Georgia football: What the running game should look like this season

The start of the 2018 Georgia football season is just over 100 days away. Without Nick Chubb, Sony Michel the offense should look pretty different.

Without Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, the Georgia football offense should regress in 2018 right? Not so fast. Jim Cheney has a plan and we saw glimpses of that plan late last season. He started working in formations with D’Andre Swift and Brian Herrien lining up as a wingback. Mecole Hardman also began contributing more in the running game from the slot.

And that’s what we should expect from Georgia’s run game in 2018; variety. The Bulldogs have five solid running backs, two mobile quarterbacks, and a slot receiver who is great with the ball in his hands. That’s six or seven options in the run game and as many as four options in any formation.

I wouldn’t expect much of the I-formation however. Kirby Smart, like his mentor Nick Saban, isn’t a fullback guy. They would rather line-up with two running backs instead of designating one to play blocking back in most formations. Instead, Georgia will play in the ace, pistol and shotgun most of the time. And each of those base formations will include variants with wingbacks.

That will make playing Georgia a guessing game with dangerous consequences. The Dawgs might place Swift, Elijah Holyfield or Zamir White at tail back, Herrien or James Cook at wingback on one side, and Hardman at the slot on the opposite side. Or two of those backs might lineup beside Jake Fromm in the shotgun, or around him in the pistol, with Hardman in the slot.

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When it comes to the running game, Georgia has a lot of ways to hit you. And I didn’t even get into the Wild Dawg formation with Hardman or another back. That might be more predictable, but the formation still won us the Rose Bowl in the fourth quarter and overtime. You can’t doubt its potency.