Lorenzo Carter hopes to continue sack streak

ATHENS, GA. (TNS) — Considerable time passed between sacks.

After recording 4.5 sacks as a freshman in 2014, outside linebacker Lorenzo Carter was unable to total any a season ago.

It wasn’t until Georgia’s game against Tennessee two weeks ago that Carter got back in the sack column with his first of the year, which was followed up by another against South Carolina.

Seventeen total games occurred in between sacks for Carter, who now is looking to add to his total of two now that his sack slump is over.

“It’s been a long time,” Carter said, drawing laughter. “We just keep working and keep working. It’s one of those things. Once you get one, then you want more.”

There should be plenty of opportunities for Carter to pick up another sack, if not multiple ones, against Vanderbilt Saturday.

The Commodores rank eighth in the SEC in sacks allowed with 13, averaging 2.17 per game. On top of that, Vanderbilt quarterback Kyle Shurmur was sacked four times in a 17-10 loss to Kentucky last Saturday.

For Carter, picking up sacks in consecutive games could give him the needed juice to keep piling up more.

“It’s pretty relieving that you can finally get back there, hit the quarterback and get him on the ground,” Carter said. “But, there’s no time to rest. It’s time to pick it up even more.”

Georgia’s hoping to do most of its damage on defense with a four-man rush. The Bulldogs figure to finally be able to play more of a base defense since Vanderbilt runs a pro-style offense.

Through six games, Georgia has been forced to defend a variety of spread offense attacks, with a good portion of those quarterbacks being of the dual-threat variety.

Carter again stressed that it’s more important to affect the quarterback than bringing him down with the ball.

“We’ve just got to keep pressuring the quarterback,” Carter said. “It all isn’t about sacks, but getting him off his spot and trying to mix the gaps. It all comes down to trying to beat your man one and one. That’s what we’ve been working on.”