Defensive stats below expectations

Four starters return this week, but two remain suspended.

ATHENS — Forty-sixth, 42nd, 57th and 43rd. Those are Georgia’s national rankings in scoring defense (21.0 ppg), total defense (345.3 ypg), rushing defense (145.3 ypg) and pass defense (200 ypg), respectively, heading into Saturday’s game against Vanderbilt.

It’s safe to say that’s not where the Bulldogs expected to be at this point of the season, especially when two of their first three opponents were Buffalo and Florida Atlantic. Georgia entered the season with nine starters returning from a unit that finished fifth in the nation in total defense last season.

But the Bulldogs’ defenders prefer to point to the number in the team’s win column.

“Me personally, I know how good we are,” outside linebacker Jarvis Jones said. “Some of the numbers that y’all see, I know they’re not the greatest and they’re not like they were last year, but it’s still early. We haven’t done a lot on defense as far as a lot of our packages and stuff like that. So we’ve still got a lot to put in, and there are still a lot of plays out there to be made. It’s just the fourth game of the season.”

It also will be the fourth consecutive game in which the Bulldogs haven’t had their full complement of starters on the field. Four returning starters missed the first two games because of suspensions and two more — AllAmerica free safety Bacarri Rambo and inside linebacker Alec Ogletree — will remain out for another game.

That’s at least partially to blame for Georgia allowing such an inordinate number of big plays. In three games the Bulldogs have given up six plays of 36 yards or more, including scoring plays of 69, 43 and 41 yards.

The Bulldogs say it hasn’t been the absence of the suspended players’ skills as much as missing their experience of playing together.

“I feel like we’ve got a lot of new faces out there, and a lot of it has just been miscommunication and missed assignments,” linebacker Mike Gilliard said. “Right now we’re working on that every day. We’re out here trying to fix things like that, that one big play could be what causes you to lose the game.”

The positive for Georgia’s defense is it has made good adjustments at halftime. The Bulldogs have allowed an average of 7.7 points in the second half of games. And they’ll be down to just two absentees for Vanderbilt this week.

“As the young guys learn, it’s going to make us that much better as our whole defense, our whole group of starters, is on the field at one time,” said Jones, who missed Saturday’s game with a strained groin. “That has yet to be. But when it does I think it’s going to be something special.”