As the old adage goes, “The best offense is a good defense." For defensive-minded Kirby Smart, having a good defense is not just a mantra, it is an ideology. Since the beginning of the Smart era with Georgia football, defense has been and will continue to be the lynchpin of Georgia's success.
Speaking of defense, in part two of our level of concern rankings, it's time to take a look at the defensive side of the ball. Below we'll take a quick look back at the 2024 season from a positional perspective and focus on things at the coaches level. We will rank each position coach by concern level, discuss how things went in 2024, and what the expectations will be in 2025.
Let's jump right in.
1. Defensive Coordinator/Inside Linebackers Coach - Glenn Schumann
Losses: Smael Mondon, Troy Bowles
Returnees/Additions: CJ Allen, Raylen Wilson, Chris Cole, Justin Williams, Kris Jones, Zayden Walker*
Let's being with Coach Glenn Schumann. Not because of a concern with his inside linebackers group, but simply because he is the Defensive Coordinator for the Georgia Bulldogs.
His inside linebackers group should be Georgia’s deepest and most talented group on defense this season and under normal circumstances would be furthest down on any list of actual concern. However, since the defense as a whole falls under his responsibility, ultimately the buck stops with him.
Schumann is returning to Georgia for his tenth season in Athens and fourth as Defensive Coordinator under Smart. Schumann is known as a master developer of talent and under his tutelage has sent plenty of that talent to the NFL.
In 2023, Schumann’s defense ranked 1st in the SEC and 5th nationally in scoring defense (15.6 ppg) and tops in the SEC and nation in 3rd down conversion percentage (25.7). In 2024 however, Georgia did not have the production and standard it had been used to seeing from its defensive unit. It ranked 7th in the SEC and tied for 23rd nationally in scoring defense (20.6 ppg), and 6th in the SEC and 17th nationally in 3rd down conversion percentage (32.8).
Georgia did lose some of its high end starting talent from 2023 to the NFL, but Georgia prides itself on being a reload program with plenty of talent waiting in the wings. That did not happen in 2024.
If someone were to ask what would be the inside linebacker’s achilles heel, it would be pass coverage. And they were exposed on multiple occasions in 2024. Schumann has to address this as well as figure out how he is going to generate pressure from the inside like he did when he had the likes of Nakobe Dean and Channing Tindall manning the middle of the defense.
The inside linebacker room returns a lot of talent and experience in 2025, and Schumann is going to lean on both to win games for Georgia. He will however have his work cut out for him as he constructs his next scheme to generate pressure as he tries to fill the void left by Smael Mondon.