O'Gara: If you're underwhelmed by Georgia, you're looking at all the wrong things
If Georgia becomes the first team to 3-peat in 87 years, the championship DVD won’t start with the Mizzou game.
That’s fine. The Dawgs will likely have plenty of options if title No. 3 is in store for 2023. Saturday wasn’t about having some season-defining afternoon. It was about surviving a Mizzou team that showed up ready to go. It was about doing the little things to avoid that first regular-season loss in 3 years.
Oh, and it was also about all but punching yet another ticket to Atlanta. One more Georgia win or 1 more Tennessee loss will take care of that.
That won’t impress anyone, though. In all likelihood, Saturday’s 9-point win won’t suddenly add to the “Georgia is a juggernaut” narrative. If anything, it’ll probably add to the “Georgia is beatable” narrative.
Never mind the fact that the Dawgs haven’t lost at home since 2019, and never mind the fact that Kirby Smart just earned his 26th consecutive win.
“The Dawgs didn’t cover the 2-touchdown spread,” say the critics.
“They let up 151 rushing yards to Mizzou,” point out the skeptics.
“That was a 4-quarter game against a team that hasn’t finished ranked in the AP Top 25 in 9 years,” noted a casual fan.
Those things are all true, as is the fact that the Dawgs trailed in the second half for the third time this year after it did so just once in SEC play during the previous 2 seasons. You know what else is true? Georgia has figured out how to do all the little things during this 26-game winning streak, and there’s a reason Smart hasn’t lost at home since 2019.
Georgia’s critics won’t say that. They’ll instead point out what could’ve happened if Brady Cook had found an open receiver in the flat instead of throwing a ball into the belly of Naz Stackhouse.
BIG MAN INT ???@georgiafootball with the HUGE turnover pic.twitter.com/3c1ouU85Zf
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) November 4, 2023
What the Georgia skeptic will fail to note on a play like that is that it was CJ Allen (No. 33) who forced Cook into that throw. It was Allen who replaced Jamon Dumas-Johnson, who left Saturday’s game and was in a sling on the sideline during that pivotal interception. That’s a true freshman delivering the biggest hurry of the game.
Next man up? Some teams preach it, but most teams can’t truly embody it. Georgia does.
Take that cliché but accurate mantra to the offensive side of the ball. In its second game without All-American tight end Brock Bowers, guess who had another key play in a Georgia victory? His backup, Oscar Delp. Last week, it was a leaping grab to move the chains on 3rd down. This week, it was a perfect anticipation route and adjustment in the end zone to give UGA some breathing room:
TD Dawgs!
Beck finds Delp to put @georgiafootball up 11 pic.twitter.com/nYb66sE7IF
— CBS Sports College Football ? (@CBSSportsCFB) November 4, 2023
Did it look like the ball came out of Beck’s hand a bit awkwardly? Yeah. That was sort of the day that was for Beck. He wasn’t at peak levels of performance like he was last week against Florida. A big part of that was because he faced the best front 7 he’s seen all year, and for much of the first half, he wasn’t in rhythm.
You don’t win 26 consecutive games by playing perfect, in-rhythm offense 100% of the time. You do so by making the necessary throws in key spots and avoiding colossal turnovers like the one Cook made.
Speaking of Cook, you might look at his rushing numbers and say that UGA is going to have problems against mobile quarterbacks moving forward, perhaps as soon as next week when Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart comes to town.
Alternatively, you can look at the adjustments that Glenn Schumann’s defense made after allowing 57 first-half rushing yards to Cook. As Aaron Taylor noted on the CBS broadcast, Georgia got away from turning its back on the Mizzou quarterback. That meant less man coverage and spying him. As a result, Cook had -18 rushing yards in the second half.
Speaking of defensive adjustments, there was no bigger task for UGA’s defense than containing Luther Burden III. The former 5-star recruit who committed to Mizzou days after taking an official visit to Athens got on the board early with a long throw and catch for 6:
GOING DEEP ?@MizzouFootball leads early vs. the defending champs ? pic.twitter.com/SW8zKJXoyK
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) November 4, 2023
Burden, who hit 96 receiving yards all but once this season, was the toughest receiver matchup of the season for Georgia, which hadn’t allowed anybody to hit the century mark in a game. After that grab, Burden only had 2 more catches for 14 yards. The Dawgs took him away, and while Theo Wease still made plenty of plays for a tough Mizzou offense, the mission of not letting No. 3 have the last laugh was accomplished.
Nobody gets the last laugh on Georgia. Hence, the whole “1 loss in the past 3 seasons” thing.
Oh, wait. My bad. I forgot about Bryce Young in 2021.
The only player who got the last laugh on Georgia was the Heisman Trophy winner playing the best game of his career … and he lost to that same Georgia team a month later in the national championship.
I stand corrected. Nobody gets the last laugh on Georgia.
And sure, some will laugh at the strength of schedule. They’ll claim that the Dawgs are beating up on cupcakes while failing to acknowledge that Mizzou was the 8th consecutive top-15 team that they beat, only one of which stayed within 1 score.
But no, that probably won’t be the conversation for Georgia. Instead, many will nitpick. Many will wonder if this team is running out of gas and setting itself up for disappointment. If the Dawgs lose a game, it won’t be because they were loaded with flaws. It’ll be because someone delivers a performance like Young did, or perhaps UGA comes up just short of doing enough little things.
On Saturday, little things made a big difference. If you’re still underwhelmed by that, take my advice.
Just wait to watch the championship DVD instead.