Georgia wasn't at its best against Arkansas, and it gets much tougher from here
Saturday’s game against Arkansas, by all accounts, was supposed to be a cakewalk for No. 4 Georgia.
The Razorbacks had lost 19 consecutive SEC games since 2017. Granted, they play in the SEC West, but you’d think they’d be good for a win or 2.
The Bulldogs? Well, they’re the Bulldogs. Three-time defending SEC East champions, top 5 team, Playoff aspirants, etc.
But in the world of college football, nothing’s a sure thing until the clock hits zeros.
And for one half of football, Georgia was flat out bad. Remember the movie “Space Jam?” It resembled that in a way, but with football instead of basketball.
Never mind that the Dawgs had registered just 177 yards of total offense or were just 1-of-12 on 3rd-down opportunities. They were penalized 11 times for 98 yards, and you could almost see Kirby Smart’s hair graying even more with every flag thrown.
“I felt like I was in an extra-innings baseball game. It took forever and we weren’t scoring points,” Smart quipped after the game.
The score was 7-5 at the break. Georgia needed the old “bloop and a blast” to tie the game up. Or, something like that.
Fortunately, against a team like Arkansas, whose own offense didn’t look any more inspired, the margins are fairly wide. And in the end, reality set in as the Dawgs hung 32 points on the hapless Hogs to turn a 7-5 deficit into a 37-10 blowout, and you wonder if they found a stash of “Michael’s Secret Stuff” in the locker room.
That, or Smart gave them a good, old-fashioned Saban-style you-know-what chewing.
Crisis averted for now. But there’s still 9 more regular-season games to go. Those margins for error? Thinner and thinner as the weeks go on.
And there’s still a big question at the top of the list: Who starts at QB Saturday against No. 8 Auburn? D’Wan Mathis received the call out of the gate and, despite a decent opening drive, never got it out of neutral. Stetson Bennett IV spelled him and had a composed, calm performance. Will the staff chalk it up to first-game jitters for Mathis or will it feel that Bennett has a clear edge right now?
Oh, by the way, there’s also JT Daniels, who dressed for the game but seemingly wasn’t ready, leading to Bennett leapfrogging him on the depth chart.
(Questions surrounding the quarterback position in Athens? At least one thing about 2020 is normal.)
Jokes aside, it doesn’t matter who’s behind center Saturday. The Dawgs can ill afford to get off to a slow start against the Tigers, who got all it could handle from No. 23 Kentucky before eventually holding serve for the victory on the Plains.
And if that’s enough, there’s Tennessee at home, followed by a trip to Alabama, which has a chip on their shoulder after last year. Then there’s the aforementioned Wildcats, followed by the Cocktail Party game against Florida.
I’ve felt that the Bulldogs would have done well to be 4-1 going into the game against the Gators, which has become the de facto SEC East championship game in past years. This year probably won’t be any different. But their performance Saturday, at least for 30 minutes, was a little worrying.
Hats off to Arkansas and Sam Pittman, by the way, who had absolutely nothing to lose as its conference losing streak now sits at 20 games. Pittman is still a well-loved figure in Athens, but he jumped on an opportunity to return to Fayetteville, this time as a head coach, knowing that he’d have an uphill battle washing the stink off a once-talented Razorbacks program. It won’t happen overnight, so he deserves the time he needs to do so.
But Georgia didn’t put up much of a fight to start the game. Smart’s not putting that all on the quarterback, and rightfully so.
“Regardless of the QB, we cannot hold people, or jump offsides, or have penalties,” he said. “I have a lot of confidence in all our quarterbacks. I still have confidence in D’Wan. We just didn’t execute.”
Execution will be a part of the game the Dawgs will need to get right on Saturday against Auburn. Otherwise, they will find themselves on the outside looking in on the SEC — and College Football Playoff — race.
It will be interesting to see who ga plays at qb next week. Bennett played well and ga fans are already hyping him up but that was against Arkansas. Mathis might be ok, maybe his problem was that he hasn’t played live football in so long. Who knows? JT Daniels is at ga because Slovis took his job at USC and on top of that he hasn’t played live football in a while now.
