ATHENS — It’s easy to find flaws with the Georgia football program following its 13-12 win over the Kentucky Wildcats. Georgia was actually outgained by the Wildcats on the evening and trailed for much of the game.
Being that there are so few data points to this point in the year, it’s understandable why many in the national media now have questions about Georgia. The Texas Longhorns passed Georgia as the No. 1 team in the AP Poll, and more than a few media members explained why they slid Georgia behind the Wildcats.
“This is not an overreaction,” CBS Sports’ Brad Crawford wrote. “There’s potential worry offensively that this team may not have the firepower around quarterback Carson Beck that most assumed they would and the Bulldogs’ offensive line was pushed around by a team that was coming off a 25-point home loss to South Carolina. Georgia is elite, superb on defense and ranked No. 2 in the polls, but there’s work to do.”
The offensive concerns are among the biggest worries, but it also wasn’t a sterling defensive showing either from Georgia. The Wildcats ran for 212 non-sack yards on the night, keeping Georgia’s defense on the field far longer than it would have liked.
“What’s more surprising is, Kentucky was able to move the ball against Georgia’s defense and churned out 23 first downs,” ESPN’s Chris Low said. “The difference was Georgia held Kentucky to field goals and didn’t let the Wildcats into the end zone. The Bulldogs get a well-timed open date next weekend before traveling to Alabama on Sept. 28.”
Defensively, Georgia has still not yet given up a touchdown on the season. But the Bulldogs have spent much of the off-week focusing on improved tackling.
“I feel like we need to improve on tackling,” outside linebacker Jalon Walker said. “I feel like we had a poor tackling game. I feel like, in the past seasons we’ve had, we were a better-tackling team. Coming up, this game wasn’t the best-tackling game.”
On the offensive side of the ball, much of this week has been spent on improved communication at the line of scrimmage. Georgia’s offensive line did not have the best performance against Kentucky and now Tate Ratledge will be out for the foreseeable future after he had TightRope surgery on his ankle.
That will put even more on quarterback Carson Beck, who is coming off his least-productive game as a Bulldog. He threw for only 160 yards in the win, his fewest as a starter for the Bulldogs.
Because of the poor performance, CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli dropped Beck from his No. 2 ranked quarterback to No. 8.
“I considered removing Beck from the rankings entirely after a poor performance against Kentucky,” CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli said. “He simply made bad throws. In the end, this drop feels like punishment enough because he did tear Clemson to shreds a few weeks ago, too.”
Georgia does have time to correct the issues that were on display against the Wildcats. Georgia is off this week and while Alabama looms on the other side of the break, the Bulldogs are using this week to largely focus on self-improvement.
Kirby Smart knows his team has plenty of things to work on. And given how poorly the Bulldogs played against Kentucky, Smart has plenty of material to work with this week.
“I think absolutely, going into an open week, you have their attention now,” Matt Stinchcomb of the SEC Network said.
