Five things to know for Georgia football vs. Samford in home opener in Sanford Stadium

Fresh off a 49-3 trucking of Oregon in Atlanta, the Georgia football team goes up against Samford Saturday at 4 p.m. in Sanford Stadium.

Here are five things to know about the matchup:

Different breed of Bulldogs

This is a meeting of ranked opponents that are in two different stratospheres.

Georgia, the reigning national champions, moved up to No. 2 in both the USA Today Sports AFCA coaches poll and the Associated Press Poll this week. Samford, which plays in a lower classification, slid into the Stats FCS weekly poll at No. 25 after beating Kennesaw State 27-17 in its opener.

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The Bulldogs from Athens are favored by 52 points over the Bulldogs from outside Birmingham.

“Big deal getting to go play the defending national champion Georgia,” Samford coach Chris Hatcher told reporters. “Know it’s going to be a huge challenge but that’s why they play the games. So we’ll be there at 4:01 Eastern Standard Time ready to play on Saturday.

Samford is being paid $500,000 for what looks like a major mismatch. Quarterback Michael Hier threw for 289 yards and four touchdowns in its week 1 win.

“We can’t get complacent,” Georgia cornerback Kamari Lassiter said. “We can’t just sit on that and just have to keep getting better.”

Offensive guard Tate Ratledge didn’t view the major talent gap between the school as making the game almost unfair.

“I think it’s another opportunity for us to get better and go out there and compete,” he said.

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Could Georgia be not on top of its game after it played about as well as it could have hoped for against a top 15 Oregon team? Would it matter much?

Coach Kirby Smart said his team had one if its worst practices of the year on Tuesday, typically the most grueling practice of the week.

“There's a standard at Georgia,” Smart said. “The number one thing that you do at our place is you go out on Tuesday and practice really physically if you're going to be any good.”

Smart said he wasn’t sending a message to his team “to wake them up. I'm just telling you the truth. That's all I come in here and do. The truth is, we didn't practice really well.”

Plenty of connections

Samford, a Christian university in Homewood, Ala, is where both of Kirby Smart’s parents graduated.

Sonny Smart played center for the school from 1968-70, starting for two seasons. He met his wife Sharon there. Sonny went on to coach at Bainbridge and Rabun County.

Chris Hatcher’s father, Edgar, also was a high school coach and friends with Sonny. Chris Hatcher hired Kirby to his first coaching job in 2000 as Valdosta State defensive backs coach on a staff with Will Muschamp as defensive coordinator.

Smart was 24 at the time and succeeded Muschamp in 2001. Offensive quality control assistant Buster Faulkner played quarterback for Hatcher from 2000-03 when the program went 47-6.

“I could tell you about a 20-hour bus ride I took to Arkadelphia,” Smart said. “I can tell you about Texarkana, all the places I went in Mississippi that I didn't know existed. It's where I cut my teeth as a coach. There were some really long bus rides. We built our own lockers.”

Smart said he was hired for $5,000 and his pay went up to $10,000 “after I did academics and a salary cap on Division II, which you work off of equivalencies, you don't have full rides.”

Smart now is the second highest paid coach in the nation this season at $10.25 million a year.

“I learned a lot while I worked at Valdosta State,” he said. “You only learn trial by fire, and I certainly appreciate Coach Hatcher for giving me that opportunity.”

Offensive line rotation

Georgia rotated in a couple of backup offensive linemen and shifted its lineup against Oregon.

Amarius Mims lined up at right tackle and logged 28 snaps in the game. Right tackle Warren McClendon saw time at left tackle where Broderick Jones starts. Devin Willock stepped in for starter Tate Ratledge at right guard and played 30 snaps.

“I think it’s pretty rare for the offensive line to be able to rotate people,” Ratledge said. “I think we have a really solid two-deep that can play. …It’s nice to know if you’re dying tired which I don’t think any of us were, I think we were pretty well, it’s good to know whoever’s in there after you can be trusted to get the job done.”

Ratledge said he battled nerves in his first game back from a season-ending foot injury and now wants to improve his footwork this week.

“We didn't have a situation where there's a lot of adversity or required a lot of composure,” Smart said. “So we'll figure out who those best guys are as we go along. Amarius did a good job in the game. He came in, I think, the third series. Played with some confidence. Those guys getting some experience, it's critical so they're ready to play when their opportunity comes every down. And I think early in the season, especially, those guys' conditioning level, it helps to have three guys playing at those positions.”

Breaking in the new ILBs

Georgia had to replace three players that went among the top 9 inside linebackers selected in the NFL draft.

Quay Walker, Nakobe Dean and Channing Tindall have made way for starters Jamon ‘Pop’ Dumas-Johnson and Smael Mondon with Trezman Marshall playing meaningful snaps as a backup.

“A lot of us still haven’t had a lot of playing time so it’s different out there,” said Marshall, who played 18 snaps at inside linebacker “We aren’t used to playing. Overall, I think we did a good job. We can continue to grow and get better at it. We’ll be straight.”

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Smart said the inside linebackers—which also include Xavian Sorety and Rian Davis--made some mistakes but played with confidence.

“We call it, you know, being loud and wrong is better than quiet and right,” he said. “And they had some moments where they were loud and wrong. But they were confident in what they called. You know, when you go with a team that plays some tempo and hurry up, it creates a little chaos. And I thought those guys managed that well. They managed the leadership position well. Physically, there's things we can improve on in terms of toughness, tackling. All the guys can. I mean, we didn't tackle the man with the ball really well.”

Marshall this week was still wishing he hadn’t let a golden opportunity he had for an interception against Oregon get away.

“We would have completed our goal and had three takeaways,” Marshall said.

Piling up those YACs

Stetson Bennett put up big passing numbers against Oregon—25 of 31 for 368 yards and 2 touchdowns—by getting the ball to his playmakers in space and letting them go.

Running back Kenny McIntosh and wide receiver Ladd McConkey combined for 168 of Georgia’s 315 yards after the catch.

“He knows how to get them the ball on time so that they can make big plays after the catch,” Hatcher said.

McIntosh was targeted often on passes behind the line of scrimmage and McConkey took a short pass, made two defenders miss and picked up 25 yards to set up a touchdown.

“When you know you have guys that can make guys miss, it’s hard to stop you,” wide receiver Kearis Jackson said.

“You can coach it, but I think the best guys I've ever seen do that, they were the best guys doing it in high school,” Smart said. “So, a coach might take credit for it, but they had an innate ability to do that. Usually straight-line fast guys aren't as good at making them miss, and usually quicker than fast guys are better at making people miss. We try to practice it a lot to put it in those situations because that's how you get explosive plays, you make people miss tackles.

Jackson watched McConkey and Georgia’s pass catchers make defenders miss in the opening thrashing of Oregon, now he wants in on the fun.

“That was one thing I wanted to do,” Jackson said. “I know the past few seasons, I used to just get the ball and fall on the ground. I need to be able to catch it and get yards. When you’re able to do that, it just makes your offense more explosive. We were able to do that all fall camp and spring as well.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia football five things to know vs. Samford in home opener