Our offense with Mathis looked like a ten year old playing Madden with Lamar Jackson.
Ten step drop, then sprint to the right. Then either try to run over a linebacker, step out of bounds a yard short on 3rd down, or see how far downfield you can throw it.
Monken’s “Air Raid” scares me. OC’s like him seem to often forget that running the ball is an option.
That will not work with our quarterbacks.
Thank you, Stetson, get well soon, JT.
Stetson did a good job of managing the offense…made dome good throws too. The Dawg’s QB stories this year have been entertaining…still are.
FFS… THIS IS NOT THE AIR RAID.
Monken does not run the Air Raid.
You people are so effing stupid.
Do you know what is the Air Raid you Munson wannabe?
What MSU just did to LSU, THAT is the Air Raid.
Lemme ask you, if Bennett had started the entire game and we score 50 points with him throwing for 400 yards and 4 TDs and Zeus running for 140 and 2 TDs, will you complain then?
Look at how the offense performed with someone who actually ran it as designed. WRs were open in space. Zeus found running lanes.
It’s one thing to be a Munson, it’s another to not have a clue what you’re talking about.
Stop trying to talk football like you know what you’re talking about, because you just sound dumb when you do.
Delusional
No, delusional is thinking y’all are good after giving up 620 yards to Ole Miss.
What I just said up there? All factual.
What you think? Delusional.
If Bennett starts the game and we score 50 with him throwing for 400 yards and 4 TDs and Zeus getting 140 and 2 TDs, is anyone complaining?
CONTEXT MATTERS.
At least our defense didn’t give up 650 yards to Ole Miss.
The offense looked great with Bennett. How’s Floriduh going to fix their defense?
Delusional
620 yards to Ole Miss.
Floriduh is in TROUBLE.
Take away that bogus roughing the passer call against Ole Miss and the uf/Ole Miss game ends a lot differently.
Not saying that Ole Miss wins but UF doesn’t score their last TD and Ole Miss definitely scores again.
Uhhhh, seriously? You’re going to compare Ole Miss, who put up 600+ against bother Bama and LSU last year with Matt Luke at the helm to Arkansas. Now they have Kiffin who will make the offense better, and Florida hasn’t live tackled in months. So yeah, I’d say it’s not a shocking outcome. Keep in mind, UF was missing key starters on defense. Also remember, UF looked horrible on D last year in the opener yet ended up top 10, so they likely will improve as they get back in the swing of live tackling.
UGA on the other hand, took a second half comeback to beat arguably the worst team in the conference. Sorry Arky. So while you can’t practice live tackling without actually, well you know, LIVE TACKLING, what you CAN practice is blocking, route trees, etc.
Even though I’m not thrilled with the yardage given up, I’d be more concerned if my offense couldn’t move the ball against a team that hasn’t won a conference game in a few seasons.
“I’d be more concerned if my offense couldn’t move the ball against a team that hasn’t won a conference game in a few seasons.”
Are you aware that UGA played the 3rd and 4th quarters of the game and won by 4 TD’s?
Half the SEC could have hung 50 on AR’s D. Especially when they were gassed from playing how many snaps. Don’t expect Stetson not to get sacked 5 times next week and intercepted at least twice.. maybe more. Five foot nothing does not do well at QB in the SEC. You need JT back and quick. With him at least your looking at the caliber of a Colin Hill as opposed to anything less.. No reason for the lack of the run game in the first half against that D. Just from lining it up and running it at them should have been a better outing. Nothing I saw from UGA’s offense over the entire game tells me it’s good enough to be even SEC east #3. Does not mean it won’t be at some point but it won’t be with Stetson against the D’s of UF,TN, Bama and Auburn and SC are maybe’s and your not winning a shootout with MSU..
“5-foot nothing QBs don’t do well in the SEC.”
“Mike Leach and the Air Raid will never win in the SEC.”
