As the second half of the Missouri-Georgia game began, SEC Network went to a shot of sideline reporter Cole Cubelic. He said that he spoke to Missouri coach Barry Odom before the start of the second half and asked him a simple question.

“Do you just keep taking shots?”

Odom’s answer to Cubelic said it all.

“He looked at me, kind of smiled and said, ‘Yeah, absolutely. We think we can get over the top of this Georgia defense, but we must run the football as well.'”

That was after a half in which Missouri scored 21 points, which was more than any team scored against the Bulldogs in a game all season. Two of those touchdowns came on 63-yard bombs from Drew Lock, which stunned the Georgia crowd.

Of course Odom kind of smiled at Cubelic when he asked that question. Finally, in the seventh game of the season, someone actually found a chink in Georgia’s armor.

Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

While Odom’s second-half intentions were good, Missouri didn’t score another deep touchdown. Georgia made the adjustment and took away the Tigers’ deep passing game, as one would expect former defensive back Kirby Smart to do.

Missouri’s defense, of course, had plenty of chinks. It had no answer for Georgia’s entire offense, which resulted in a 53-28 victory for the Dawgs.

Georgia has allowed just six receptions of 30 or more yards. That's tied for third-fewest in the SEC.

But what happened in the first half was still important. A team with a better defense than Missouri’s would’ve made that a much closer game, and we’d all be talking about Georgia’s Week 7 scare.

So was it really a weakness Missouri exposed? Or was it as simple as Emanuel Hall burning the secondary and getting a nice pass from Lock? Well, it was probably a mix of both.

First of all, none of that happens without Lock’s ability to move the ball downfield. Those two throws will undoubtedly be on his pre-NFL draft highlight video. Georgia hadn’t seen a quarterback who could make that kind of throw. No offense to Nick Fitzgerald and Quinten Dormady, but they aren’t airing it out like that anytime soon.

Vanderbilt Kyle Shurmur did complete a similar pass to Kalija Lipscomb down the right sideline for 38 yards. Other than that, however, the only pass completed of 35-plus yards against Georgia came from Tennessee running back John Kelly, but that was because of his yards after the catch.

Georgia’s secondary hadn’t been stretched before the Missouri game. At least not like that. In fact, if you go back to Lock’s first long pass to Hall, you’ll see that he was wide open. Why? J.R. Reed got fooled by Lock’s other deep target streaking down the middle.

Missouri took advantage of a sophomore safety who hadn’t faced a quarterback with that kind of arm. Inexperience? Perhaps. Whatever it was, it worked out for Missouri.

The Tigers got over the top twice on the Georgia secondary because of Lock’s ability to look off his targets. On the second long touchdown pass, Tyrique McGhee just got flat out beat without any over-the-top coverage. Lock recognized that another sophomore defensive back was in the wrong spot and he delivered a perfect pass on the right sideline.

That’s the difference in facing a pro-style quarterback like Lock. Not only can he see when someone like McGhee is playing too tight at the line of scrimmage, he can make the throw to actually exploit that coverage mistake.

Georgia is going to face quarterbacks with big arms. Jake Bentley can do what Lock did, as can Jarrett Stidham. Even a dual-threat guy like Jalen Hurts can make Georgia pay for a miscue and hit Calvin Ridley deep. You know, assuming the Bulldogs continue their stampede to Atlanta.

In all likelihood, Georgia is spending its bye week lining up Jacob Eason and having him make deep throws to simulate what Missouri did. Smart will do everything he can to make sure that doesn’t become a legitimate Achilles’ heel for his otherwise dominant defense.

But will teams continue to try and take some shots against Georgia?

As Odom said, absolutely.