Through the first six games of the 2024 season the Georgia Bulldogs drove their fans insane by doing the same things wrong over and over again. Coverage breakdowns. Failure to locate jump balls. Spotty tackling. Inability to run the ball consistently on offense. Stupefying penalties, and backbreaking turnovers.
Rinse. Scratch head. Shake visor. Yell at Glenn Schumann. Repeat.
But tonight, our intrepid heroes decided to do something completely different.
Oh, you’ve grown frustrated with a solid season’s worth of slow first half starts? How about scoring 23 unanswered points in the first half?
Oh, you’re tired of watching the Red and Black play from behind week and after week? How about never trailing in a road game against the #1 team in the land?
It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it was beautiful in a way no Georgia football game has been in 2024. Georgia beat the Texas Longhorns tonight by being more physical, more poised, and more aggressive.
It was a completely different team.the Bulldogs who came into tonight with the 13th ranked rushing offense in the SEC churned out 108 yards on the ground. Trevor Etienne scored all three Bulldog touchdowns on the ground, finishing with 87 tough yards on 19 gutsy carries. Etienne came to Georgia to play in games like this. And I’m so glad he did.
Etienne was aided in his efforts by a Bulldog offensive line which opened significant holes against a deep and fast Texas front seven. I’m looking forward to getting Tate Ratledge back in the rotation, very likely after the bye week. But I think as a unit the Georgia offensive line has certainly grown in his absence.
For his part Carson Beck appeared bored with throwing for 400+ yards and oodles of touchdowns. So he changed things up by going 23 of 41 for 175 yards, 3 interceptions and 0 touchdowns. Beck again made some truly baffling decisions with the football. But when it mattered most he stepped up, running for a key fourth quarter first down. I will say that this Texas defense came into tonight statistically the best in the nation, and largely played like it.
Beck was also victimized by some really crippling drops, including two on the first possession of the game, and one by Landon Humphrey late on what could have been a 3rd down conversion to put the final nail in the Longhorns’ coffin. The Bulldog receivers continue to play as if they’re being coached by James Coley. That’s about all I know to say on the subject.
I do have thoughts on Beck’s final interception. Perhaps you saw it. Arian Smith’s route was blocked by a Texas defender, who then went through him to pick off the ball and was initially flagged for pass interference. Texas fans disliked the call, and reacted in the most childish way possible, by throwing debris all over the field. In the past, this sort of behavior has resulted in a penalty.
This SEC officiating crew instead decided to reward the fans’ juvenile bad behavior by using the five minute intermission to reconsider their prior call, and overturn it.
Penalties are not reviewable with the exception of targeting calls, for which a review is mandatory. So instead of officially reviewing the call the officials just say there for three minutes watching the play over and over again on the Jumbotron and overturned it based on that.
You may remember that in 2021 the SEC fined Tennessee $250,000 when fans threw bottles on the field during a game against Ole Miss. Tennessee also had to use video to identify offending individuals and ban them from athletic events for the remainder of that academic year.
This SEC crew instead set a dangerous precedent.
It was ridiculous. Even if it wasn’t actually crooked, the optics of it were terrible. And the SEC is absolutely going to have to make a statement and stake out a position on something that never should have happened. In the long and winding history of SEC officials not covering themselves in glory, this was one of the least glorious moments.
But you know who had a lot of glorious moments tonight? The Georgia defense. Texas was 0 of 7 on third downs in the first half, and accumulated only 38 yards of total offense. For the night Texas averaged 1.1 yards per carry on the ground, a hardscrabble 29 yards on 27 mostly futile carries. The Georgia defense’s ability to stymie the Longhorn rushing attack was the key element which made all the other havoc on the night possible.
And boy, with a lot of havoc it was. Jalon Walker has been well known as an agent of chaos to Bulldog fans for quite some time. He is now recognizable as a one-man wrecking crew for college football fans across the nation after personally making Quinn Ewers’ life terrible all night.
Asked after the game how he managed to get the best out of his players Kirby Smart emotionally replied “these players bring the best out of me,”
In a rare moment of total honesty from the famously careful coach Smart continued “They tried to rob us with calls in this place. But these guys are so resilient.”
They (the officials) did. They (the players) were. It’s too early to say this was a transformative game for the Classic City Canines. But it is the appropriate time to laud them for stepping up in a hostile environment and playing by far their best football of the season.
Last week I said this team is not good enough to win a national championship. I’m still not convinced that I’m wrong about that. But tonight I saw a level of effort and composure that I did not know this team possessed, and which they may have developed on the spot in Austin. This team is imperfect and inconsistent. But at their best they do appear to be a match for just about anybody.
The Bulldogs will now take a week off to get healthy and prepare for the Florida Gators. That’s a conversation for a later day. Tonight they delivered the 100th win of Kirby Smart’s Georgia tenure in memorable fashion. It was something completely different from what we’ve seen all season. And it was beautiful. Until later…
Go ‘Dawgs!!!