Georgia ground game running on empty

In a season of inconsistency for the Georgia Bulldogs football team there has been one constant — the lack of a running game.

There was little doubt the loss of Knowshon Moreno to the NFL would take a chunk out of the Dawgs’ rushing production, but not even Mark Richt realized just how big a chunk.

Through five games, UGA has managed just 494 yards on the ground for a 98.8 yards per game average.

Starting tailback Richard Samuel leads the charge with 292 yards and two touchdowns, but he got 80 of those on one run against Arkansas.

Backup Caleb King — who was listed as a starter until nagging injuries held him back during fall practice — has 121 yards. However, a broken jaw and a concussion suffered in last Saturday’s 20-13 loss to LSU makes him doubtful for Saturday’s road trip to Tennessee.

“Caleb has a fracture in his jaw,” Richt said. “This one the doctors don’t feel will need any type of surgery, and actually, they feel like relatively soon we can protect him to the point where he can play. So it’s not a season-ending thing by any stretch. It might be a stretch to say this week, but we’re not really counting that out.

“There’s a concussion that he also had from the shot that he took, and that’s probably more of a concern right now. He can’t do anything until the concussion symptoms clear.”

Freshman Washaun Ealey saw action last week, and provided some spark with a couple of hard runs. Still, he netted just 33 yards on eight carries.

That means he’ll play a backup role to Samuel against the Volunteers, although Richt didn’t exactly give his starter a ringing endorsement on Tuesday.

“We’ll probably start Richard,” Richt said. “We haven’t had an in-depth discussion about that.”

Although the Bulldogs have played five games — two of them losses — they remain as difficult to figure out as they were in the preseason.

There have been moments of greatness on the offensive side of the ball, such as Joe Cox’s five-touchdown performance against the Razorbacks, but the senior signal caller can’t seem to find any rhythm throwing the ball. Wideout A.J. Green continues to be a tour de force, but with the Bulldogs’ inability to run he becomes even more of a marked man.

Defensively Georgia has been all over the map, and fans never know if they’re going to see a shootout or a struggle in the trenches as they did last week.

The chances are good that Ealey will see plenty of playing time on Saturday, and could actually get the bulk of carries if Samuel fails to produce.

“I think he did pretty good (against LSU),” Cox said. “The best thing about him is he is hungry. He’s wanted to play and finally got this chance. You could tell he was running really hard and that he was just excited to be in the game. A lot of times that is the type of spark you need is having somebody that just really just wants the ball in his hands. Hopefully, he can be that player all the time because I’m sure he’s going to be getting a lot more carries as the season goes on.”