UGA’s offense gets a lot of the blame for the downfall of this year’s championship hopes.

On the other hand, the Bulldogs’ defense was considered one of the college football’s best, and was largely responsible for keeping the team into playoff contention until last week.

UGA safety JR Reed is a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award for the nation’s best defensive back, and he spoke to reporters about the offense on Wednesday night, per 11alive Sports:

Reed: “You get to Week 5, and you know what type of offense you have. So you take it upon yourselves … and it what it is. You can’t really be mad at them, or have frustrations on defense because we’re a defense-heavy team. We know that. It’s Week 12, and we’re going into the SEC Championship, (the offense) is nothing new to us. So we’ve got to go there and execute.”

Reporter: “You said you knew by Week 5, what was it? Was is a lack of execution or a lack of trying?”

Reed: “It’s nothing like that. You know this is the type of offense you’re going to have this year. Sometimes you might have a defense that gives up a whole bunch of points, and that’s what happens. This year we had a defense that was very stout, and offense aside, they didn’t put up as much points as we would’ve liked. Or as they would’ve liked either. We just know that’s the type of team we’ve got to have. On defense, we’ve got to go out there and do our job.”

Reed was very diplomatic with his comments, but there’s a lot of finger-pointing about the team’s woeful offense by UGA fans and the national media. The two catching most of the heat – fairly or unfairly –are Bulldogs offensive coordinator James Coley and quarterback Jake Fromm.

Coley was in his first year as the team’s play-caller, after previously serving as Georgia’s quarterbacks coach. Fromm, who earned national recognition for his passing accuracy as a freshman and sophomore, struggled heavily down with accuracy during the team’s most important stretch this year, completing less than 50 percent of his passes in each of the season’s last five game.

UGA’s offense also had to deal the growing pains of a young, but talented group of receivers, among other issues.

As good as the UGA defense was, it could’ve put up better numbers if it wasn’t on the field for so long at times. For example, against Auburn, the defense posted a shut out for three quarters — against a same Auburn offense that later dropped nearly 50 points against Alabama. In the fourth quarter of the UGA-Auburn game, the Bulldogs offense collapsed with only two total yards offense and zero first downs. Fortunately, UGA held on to win 21-14.

Thoughts on Reed’s comments? Please post below.