’s not clean–not being 2nd and 20 or 2nd and 15. Instead, we’re 2nd and 8. Avoiding some really long situations or giving up sacks. But certainly we want to be able to improve the down field passing game. I think that comes a little bit off of what we talked about before. How is a defense playing you? Different defenses play different ways.”
It’s clear that Kirby Smart is already growing tired of the Gunner Stockton “deep passing game” questions. However, it’s hard to avoid the fact that it might be a massive issue. Gunner is going to be the sole focus in Georgia’s game against Tennessee. We’ll see if he steps up and executes beyond just dinking and dunking. If not, Georgia likely loses the game and current backup quarterback Ryan Puglisi might need to start warming up his arm.
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