There’s an old saying in football, “you have to win your clunkers.”
This one was an honest to goodness clunker. A terrible sputtering jalopy of a football game, possibly the worst football game I’ve seen Georgia play in the past three seasons.
Georgia’s veteran leaders let them down in this game. Carson Beck played his worst outing as a starter. He completed 15 of 24 passes for 160 yards. And while he didn’t throw any interceptions, he threw at least two balls that were imminently interceptable. He took his eyes off a shotgun snap that led to a drive-killing fumble. For much of the game he was just generally not in synch (although he had help with that, as we’ll discuss below).
The veteran offensive line simply did not get the job done for much of the night. The Bulldogs managed an anemic 102 rushing yards on the night. That was their lowest regular season total since the Ball State game in week two of last season, a game played with one healthy scholarship tailback. To their credit they did manage to open some holes late when it mattered most. But the unit that rolled its helmets out on the field in the first half tonight would get obliterated by Alabama or Texas.
Georgia didn’t just lose the time of possession battle. They were obliterated in the time of possession battle, 35:02 to 24:58. When Carson Beck dropped back in the first half it was an act of pure faith. There was no evidence that the line would protect him. Ernest Greene struggled again in pass protection, and Jared Wilson fired a snap at Beck’s shins that could have easily ended in disaster. All in all, the evening brought a sense of unease with the reliability of this veteran group for which I was not prepared.
And the offense wasn’t alone in tripping over its own feet. A critical penalty on the part of Malaki Starks extended a late fourth down drive. Starks wasn’t alone, as Georgia committed an inexcusable 9 penalties for 85 yards. Admittedly, the roughing the passer call on Jalon Walker in the first half was awful. But the Dawgs were also graced with at least a couple of plays on which the zebras missed pretty clear penalties. The bottom line is that it was football too messy to win an SEC or national title.
I stopped counting the missed tackles, especially in the backfield. Kentucky gained 170 yards on the ground, as an offensive line unit many (myself included) poked fun at pregame responded with a gutsy effort that was almost good enough to pull the biggest Wildcat upset of the Mark Stoops era.
Georgia absolutely deserved to lose this game. They made enough bone-headed mistakes to lose this game. And this team does not deserve the benefit of the doubt from you, me, Kirby Smart, or the pollsters going forward until they prove that they have the guts to come out and play winning football from the opening bell. Georgia looked lackadaisical and entitled tonight against a Kentucky team that came out with something to prove. That is a recipe for a butt-whipping. And that is exactly the direction Georgia was heading in for most of this game.
If there’s good news it’s that football teams are rarely as good in the aggregate as their big wins or as bad as their losses (or in this case, near losses). Georgia has done this kind of thing before. The Bulldogs came from behind in last seasons’s SEC road opener to beat Auburn 27-20. And in 2022 they trailed until the 4th much like tonight before beating Mizzou on the road 26-22 in the SEC opener.
So I’m not saying this game portends imminent, inescapable doom. But it also certainly shouldn’t make anyone inside or outside Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall feel satisfied with the notion that this UGA team is the best college football outfit in America. It might be when all is said and done, but on this night it was only barely good enough to beat a Kentucky team that got blown out of the water last week by South Carolina.
The Red and Black now have a week off to heal up and remember how to play championship football before traveling to Tuscaloosa in two weeks to face Alabama. If they thought this was a hostile environment, boy howdy, are they going to be amazed at what’s coming. There’s time to work it all out. But there’s tons of work to be done. Until later…
Go ‘Dawgs!!!