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Kirby Smart knows how important 4th and 1 situations are.
The Georgia head coach has seen how much the game has changed in terms of teams going for it on 4th and short rather than kicking a field goal or punting it away, and he thinks defenses are catching up to the changes.
During the SEC coaches teleconference Wednesday, Smart spoke about how defenses have gotten better at reacting to 4th and short situations.
“I don’t know that it’s statistically harder to get it, I’m not saying that,” Smart said. “What I’m saying is there’s a reaction to every action. The reaction to teams going for it more on 4th down has been the reaction of the defenses defending it more. So it didn’t happen as much, it wasn’t as prevalent. You can statistically see that people are going for it at a higher rate on 4th and 1s. So sometimes that makes 3rd and 1 2nd and 1. It’s different for everybody and you’ve got to study that and understand it and your defense will have to defend it more often and the reaction to people going for it is people being more aggressive because it’s basically viewed as a turnover if you get a stop there and we all know how valuable turnovers are.”
The NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles have popularized the “tush-push,” which is a quarterback sneak play that involves offensive lineman pushing the quarterback from the rear in order to secure a 1st down on a 4th and short situation.
Smart gave his thoughts on college teams trying to recreate this play.
“I do think a lot of people are trying to emulate that,” Smart said. “I’ve seen it more than I’ve ever seen it before. So I don’t know, you can’t ever say everybody, but there’s a lot of people doing that in terms of offensively and not everybody has the same kind of quarterback, like you mentioned, and to make choices and decisions about their O-line and how their O-line stacks up. I don’t if the Eagles get enough credit for their offensive line along with Jalen.”
