ATHENS — Ole Miss readily admitted that its season was on the line last week when it faced Georgia. It came out and played like it against Georgia, with the Rebels picking up a massive win over the Bulldogs.
Ole Miss entered the game with two losses. A third would have certainly ended their hopes for the College Football Playoff.
Georgia now finds itself facing a similar scenario. The Bulldogs are 7-2 on the season and welcome No. 6 Tennessee into Athens. A loss would do serious damage to Georgia’s season-long hopes.
A win would bump Georgia right back into the thick of things.
But while Ole Miss’ mindset worked for them, don’t expect Georgia to copy that plan.
“I don’t ever take those approaches,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “I don’t think they’re the right way to go about things. I think you’re trying to win your conference all the time, and to do that you’ve got to win your games at home. You’ve got to play well on the road, which we have and haven’t. We’ve done both. But I like making it about who we play and how we play and less about just outcomes.”
This will be Georgia’s first home game in over a month, as the Bulldogs last played in Athens on Oct. 12 against Mississippi State.
In the time since, Georgia has played Texas on the road, Florida in Jacksonville, Fla., and then Ole Miss this past weekend.
The Bulldogs are no stranger to playing in big games. The last time Georgia hosted Tennessee, the Volunteers entered the game as the No. 1 ranked team in the College Football Playoff rankings. The winner of that game would have the inside track to winning the SEC East and potentially a College Football Playoff spot.
Georgia dominated that day, winning 27-13.
But this is a very different Georgia team than the one back in 2022 led by Stetson Bennett. The Bulldogs had just 10 points in the loss to Ole Miss and have struggled with turnovers throughout the season.
Georgia has proven though it can beat top-ranked teams, taking down the Longhorns not even a month ago.
“I would just say it’s a game for us that we have to execute in and perform well,” offensive lineman Dylan Fairchild said. “I mean, I wouldn’t say desperation. I would just say, it’s a game we want to win. I mean, I think every game we want to win. Every game, every year we’re striving to go to the playoffs. We’re trying to get in those big championship games, and to do that, you’ve got to win.”
This will be Georgia’s first home night game of the season. Georgia hosted Ole Miss and Kentucky for night games last season and the Bulldogs won both of those contest by double-digits.
The Bulldogs hope the home crowd will power them to a much-needed win.
“Thank goodness it’s at our place. We get to come home and play. Night game, should be an electric atmosphere. It is every time we play them,” Smart said. “They’ve got a tremendous team.”
A win should only bolster Georgia’s College Football Playoff resume. It would provide some much-needed relief to a program that has not played its best football of late.
Georgia’s season is far from over, especially with a game against Georgia Tech set for the final week of the regular season. The Yellow Jackets just beat Miami this past weekend, knocking them from the ranks of the unbeaten.
The Bulldogs have plenty of areas to get better in. They hope their efforts in those regards give them the edge they need to beat Tennessee this weekend.
“The improvement is not seen sometimes in two games,” Smart said. “It’s seen over a course of time, and it’s a continuum, right? It’s not like we’re saying, ‘Okay, it’s this jump.’ It’s like every practice we have since the bye week. We’ve had, I don’t know, not 14, but 14 days. We’ve had a lot of practices where the improvement for us is these younger players that have gotten more reps and continue to get better.”
