Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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36 JANUARY 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED QUARTERFINAL PREVIEW: GEORGIA C O L L E G E F O O T B A L L P L A Y O F F BY TYLER HORKA GEORGIA RUNNING GAME VS. NOTRE DAME RUN DEFENSE Georgia gets what it puts in on the ground. The Bulldogs had the 99th-most rushing at- tempts in the country going into the playoff, and they ranked 98th in rushing yards per game (129.3) at that time. Their average of 4.2 yards per rush was actually slightly better than the overall out- put would suggest; it ranked tied for 80th in the nation. The Bulldogs have run for 80 or fewer yards more times than they've run for 200 or more. They've also had fewer than 30 rushing attempts as a team in about a third of their games. That's been the case four times. The reality with this Georgia team is offensive coordinator Mike Bobo is not overly enthusiastic to run the football. That's in spite of having two pretty talented tailbacks in freshman Nate Frazier and junior Trevor Etienne. Frazier leads Georgia with 129 carries for 634 yards and 8 touchdowns. Etienne has a similar stat line with 111 rushes for 571 yards and 9 touch- downs. In the SEC Championship Game against Texas, that duo combined for 141 yards and 2 touchdowns on 22 carries. Even with those two, though, Georgia just does not have any rushing statistics that jump off the page. According to Sports Info Solutions, the Dawgs are 78th in rushing first downs, 97th in rushing yards after contact and 117th in broken tackles on rushing plays. Georgia ball carriers have been hit at the line of scrimmage 161 times this season, which also ranks 117th nationally. Notre Dame's rushing defense, meanwhile, is only a little above average, ranking 51st in yards allowed on the ground per game. The Irish's last couple opponents of the regular season, in par- ticular, piled up quite a bit, but that included a game against Army's triple-option offense, which gained 207. All things considered that wasn't too bad against a team that averaged 314.4 en route to a victory in the American Athletic Conference title game. The larger worry for the Irish was USC going for 197 yards on 28 carries. That average of 7.04 yards per rush is by far the worst Notre Dame has al- lowed all season. The previous season high in that category was 5.16 against Navy, another run-heavy option offense. This area is not a strength for either team. Whichever one plays better than it usually does might have an X-Factor up its sleeve. But going into the matchup, neither side has a clear edge. Advantage: Even GEORGIA PASSING GAME VS. NOTRE DAME PASS DEFENSE Mike Bobo doesn't like to run, run, run when calling plays for the Georgia offense. But he sure likes to pass, pass, pass. Going into the playoff, only eight teams in the country had more passing attempts than Georgia's 481. Bobo's commitment to the pass has yielded fine results. The Bulldogs ranked 12th nationally in passing yards per game through conference cham- pionship weekend with a mark of 284.6. Almost all of that yardage is attributed to sea- son-long starter Carson Beck. The redshirt senior completed 64.7 percent of his passes for 3,485 yards with 28 touchdowns and 12 interceptions before he was injured late in the first half of the Junior tailback Trevor Etienne is Georgia's second-leading rusher this season with 571 yards and 9 touchdowns on 111 carries. PHOTO COURTESY GEORGIA On PaPer