Georgia Football: Three biggest questions heading into 2021

2. Has there been a dropoff from Sam Pittman to Matt Luke?

From 2016 to 2019, Sam Pittman was the offensive line coach at Georgia. During that time Georgia football had some of the best offensive line talent it has ever had. Pittman took the Arkansas head coaching job in 2020 leaving a hole in Kirby Smart’s staff. Smart decided to fill that hole with Matt Luke who had recently been released as Ole Miss’ head coach.

After a single year of Luke replacing Pittman, the question of whether or not Luke is getting the same production out of his players is already circulating. Even though it seems premature to compare the two after just one season, especially a season without much practice in the spring or summer, we are going to do just that.

In Pittman’s four seasons at Georgia, he averaged a 93.74 rating for offensive line recruits, which comes out to pretty much a four-star rating. In Luke’s lone season recruiting for Georgia, he averaged a 95.22, also a four-star rating. So, after just one recruiting cycle it is a close race, but Luke is actually in the lead.

Each coach has had the benefit of a few NFL-caliber offensive linemen, has that shown up on the field? Well, according to Football Outsiders, in 2016 Georgia football’s offensive line was rated the number 101 line in the nation. In 2017 they were much better as they climbed up to number 12. Pittman maintained that momentum into 2018 as the Bulldogs offensive line was ranked number seven.

However, in 2019 Georgia football’s offensive line dropped to number 26.

With no spring or summer practice, Luke had an uphill battle coming into the 2020 season. Not only did he really not get to practice with the guys, but he also didn’t get to work with them on their conditioning either. So all of that considered you would be understanding if Luke’s group slipped a little from the previous year. However, his group actually played better being ranked the number 11 offensive line.

Without a full offseason program with his guys, he improved their production from 2.78 line yards the previous season to 3.03 line yards in 2020. That is one heck of a feat considering all the things that were working against him.

However, line yards are one thing, how well did these groups do when it came to shoving people around? In recent years Georgia’s offensive line hasn’t done great when it comes to the power success rate. In 2016 they were ranked number 113 (59.1 percent), 2017 number 47 (70 percent), 2018 number 33 (76.7 percent), and 2019 number T41 (75 percent).

In 2020, Luke didn’t do any better as Georgia’s line finished number 47 (72.7 percent). Georgia’s offensive lines did improve its stuff rate in 2020. They only allowed a play to be stuffed 16.5 percent of the time in 2019, but that rate fell to 14.9 percent in 2020. Their sack rate got worse though going from 3.7 percent in 2019 to 5.8 percent in 2020. Of course, some of that had to do with the quarterbacks holding the ball longer.

So as you would imagine, some things got better and some things got worse, but after just one year it is hard to say whether or not Luke can do as good a job as Pittman did during his time in Athens.