Georgia football: when all else fails, give the ball to Mecole Hardman

Georgia football defeated South Carolina 41-17 Saturday afternoon. The Bulldogs were led by Mecole Hardman’s 133 yards from scrimmage.

A superstar is emerging in Athens. The legend of Mecole Hardman grows with every catch and carry. Defenses can’t stop him, they can hardly gameplan for him. Fans rush to their feet when he’s given the ball. Hardman has become the must-watch player on the Georgia football team.

The fan-favorite receiver who grew up just 30 miles away from Sanford Stadium, in Bowman has risen through the Georgia depth chart to be the leading receiver after two games. He’s the most talked about receiver in the SEC since Saturday, when his star outshined that of South Carolina’s Deebo Samuel.

Hardman outperformed Samuel and pretty much the entire South Carolina roster with six catches for 103 yards and a score, plus rush for 30 yards. Entering the game, the narrative was that the Gamecocks would find ways to give the ball to their superstar receiver and that would lead to an upset victory. The Gamecocks did get Samuel the ball, but he didn’t produce. Not to Hardman’s caliber at least. Georgia limited Samuel to 33 yards on six catches, one rush for negative one yard, and one touchdown pass on a gadget play.

On the other side of the field, Georgia offensive coördinator continued to find ways to get Hardman the ball. Hardman was so reliable, Cheney used him to break up any stagnation in the offense. Like when Carolina’s defense stuffed D’Andre Swift on a first down handoff. Cheney spread the defense out with a backwards pass, Hardman picked up 30 yards on the play. The following play was a 17-yard touchdown run by Swift.

On the Dawgs first possession of the second half, Hardman scored on consecutive screen passes. A screen to the right netted seven yards for a solid first down result. On the next play, he caught a left side screen pass, made a defender miss, and then outran everyone else to the end zone for a 34-yard score. He wasn’t finished yet. Somehow Hardman found himself wide open on the sidelines for a 42-yard catch on Georgia’s next drive. Elijah Holyfield scored on Georgia’s next play.

Hardman’s with his skill set is someone defenses always have to address. Because of his speed, he can’t be caught unless a defender has an angle on him. But by then, he’s likely already gained a ton of yards. And just cause they catch him, doesn’t mean they can tackle him. Hardman is difficult to wrap up, let alone grab.

He’s more than just a running back defenses have to load the box against, or a wide receiver they have to double cover. Because he’s such a threat on screen passes, defenses must bring extra guys to occupy the blockers, just to hope to have a good one-on-one encounter with Hardman. Not just anyone can be tasked with covering him. So, defenses aren’t going switch assignments when Hardman is in motion.

He takes defenders out of the box, has safeties playing wider and deeper than they want to. Hardman radically changes how teams try to defend Georgia. Not many receivers are screen targets, deep threats, jet-sweep runners, and over the middle guys.

Two games into 2018, Hardman looks like the most important player on the team. He already has eight catches for 166 yards and two touchdowns. If he keeps that rate up, he’ll have 996 receiving yards by the end of the regular season and 1,162 if Georgia wins the SEC East, and 1,245 if the Dawgs win a playoff game. But that’s only part of his impact. That’s not taking into account the countless yards he’ll open up for teammates.