Kirby Smart’s Defensive Recruiting Masterpiece to Be Tested Once More

Georgia spent five years molding its defense into a well-oiled machine. Did it unravel against Alabama, or was that just a road bump en route to a historic season?

On July 5, 2016, four-star defensive end Robert Beal Jr. of Suwanee, Ga., committed to play football at Georgia. It was a nice pick-up for new Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart, who had yet to coach a game at his alma mater. But nobody at the time recognized it as the first brush stroke on a defensive masterpiece five years in the making.

Smart really got to work on the canvas in 2017: Two defensive backs committed Feb. 1 for the Class of ’18; another on May 1; and then a flurry of linemen and linebackers in the fall and winter. (Among them: mammoth interior lineman Jordan Davis out of Charlotte, a four-star talent but at the time not a player projected as the cornerstone he would become.) When linebacker Quay Walker flipped from Alabama to Georgia and spurned late interest from Tennessee on National Signing Day in 2018, he became the eighth defensive signee in that class who would play a key part on the 2021 team.

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More flourishes were added in the 2019 class: five-star linebacker Nolan Smith, four-star defensive end Travon Walker, four-star safety Lewis Cine. Then came the December signing-day drama with four-star linebacker Nakobe Dean of Horn Lake, Miss. Georgia coaches came into the office on Dec. 19, 2018, not knowing what Dean was going to do—he woke up at 8 a.m. that day still undecided. When Dean spurned the rest of the Southeastern Conference and pulled on a Georgia shirt on live TV, defensive coordinator Dan Lanning said he “started doing cartwheels” down the hallway at the Butts-Mehre football building.

The final touches were applied in 2020 (lineman Jalen Carter and cornerback Kelee Ringo) and ’21 (linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson, Clemson transfer defensive back Derion Kendrick). The canvas was complete: a group hailing from nine states, comprising four five-star recruits, 11 four-stars, two three-stars and a walk-on, would form the nucleus of a deep, physical and fast Georgia defense.

From Arizona to Maryland and throughout the south, Smart and his staff went where they wanted and signed who they needed across five stellar recruiting classes from 2017 to ’21. They wound up being ranked No. 3, No. 1, No. 1, No. 1 and No. 5 nationally. Georgia’s staff lived the old credo: Recruiting is like shaving; do it every day or you look like a bum. “There’s no coach that can out-coach recruiting,” Smart said this fall.

In the spring and preseason of 2021, Smart and Lanning put the frame on what would become one of the great units in school history. “It’s not every year you get to coach a group like this,” Smart says. In reality, it’s not any year he’s coached a group like this.

At 9.54 points allowed per game, the Bulldogs have a chance to be the first FBS team in a decade to hold opponents to single digits. With the national scoring average at 28.59 points per team per game, Georgia’s 19.05 defensive differential is among the best in history. The Dawgs’ 4.01 yards allowed per play is on pace to be the fewest nationally since 2017, and they are surrendering the nation’s fewest yards per pass attempt (5.39) and fewest scrimmage plays of 20 yards or longer (31). They’ve scored four defensive touchdowns and blocked four kicks.

Smart and Lanning have built a defense that mixes up coverages and pressures, keeping quarterbacks and offensive coordinators guessing. And they have developed specialists who play more on third down than first and second down, and vice versa.

“You have to be scheme-diverse,” Smart says. “You have to have the personnel to be multiple—faster players, who can play in space and be good tacklers. We challenge our guys to do more defensively than most people.”

Five or six players from that unit could be taken in the first two rounds of the 2022 NFL draft. Davis has gotten into better shape and become more serious about the sport, elevating himself to a top-10 vote getter for the Heisman Trophy. Dean, who lacks prototypical linebacker size at barely 6 feet and 225 pounds, is a super-fast disruptor. Smith can be a difference maker off the edge. Cine is reliable and smart on the back end.

“We talked early in the season about us having a different kind of defense if we all bought in and did our part,” Dean says. “But all of that could be obsolete if we don’t finish like we want to.”

Wise words from Dean. A work of art that took five years and 12 games to create was shockingly defaced in 60 very bad minutes by nemesis Alabama. The Crimson Tide painted a mustache on the Mona Lisa. For the first time in 74 games, the Bulldogs allowed more than 7.5 yards per play. For the first time in 31 games, they did not record a sack. For the first time in 16 games, they allowed an opponent to convert at least half its third downs. They did not produce a takeaway.

After that shocking defrocking, we wait to find out whether the damage to Smart’s work of art was permanent, or whether it can be airbrushed away. The Orange Bowl College Football Playoff semifinal, and Michigan, will provide the answer Friday.

“Coming off the loss at the SEC championship, certainly disappointing,” Smart says, “but it was also a little bit of an awakening for our guys of where the brutal truths are and how can we work on those.”

It’s always easier to teach from a loss, but Georgia has been drilling down on the few defensive deficiencies when they cropped up all season. Lanning termed it “going to the doctor” every Monday in film review, putting together a compilation of defensive mistakes from the previous game and addressing them.

“We went to the doctor, seen what hurt us, what we didn’t do, how we didn’t execute,” Dean says of the Alabama fallout. “We worked on that.”

There are doctor visits, and then there is the full examination that the Alabama performance required. Lanning termed the game a “hiccup,” for his defense, but this could be closer to something fatal if it’s not addressed. If there is another defensive breakdown of that magnitude Friday, Georgia’s national championship drought will extend to 42 years.

The good news for the Bulldogs is that the Michigan matchup suits them better than Alabama did. Georgia’s weakness is its secondary, which was rebuilt this season, and the Crimson Tide had the weapons at quarterback and receivers to exploit that—especially when the pass rush couldn’t affect Bryce Young. Michigan is more of a run-heavy team, having nearly 200 more rushing attempts than pass attempts on the season.

The Wolverines have done most of that out of traditional power sets, hammering away between the tackles. Which is fine with Georgia—the Bulldogs are littered with NFL prospects in the front seven, including their rotation of massive linemen led by Davis in the middle. “It’s going to be a train wreck inside,” says Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis.

That’s not to say that Michigan cannot and will not throw. Quarterback Cade McNamara is an underrated passer and he’s also adept at getting the ball out and avoiding sacks—Michigan is second nationally in fewest sacks allowed with 10 (trailing only Army, which barely attempts to pass). And it should be noted that Georgia’s pass rush hasn’t been the same without linebacker Adam Anderson, who was charged with rape in November and hasn’t played since. But the Wolverines’ preference is to set up the pass with the run, taking deep shots off play-action or misdirection, and it could be difficult to dictate those terms to Georgia.

Lanning stressed that his defense will have to practice good “eye discipline” to limit Michigan’s big plays. What he really needs is an avoidance of the massive coverage busts that plagued them on a couple of occasions against Alabama. The Tide had two big third-down conversions in the SEC title game that came courtesy of Georgia leaving receivers all alone, one of which turned into a 67-yard touchdown. If Lanning’s secondary is buttoned up and makes Michigan earn its yardage, this game should stay in the Bulldogs’ comfort zone.

For five years, Georgia has been laboring over this particular work of art. The Orange Bowl will go a long way toward a final determination of whether it is a museum-quality piece.