The Michigan Wolverines and Georgia Bulldogs are just a couple days away from doing battle in the Orange Bowl this Friday night. Michigan boasts one of the top offensive lines in the nation and will go against Georgia’s stout defense. The Wolverines have obviously had tremendous success running the ball this season, but they haven’t faced a defense as strong as Georgia’s. The good news, Michigan has had success against strong defenses, and even if they weren’t as strong as Georgia’s, it still gives Michigan confidence.
“I think something that credits their success is they’ve got a good front seven,” Chris Hinton told the media on Tuesday. “They’ve also got a good back seven, but they’ve got a good front seven and use that to the best of their ability. But our offense has gone against good defenses all year, went against Wisconsin, and the team, we have full faith in our offense that they’re going to do what they’ve been doing all year.”
Georgia isn’t the only team with an impressive defense, however. Michigan’s defense has made tremendous strides this season in defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald’s first season, and they’re sure to make things difficult on the Bulldog offense. The Wolverines felt they could be successful early on.
“During spring ball, starting camp,” Mazi Smith said on when he realized the defense could be elite. “We just had that feeling. That’s what we were chasing for. We wanted to be an elite defense, and we wanted to compete for being the best D-line in the country. I think we did that.”
With both teams being so sound in all phases of the game, there can be pressure on both sides of the ball to take the stress off of the other side of the ball. Smith feels like Michigan isn’t concerned about that.
“I think we aren’t too worried about Georgia’s defense and what they do.” Smith said. “We’re worried about what we do, and we aren’t necessarily worried. We’re just focused, because that’s the only way we’re going to play championship-level ball. As far as like Chris said, we kind of block out all the outside noise and worry about what we’ve got to do, focus on what we’ve got to do and get our jobs done.”
Both teams are strong on the offensive lines and defensive lines. It’ll be strength vs strength all night long in Miami on Friday night.