By Tim Tucker

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ATHENS -- Only two of 120 major-college football teams had a worse turnover margin last season than Georgia. And not one team recovered fewer opponent fumbles.

 

Bob Andres, bandres@ajc.com
"Our main focus," Georgia linebacker
Darryl Gamble (50) says, "is to try
to turn things around from last year."

 

"In some ways, it was amazing we won as many as we did," Georgia coach Mark Richt said this week, reflecting on last season's 8-5 record, "with the amount of games we lost the turnover ratio."

Indeed, the only teams with worse ratios than Georgia, which lost 16 more turnovers than its opponents, posted records of 3-9 (Tulane) and 1-11 (Miami-Ohio).

Georgia is embarking on a new season, and if this one is going to turn out substantially better than last season, the turnaround will need to start with the turnovers.

Players have noticed an increased emphasis on turnovers this month, as the Bulldogs have started most practices with drills in which the offense works on ball security and the defense on ball disruption.

"‘We're taking that turnover ratio very seriously," safety Bacarri Rambo said. The defensive backs, he said, "do, like, 25-30 push-ups if we drop an interception in practice."

Turnovers were very much a problem on offense and defense last season, with Georgia committing more (28, including 17 interceptions thrown and 11 fumbles lost) than any other SEC team except Mississippi and Mississippi State and forcing fewer (12, including 10 passes intercepted and two fumbles recovered) than any other SEC team by a wide margin.

"If we turn that around," Richt said, "we've got a much better chance of getting where we want to go. A much better chance."

Count Richt among the vast majority of coaches who consider turnover margin the most important of football's voluminous statistics.

Last season, Georgia had more turnovers than its opponent in eight of 13 games. The Bulldogs went 4-4 in the games in which they lost the turnover battle but 3-0 in the games in which they won it (victories over Auburn, Georgia Tech and Texas A&M). They were 1-1 in the games in which turnovers were even.

Richt told a Bulldog Club gathering in the spring that if Georgia had turned around the turnovers last season, "we win a minimum of 10 and probably 11 games."

In the Bulldogs' five losses, they committed 15 turnovers to their opponents' two. Turnovers were the deciding factor in a 34-27 loss to Kentucky as Georgia blew a 20-6 halftime lead under the weight of four second-half giveaways. Turnovers also figured prominently, although not necessarily decisively, in losses to Oklahoma State, Tennessee and Florida.

Georgia is counting on its redshirt freshman quarterback, Aaron Murray, to throw fewer interceptions than a fifth-year senior, Joe Cox, threw last season. Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo's strong negative reaction to a red-zone interception thrown by Murray in Georgia's first preseason scrimmage -- "a bonehead decision," Bobo called it -- reflects the crackdown on turnovers.

"What I have to do is respect the football," Murray said. "And when the play's there, make the play."

"A good bit of it," tight end Aron White said of last year's turnover problem on offense, "was little things -- blocking somebody wrong, leaving somebody free in the passing lane or something like that. You go back and look, and it's just something so little that somebody forgot to do, like taking the wrong step, that caused a lot of the big turnovers. We've just really got to focus on little things this year."

Georgia also is counting on new defensive coordinator Todd Grantham's 3-4 scheme to create more opponent turnovers by increasing the pressure on quarterbacks. The Dogs have claimed only 28 opponent turnovers in the past two seasons (12 last season and 16 in 2008) -- by far the fewest of any SEC team during that stretch.

"The more you can disrupt the quarterback, the more you are going to create turnovers," Grantham said. Disruption can be accomplished in various ways, he said, including "disguising what you do, bringing pressure and disrupting [receivers'] routes."

"There is no question," Grantham said, "we need to create more turnovers."

Rambo noted that Georgia's defensive backs would have had significantly more interceptions last season if they had been able to hold on to the ball.

"You've got to catch the ball when it comes to you," he said. There's a healthy competition in the secondary, he added, "to see who has the best hands and can get the most interceptions" this season.

One part of the Bulldogs' turnover problem bordered on implausible: the meager number of recoveries of opponent fumbles.

While opponents recovered about half of Georgia fumbles (11 of 23), the Dogs somehow recovered only two of 18 opponent fumbles -- just over 10 percent. It's hard to explain that disparity without attributing at least part of the reason to ... randomness?

"We were scrambling after it just as hard as [the opponents] were," said Richt, who studied game film to make sure of that. "Sometimes, if you watched it, it was just the way the ball bounced.

"But the more you create, the more fumbles you cause, the more chances you've got to get on it."

Said linebacker Darryl Gamble: "With us being more aggressive, there will be more opportunities to create turnovers. We're trying to rip it out every time we get up on the tackle. I mean, one guy is wrapping up on the tackle and the next guy coming in is trying to rip it out."

Of all the issues that will continue to be dissected in the countdown to Georgia's Sept. 4 opener against Louisiana-Lafayette, the turnover equation -- the need to commit fewer and recover more -- looms largest.

"Our main focus," Gamble said, "is to try to turn things around from last year and go from being one of the worst to one of the best in that area."

TURNOVER TROUBLES

Where Georgia ranked among the 120 NCAA FBS (formerly Division I-A) teams and 12 SEC teams last season in various turnover categories:

Category          No.     NCAA rank      SEC rank

Fumbles lost   11        T-60th           T-9th

Opp. fumbles recovered    2     120th    12th

Interceptions thrown   17    T-105th   10th

Opp. passes intercepted   10    T-76th    T-10th

Total turnovers gained    12    T-118th    12th

Total turnovers lost    28    T-99th    10th

Turnover margin     -16    118th      12th

Source: NCAA

AJC