How bad does the loss of King hurt?

Most of the last 12 hours since I heard the news about King being suspended I have heard two ends of the spectrum on him being suspended. One group has this being awful and writing off Georgia's chances at a successful season. The other group basically is saying good riddance and that the team didn't need him anyway. There are reasons I could see either of these being the case.

Losing King hurts because he was the only guy that had more than a few carries in a game coming back. Thomas had a few carries here and there but was never counted on to be more than a spot player. Malcome and Crowell have never lined up in a college game. Crowell carries the hope that he could be the difference for UGA this season the way Lattimore was last year for South Carolina but King was the security blanket. He could provide insurance if Crowell was not ready by game one to carry the load. He could share the load so that Crowell would not have to worry about wearing down by the end of the season.

Now that insurance is gone. Crowell will have to be ready game 1. He cannot wear down as the season goes by. Now instead of contributions by Malcome and Thomas being bonus to the 1-2 punch of King and Crowell they will both be counted on to contribute big time. Georgia cannot afford for any of the three to miss any time (except maybe against Costal Carolina and New Mexico State).

That is the bad news. However I do see a silver lining. One of the main things, often with good reason, is that keeps freshmen from getting playing time under Richt is they lack the pass protection ability of older players. The running game is sometimes hurt by this as better runners may get fewer snaps than another guy because he is not as good as a pass blocker. I do not totally disagree with this reasoning but I feel like to get back to the heights we expect UGA to be at we need a true feature back. I think that if Crowell can handle the running part of the game it will make up for what he lacks as a blocker. I also believe that a good way to slow down a pass rush is to force the other team to commit more players to stopping the run. That outside linebacker may be a step slower in his pass rush if he is worried about containing a guy like Crowell. I also believe that the fastest way to learn how to provide pass protection is to see blitzes live. It is one thing to see them on a practice field or a film room but a totally different thing to see it live. The other good thing is that our TE's can help with this problem as they are very talented and Murray is a very mobile qb so the option is there to move the pocket around until the young guys get up to speed in pass protection.

All in all I believe this does hurt the team but barring an injury to one of the guys left I believe the team can overcome it and possibly even turn it into a plus. Let's just hope that Crowell is up to the challenge, he does not have to be a savoir of the team but he does need to be an above average SEC running back right from the start.

Production replacement - Running back

Not too long ago Georgia would have been looking at having almost 100% of its rushing yards back for this fall and get to add on top of that Isaiah Crowell and Ken Malcome being tossed into the mix. Now the team has lost its leading rusher from the past two seasons. If you take away Murray's stats as a runner then losing Ealey takes way 43% of the carries from last year and just under 50% of the yards rushing. Most of the time I would consider that a huge loss but in this case I am not so sure. Ealey had a tendency to fumble in big spots, had big games followed by subpar games, and lots of off field problems.

Many people are expecting (hoping?) Crowell will be the next great running back in the SEC. For UGA to improve its running game and more importantly its win total I don't think he has to be great, just consistently good. Would expecting him to get 15 carries and 75 yards a game be asking too much? Would expecting him to not fumble inside the other team’s 5 yard line late in close games be asking too much? If he can do those few things he would not only improve on Ealey's numbers (13 carries 67 yards a game) but would give the team a big lift in knowing they had a guy they could count on.
Caleb King is also a bit of a wild card. Despite missing time with injuries and suspensions last year he averaged 5.38 ypc last season. If he can do that but play in every game he would take a lot of pressure off Crowell, and possibly more importantly keep the freshman from having to wear himself out. I believe Crowell is capable of carrying the ball a lot of times in a single game but not sure how he would hold up in the SEC having to do it game after game. A solid contribution from King would be great. Toss in a few carries for Malcome and it would not take much at all for the running game to be better than last years.