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Georgia Football: Does James Coley’s promotion change things?

By Alistair Penny

ATLANTA, GA - DECEMBER 02: Head coach Kirby Smart of the Georgia Bulldogs and his staff celebrate a successful two point conversion during the second half against the Auburn Tigers in the SEC Championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 2, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - DECEMBER 02: Head coach Kirby Smart of the Georgia Bulldogs and his staff celebrate a successful two point conversion during the second half against the Auburn Tigers in the SEC Championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 2, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) /
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ATLANTA, GA – JANUARY 08: Head coach Kirby Smart of the Georgia Bulldogs walks out of the tunnel with his players during warm ups prior to the game against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the CFP National Championship presented by AT
ATLANTA, GA – JANUARY 08: Head coach Kirby Smart of the Georgia Bulldogs walks out of the tunnel with his players during warm ups prior to the game against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the CFP National Championship presented by AT /

He actually runs a pretty traditional offense:

We should probably start with some context. James Coley is not exactly Chip Kelly or Mike Leach. He’s been around some very talented coaches who have taught him a lot about offenses. But all of those guys have run very conservative systems.

Jimbo Fisher didn’t make his name running the spread. He won two national championships playing Nick Saban style football. During his time at Miami, Coley ran a pretty similar system. In his first two seasons, he ran the ball more than he passed. He rarely put the game on his QB’s and instead handed the ball off a lot and called a lot of intermediate and short routes.

With Jake Fromm now a year older and Justin Fields on the roster, I think we’ll see an expanded playbook in 2018. Coley will be involved in crafting how that playbook looks for each game. But he may actually bring a more conservative mindset than many fans think.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Jay Johnson became an off-field analyst last season built some explosive offenses at Louisiana. He’s helped Jim Chaney to expand UGA’s playbook a bit and having Coley involved will likely help. He’ll have the opportunity to put some of the plays that worked for him and Jimbo Fisher into the playbook and needless to say, those plays worked.

I personally think that those 3 guys bring a lot of good experience to the offense. They will be able to create and find wrinkles to give opposing teams real headaches.

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