Georgia On Film: DJ Williams Sees Openings, But Says The First Series Decides Everything

Georgia comes to Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium at noon Saturday with athletes at every level of the field. DJ Williams went through the Bulldogs' tape from their game against Western Kentucky and came away with something Arkansas fans have not heard much of this week: there are openings. He also came away with a warning about how quickly those openings close.

The setup matters. Arkansas is coming off a loss at No. 20 Utah on Sept. 12, a game in which quarterback KJ Jackson went 14-of-34 with an interception and led the team in rushing with 34 yards on seven carries. That followed a season opener against North Alabama in which Jackson was 24-of-35 for 267 yards and three touchdowns.

Two very different afternoons. Saturday brings a third kind of test entirely.

The first thing off the tape is speed

Williams did not spend any time pretending the film was close. Georgia jumped off the screen before he got through a single series.

"These guys come off the ball extremely fast," Williams said. "From top to bottom, they got all the athletes, got great coaching, very sound football team."

He flagged the interior defensive line immediately, and tied it directly back to what Arkansas just went through in Salt Lake City. Utah's No. 90 gave the Razorbacks problems inside all night, and Williams said the Bulldogs present a similar package with more size.

The other thing he noticed on the back end was how fast Georgia's secondary closes. It changed how he wanted Arkansas receivers to think about the football.

"Catch it, secure the catch first, and then try to make something happen," Williams said. "These dudes are coming downhill."

There is grass out there, and it is narrow

Williams is not arguing Arkansas is the better team. He is arguing the film is not airtight, and that a couple of specific looks showed up often enough to plan around.

Georgia leaned on man coverage indicators on the tape, with press corners on the outside and a single high safety. Williams said that means the Razorbacks have to win one-on-one to move the football at all.

He also saw Georgia corners playing well off the receiver on a couple of medium-yardage downs, including one second-and-10 look he could not explain.

"It's hard for me to believe Georgia, who was so sound defensively, would leave this DB all by himself 10 yards off the ball," Williams said. If that shows up Saturday with Chris Marshall on the outside, he added, "I'm a quarterback and I'm going there all day."

The other opening he circled was the aggressiveness of the Bulldogs' corners against the quick perimeter game. Arkansas has already put bubble looks and fake-block releases on tape this season, and Williams thinks that setup has a payoff against this secondary.

"Look at these corners out there. They get a little antsy. They want to get up there and make that play," Williams said. Sell the block, let the defender jump inside, then take the top off. "You got opportunities to really get behind the defense."

He was blunt about the cost of sloppiness in between those shots. Against Utah, he said, Arkansas receivers stacked each other and the spacing broke down, and the answer too often became a deep ball down the sideline and a prayer.

"The spacing was awful. You can't do that against a team," Williams said. "Hell, we couldn't do it against Utah. You for dang sure can't do it against a team like Georgia."

Watch: the full 4th & Five breakdown.

Getting Jackson into a rhythm early

One of Williams' clearest wants has nothing to do with Georgia. It has to do with making life simpler for his own quarterback in the first quarter.

Jackson is left-handed, the first Razorback southpaw to start a season opener since Barry Lunney Jr. in 1995, and Williams would like to see the early movement plays go to his throwing side.

"I'm hoping when we roll KJ out, we roll him to his strong side because he's left-handed," Williams said. "Let's get him more comfortable."

The second piece is the snap count. Williams pointed to a Western Kentucky third-and-long where Georgia's front jumped early, and he wants Arkansas using cadence to keep a get-off that fast from teeing off.

"Keep them honest with the snap count, especially on third and longs," Williams said, "because their ears are going to be pinned back ready to get some stats."

He also wants the run-pass option game to actually function as one. If the corner bails, throw it. "If this is a true RPO, as soon as that corner bails, I think you got an option right here to throw this," Williams said. "I have not seen that from Arkansas a lot at all."

What Georgia will do when you are ready for the obvious

The play that got the loudest reaction from Williams was a third-and-seven pressure. Georgia rotated a defensive end all the way across the formation to cover the flat, which freed the boundary corner to blitz off the edge.

It did not get home. It nearly did.

"A lot of teams can't do this because they don't have the athletes to pull it off," Williams said. He noted the receiver appeared to tip the pressure by pointing at the corner before the snap, and said that kind of communication may be Jackson's best early-warning system Saturday.

On the other side of the ball, Williams' main concern is what happens after the football leaves Gunner Stockton's hand. The senior quarterback showed patience and total trust in his protection on the tape, including one scramble that turned a would-be sack into a chunk gain.

"You can't let this guy have time in the pocket, because he will pick you apart," Williams said.

The matchup Williams believes Georgia will hunt is the one Arkansas already lost last week. The Bulldogs like getting the football to their backs quickly and letting them run, and the Razorbacks' linebackers struggled to diagnose and scrape at Utah.

"Too many times we're sitting there looking, and by the time we realize, oh crap, I need to be scraping off the edge, it was too late," Williams said. "We got outflanked all night long."

He had praise, too, for the piece of Georgia's offense he knows best. The Bulldogs' No. 9 stand-up tight end drove a Western Kentucky edge defender into the ground on one rep, and Williams, a former tight end himself, was not shy about it.

"I'm not cheering for Georgia. I'm cheering for the tight end position," he said, before running through the Orson Charles and Brock Bowers lineage in Athens. He offered the same respect to Ty Lockwood's blocking for Arkansas.

The thing that actually decides Saturday

All of the film study lands in the same place for Williams, and it is not a coverage or a concept. It is the opening drive.

Ryan Silverfield's first Arkansas team has now shown two very different versions of itself in two weeks. Williams believes Georgia will spend the first series asking the same question Utah asked.

"Georgia's going to do the exact same thing that Utah did. They are going to try you the very first series as far as figuring out if you're going to be a physical football team or not," Williams said.

That is the honest version of the optimism. Williams said the openings he found are real, and he is not backing off them. He also knows what happens if the Hogs do not answer the first punch.

"Arkansas is going to have to do more than show up," he said. "They're going to have to show up and show out."

Kickoff is noon Saturday in Fayetteville on ESPN. Watch the first three snaps of contact. Williams believes they will tell you everything about the next four quarters.