By Hunter Jones
Special to The Tuscaloosa News
As the Georgia Bulldogs look to rebound from their disappointing end to the 2018 season, head coach Kirby Smart wants to take last season’s failures to grow this season.
“It’s more than the fourth quarter. It is the performance against Texas which we’re not proud of. We have to grow and get better. There’s learning experiences all across the board. Going to Baton Rouge; tough experience. We didn’t play our best game. We have to go on the road in the SEC this year and play in some really tough environments. Biggest thing we take from those, we learn, but we also learn from our victories. We had quite a few of those last year too.”
The motto for the Bulldogs this season has been ‘Do More.’ Something that will help the Bulldogs do more this season will be their returning starters on both offense and defense. Headlined by junior quarterback Jake Fromm, senior left tackle Andrew Thomas, as well as returning their leading rusher, junior D’Andre Swift, who started five games last season on offense and senior safety J.R. Reed, junior cornerback Richard LeCounte and senior linebacker Tae Crowder on defense.
“Our mission is to bridge that gap, you know, by the actions we take, hence the word ‘do more,’ those words require action,” Smart said. “I read a quote coming in this morning that really grabbed me, and I’m not a big quote guy, but when I heard that quote, I thought that’s something that our players can relate to, ‘life has no remote. You got to get up and change it yourself.’ And if you think about that, so many of us want to take the easy way out, whether it’s changing the channel with the remote or anything else, not doing the work that has to be done, we want to do more at the University of Georgia.”
This season the Bulldogs will start their season on the road against Vanderbilt before playing at home the next three weeks, culminating in a game against Notre Dame on Sept. 21 before going through the rest of their SEC schedule and ending their regular season on the road against rival Georgia Tech.
Georgia Bulldogs
2018 record: 11-3 (7-1 conf./1st in SEC East)
All-time SEC championships: 13
All-time bowl appearances: 55 (31-21-3)
2018 results
Sept. 1;vs. Austin Peay;W 45-0
Sept. 8;at South Carolina;W 41-17
Sept. 15;vs. Middle Tennessee;W 49-7
Sept. 22;at Missouri;W 43-29
Sept. 29;vs. Tennessee;W 38-12
Oct. 6;vs. Vanderbilt;W 41-13
Oct. 13;at LSU;L 16-36
Oct. 27;vs. Florida;W 36-17
Nov. 3;at Kentucky;W 34-17
Nov. 10;vs. Auburn;W 27-10
Nov. 17;vs. UMass;W 66-27
Nov. 24;vs. Georgia Tech;W 45-21
Dec. 1;vs. Alabama;L 35-28
Jan. 1;vs. Texas;L 28-21
Starters returning: 14 Offense: 5 Defense: 7 Specialty: 2
Starters lost: 10 Offense: 6 Defense: 4 Specialty: 0
Returning offensive starters: Solomon Kindley (LG, Jr.), Trey Hill (RG, So.), Andrew Thomas (LT, Jr.), Isaiah Wilson (RT, So.), Jake Fromm (QB, Jr.)
Returning defensive starters: Tyler Clark (DT, Sr.), Julian Rochester (DT, Sr.), Richard LeCounte (CB, Jr.), J.R. Reed (S, Sr.), Eric Stokes (CB, So.), Tae Crowder (LB, Sr.) Tyrique McGee (CB, Sr.)
Returning statistical leaders
Rushing;Att;Yards;Avg;TD
D’Andre Swift;163;1049;6.4;10
Passing;Att;Yards;Avg;TD
Jake Fromm;306;2749;8.9;30
Receiving;Att;Yards;Avg;TD
D’Andre Swift;32;297;9.3;3
Tackles;Total;Int;Sack;TFL
Richard LeCounte;74;1;0;1
2019 schedule
Aug. 31;at Vanderbilt
Sept. 7;vs. Murray State
Sept. 14;vs. Arkansas State
Sept. 21;vs. Notre Dame
Oct. 5;at Tennessee
Oct. 12;vs. South Carolina
Oct. 19;vs. Kentucky
Nov. 2;vs. Florida
Nov. 9;vs. Missouri
Nov. 16;at Auburn
Nov. 23;vs. Texas A&M
Nov. 30;at Georgia Tech
