For the first two and a half quarters of this game, I was an angry man. A very angry man. Georgia needed to get off to a quick start on the road in a rowdy Bryant-Denny Stadium. They did not.
But as we have seen before under Kirby Smart the Bulldogs fought back, and even took the lead. Had they held it the game would have been the biggest comeback in school history and the biggest comeback in college football history in a game between top five ranked teams.
But they didn’t. So it wasn’t. And I’m still pretty angry.
Do not let everything that happened in the last 20 minutes of this game distract you from the fact that a veteran Georgia Bulldog football team should never have been in the position to have to mount the biggest comeback in school history.
It would be comforting if the problems that put them in a colossal hole had been caused by young players not quite ready for the spotlight. But Arian Smith played one of the most visibly inept halves of football we’ve seen from a Bulldog. He’s a fifth year senior. It was All-SEC veteran Malaki Starks who gave up contain on Jalen Milroe’s 36 yard second quarter touchdown scamper. Oscar Delp continued to willfully refuse to catch the football.
And Carson Beck. Sweet Mary Magdalene on a nuclear-powered jet ski, Carson Beck. You have to give Alabama defensive coordinator Kane Wommack credit: he broke Carson Beck’s brain for much of the night. By the start of the second half Beck wasn’t even really looking downfield for receivers, almost as if the interceptions had convinced him that past ten yards the Tuscaloosa night was dark and full of terrors.
In the end Carson Beck completed 27 of 50 passes for a career high 439 yards and 3 touchdowns. But he also threw 3 interceptions and had a fumble. He threw at least four other passes that could and perhaps should have been intercepted. Do not let the heroics you witnessed in the second half distract you from the fact that Carson Beck emphatically put the final nail in the coffin of his Heisman campaign tonight.
And do not be distracted from the fact that if Alabama’s young secondary (arguably the weakest unit on the squad) had been just a bit better this one could have been 55-20, and Beck could have obliterated the UGA single game interception mark. Carson Beck is not having the season Georgia fans expected him to have, nor the season his coaches need him to have if they want to win a national championship.
None of the heroics we witnessed in the second half would have been necessary if this coaching staff and team had been adequately prepared at the opening whistle. At a certain point, the slow starts Georgia has habitually gotten out to go from an uneasy joke to a serious, systemic problem. At a certain point, you have to ask why this blue chip staff hasn’t figured out how to get their blue chip athletes out of first gear before halftime. Tonight was that point, if we weren’t already past it.
If you’re looking for a positive to take from this one, by all means, celebrate that the Bulldogs didn’t stop fighting after going down 28–0. They adjusted and continued to fight. Go right ahead, that should be applauded.
Georgia gave up 355 yards of offense in the first half, but only 192 in the second, 75 of them on Ryan Williams’ go-ahead touchdown. I don’t know if you heard, but he’s only 17. And Mike Bobo’s offense began to find its way in the second half, tallying 366 yards in the second half versus only 153 in the first. Arian Smith atoned for his first half mishaps and Dillon Bell came up clutch over and over again.
Perhaps this Bulldog team did some growing up in that second half. Eh, maybe. Color me unconvinced. I think the Alabama staff got a little complacent and Kalen DeBoer’s famous inability to slow down the game helped this one get a lot closer than it could have.
Do not let all those late heroics distract you from the fact that Georgia has now lost 9 out of 10 games to Alabama. Not to put too fine a point on things, Kirby Smart has a job because Georgia fired the last guy whose teams habitually fought hard and came up just short against the Crimson Tide. The expectation, even in the new-fangled 12 team playoff era, is that Georgia should win big matchups and doesn’t celebrate moral victories.
This Georgia football team now needs to take a long, collective look in the mirror. This was but the first of a series of challenges on the way to the college football playoff. While it may be the kind of game that shows up on ESPN Classic years from now, and while everyone may be lauding the grit Kirby Smart’s team showed to come back and take the lead late, the playoff committee really won’t care if this one touchdown loss to Alabama is paired with similar one touchdown losses to Texas and Tennessee.
Make no mistake, the margin for error shrunk tonight. The Georgia Bulldog football team that rolled its helmets out onto the turf at Saban Field during the first half tonight will find its ass home for the playoff if it’s the team that keeps showing up.
Do not be distracted from that fact.
Go ‘Dawgs!!!