Georgia Bulldogs

ATHENS, Ga. -- This won’t be the most crucial offseason of Todd Grantham’s relatively brief time at Georgia -- that honor goes to 2010, when he started installing his 3-4 scheme shortly after joining Mark Richt’s staff in January -- but it might be the one with the most roster uncertainty.

The Bulldogs will lose 11 key players off its 2012 defense, and that number could grow to 12 if junior nose guard Kwame Geathers declares for the NFL draft, so spring practice will feature major competition within every defensive position group.

“I kind of put them up on the board the other day and we’ve got some talented guys. It’s just a matter of developing them and working them and filtering it,” Grantham said. “Our depth is going to be better than it’s been the last couple of years, but it’s going to be young. So there’s a little bit at every spot.”

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ATHENS, Ga. -- When an option offense is clicking, it has the ability to rack up enormous play totals.

Look no further than Georgia Tech’s whopping 92 plays from its 2010 game against Georgia for evidence.

And for that reason, Georgia’s defensive coaching staff must at least be wary of the possible need to rotate players more liberally than usual in Saturday’s game against Georgia Southern (8-2), as taking on blocks down after down can be a fatiguing process if the defense is struggling to get stops.

“We kind of go by the game, but we traditionally roll our defensive linemen anyway, so we’re going to work to keep those guys fresh and play them that way,” Bulldogs defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said.

“Your rotations happen more often [against the option]," he added. "We kind of have a rotation with our guys to try to keep them fresh. It’s just because of the amount of plays that they can get that it happens a little more often.”

Georgia Southern’s and the highly similar Georgia Tech flexbone offense that the Bulldogs (9-1) will face the following week are content to chip away with short option runs over and over until eventually breaking a big play on the ground.

It doesn’t always produce a huge play total -- at 66.6 plays per game, Georgia Southern is actually averaging fewer plays than Georgia’s 67.4 this season -- but it’s always a distinct possibility. Georgia Tech is averaging 68.75 plays against Georgia -- with its offensive play count ranging between 51 in 2009 and 92 the next season -- in four meetings since Paul Johnson brought his unique rushing attack to the Flats.

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ATHENS, Ga. -- With suspensions and injuries damaging Georgia’s defensive depth, perhaps it is no surprise that the Bulldogs have started slowly on defense in two games thus far.

Senior defensive back Sanders Commings -- who along with outside linebacker Chase Vasser missed the first two games on suspension -- said the absences of key players produced the majority of the early busted assignments. Although Commings and Vasser returned for last Saturday’s game against Florida Atlantic, the Bulldogs were still without suspended All-America safety Bacarri Rambo and linebacker Alec Ogletree.

That, Commings said, is part of the reason opponents have already scored three touchdowns of 40-plus yards in three games, where the Bulldogs’ stout 2011 defense allowed only two touchdowns of that length in 14 games.

Further, they have already allowed 11 plays that covered 25 yards or more -- five to Buffalo and three each to Missouri and Florida Atlantic.

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ATHENS, Ga. -- Michael Bennett knows there is something that separates him from other players at his position. He jokes about it all the time.

The Georgia sophomore realizes that as a Caucasian wide receiver at a big-time college football program, he is like a living, breathing four-leaf clover -- extremely rare -- but he has also been a good-luck charm for the Bulldogs thus far.

Bennett leads the Bulldogs with 265 receiving yards and, among the SEC’s top 15 players in receiving yards per game -- he ranks fifth with 88.3 -- he is the only one who is not African-American.

“I’ve proved myself throughout my whole life, being a white guy playing a black man’s position. It’s just the nature of how it is,” Bennett said with a grin. “It’s not racist or anything, it’s just the way it is. I feel like I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder in high school and then coming here. No one’s really respected me. I remember going in 1-on-1s and no one wanted to go against me because they didn’t want to get burned by a white guy.”

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