Also moron, Connor Shaw wants a word with you about 5-foot nothing QBs.
You’re forgetting that a Tua led bama team was tied with the citadel at halftime with 10 points last year. After they lost Tua they still played LSU and Auburn within 3 points. With Tua, they beat both and make the playoffs. The point is even the best teams sometimes get out to a slow start. UGA was launching a completely new offense with a new QB, new OC, new line coach and new starters at RB, WR and TE. All without spring ball and our QB1 opting out a couple weeks before the season after taking the majority of first team reps.
Anyone who expected UGA to come out of the gate blowing things up are delusional. Florida on the other hand has the same coordinators, same QB, mostly the same players and they all have experience…. and they gave up 600+ yards to a rebuilding ole miss.
We played a horrible half and still won by 4 TDs and still had time to give second stringers some reps. Take a breath. It’s the first game of a season with a new OC and no spring practice. It’s going to be fine.
Gotta love Stetson, he is a gamer and a DGD.
But Stetson won’t be contending for All-SEC and attending the NFL Combine.
If you consider how GOOD the offense did with Stetson directing, image how much better the offense will perform once Daniels is active, or once Beck comes up to speed.
Yesterday’s offensive performance was about 2 players – one who can play QB and one who can’t. With the right QB UGA’s offense was fine.
He did a fine job of playing pitch and catch with lone receivers terribly uncovered by the worst D in the SEC. It’s like playing a highschool D and late in the game. No one is fooled by any offense piling on points on a terrible team to hide all the issues. lol. Lets see you do that against the schedule you got and if you can, i’ll be the first to congratulate you..Might even see Beck by the end of the Auburn game.
“… the worst D in the SEC”
I watched a lot of SEC football yesterday and Ark was far from being the worse D in the conference.
The UF/Ole Miss game was a defensive dumptser fire showcase.
Ark does not have a good roster but give Coach Pittman credit, his team showed up and played with a lot of passion and heart, they never quit.
How come we are academically behind Florida all the time
Because UGA doesn’t have Basket weaving as an available Major for their athletes. Have you seen some of the classes FL offers?
Have you seen a class on any college campus?
A W is a W so good game dogs. Looking forward to hopefully a good game Saturday.
An angle I see people/writers missing is how well Pittman Knows this UGA squad, knows what those OL were good at weren’t and had weeks to gameplan.. no excuses first half was rough, but something to be said in knowing exactly how a program is gonna come at you
Plus Dean’s biggest issue was HE NEVER LOOKED FOR NUMBER 1!!! Kearis is a baller but if you don’t at least look Pickens’way you and your QB coach have failed somewhere..
Florida’s defense last year in the first game against Miami looked bad. They got it immediately turned around to have a top-15 defense. I suspect their secondary problems will be solved quickly also. That said, Florida looks like they can score at will. What happened to the improved offense all of our high paid coaches were working on all off season? We are doomed.
You’re forgetting that ole miss went 9-14 on third downs. Something that hasn’t changed and won’t change with Grantham. His “third-and-grantham” defense cost UGA the 2012 SEC championship Against bama because he couldn’t stop on 3rd downs. UGA went 11-13 on third down last year. 3rd down is arguably the most important defensive statistic behind Points allowed. When offenses can stay on the field it exhausts your defense Grantham and is and always will be horrible in that major statistic.
11-13 on third downs against Florida**
2018: Our offense couldn’t possibly be any worse than Chaney’s
2019: No way our offense will be worse than Coley’s
2020………
One thing for sure
2020:Our defense is 100x better than that sh*tshow UF put on the field
2018: we got Mullen now UGA better watch out… L
2019: UGA is struggling offensively and Trask is playing great…L
2020…….
It’s like people have already forgotten that there was no spring ball and a heavily modified fall camp. Throw in various new elements to UGA’s offense and of course there’s going to be growing pains. So many people are tripping over themselves to overreact.
Auburn was not exactly compelling against KY…but found a way as good teams do. Both teams should be sharper this week. Anybody’s game Saturday. Dawgs defense a difference maker.