The days of protecting a defense with a conservative, or ball-control, offense are over. With offenses having the ability to generate big plays at every turn, the Georgia coaching staff believes in pairing its generational defense with an offense that puts its own pressure on the opponent.

Of course, this Georgia team isn’t measured by the same kinds of calculus as the average one because that defense flips most metrics on their ears.

“Explosive plays are the No. 1 trait to scoring points, in my opinion,” coach Kirby Smart said Monday. “I mean, that’s probably the No. 1 characteristic of teams that win games is how explosive you are, especially in today’s day and age. So being able to be explosive is really important and we work really hard on it.”

Complementary football may not be what it once was, and Georgia still struggles to break big runs, but it still serves a purpose.

“Haven’t really been as explosive as we want to be in the run game, but the run game we have had is set up as play-action and a lot of those explosive plays have come off play-action,” Smart said. “We’re very pleased with where that is.”

RB Zamir White, for example, has 3 runs of at least 20 yards, and a run each of 30 and 40 yards. Stetson Bennett, meanwhile, has 3 runs of at least 20 yards, and a run of at least 30 yards. Put another way, the Georgia offense this season has done what it needed to, and not a lot more. In fact, the Vanderbilt and Arkansas games aside, the offense has not had to carry, or even bail out, the defense yet this season.

Plenty of those play-action plays Smart talked about went for big yards, often to the upstart tight ends and receivers like Ladd McConkey and Brock Bowers. Bennett has delivered 4 plays each of at least 50 and 60 yards, 2 of 70-plus and 1 of 80-plus. He also has 5 of 40-plus and 9 of 30-plus.

“It’s not necessarily fair all the time to our offense because there’s a lot of games we’re not trying to score because we’ve got other guys in, so we’ve had some games those guys didn’t get an opportunity to score at will, to be explosive the whole game,” Smart said. “When they’ve had to do things, they’ve done a good job of doing that. I think that’s important. It’s hard to measure us against a team that might have been in 5 or 6 or 7 really close games because they might be playing it different.”

What remains a question for the offense and the coaching staff is how will Smart and offensive coordinator Todd Monken manage and call a game where Bennett, for example, needs to make key throws on 3rd down. Has he convinced them he can deliver?

At his Tuesday evening press conference, Smart declined to name Bennett as the starter for this week’s game against Missouri, and only applauded how JT Daniels and Bennett have practiced to start the week.

“I think it’s important for both of them to continue to develop and make good decisions, (because) part of playing quarterback is accuracy, decision-making and mobility,” Smart said. “Those things are the critical factors. Anybody can hand it off, we all know that, and anybody can make our run-checks and decisions.”

To the credit of the coaching staff and the players, the quarterback position has become interchangeable in those areas. The key is which quarterback is best suited to win in Atlanta and Indianapolis?

“But it’s the decision when the ball is in your hands and you’re having to make a decision with where you’re going with it, where you’re throwing it, all those things are the biggest deciding factors,” Smart said. “I’m pleased with where both of them are, and I think both of them are doing a great job.”