Georgia ended a tough week with a win, but it was one that left fans feeling unsure.
Yes, quarterback Carson Beck had a career day throwing the ball to lead Kirby Smart’s Dawgs over Mississippi State by a score of 41-31.
However, the fact that Georgia beat the worst team in the conference by just 10 points — and State basically was given 14 points via Dawg mistakes — didn’t sit well with the head coach or Bulldog Nation.
Even the most optimistic Georgia fan I’ve ever known was left grousing after the game that the Dawgs’ defensive backs “looked like crap.”
Yes, as Smart noted, if Georgia’s defense hadn’t handed the Bizarro Bulldogs a gift of 14 straight points in the second half, he (and the fans) would have felt a lot better about Saturday’s result.
But they did give up those points with needless and careless penalties, and that meant the Dawgs had to earn a hard-fought victory over a team that they were favored to beat by 34 points.
While the No. 5 Dawgs extended their home winning streak to 28 games dating to 2019, which leads all of FBS, they didn’t look great doing it — all of which seemed to be an apt ending to seven days that saw Smart griping about the home crowd’s lack of enthusiasm during the previous game against Auburn, UGA fans complaining about an inferior game day atmosphere at Sanford Stadium (as well as the team’s slow starts this season), and another Georgia player being arrested, making seven Dawgs charged by police since January of this year.
No one thinks that’s a good look for UGA.
All of this led one longtime fan to post on my Facebook page: “Don’t get me wrong, I really like Kirby Smart and what he has accomplished in elevating Georgia football. But maybe he should spend less energy worrying about crowd enthusiasm and more about players’ off-field headlines.”
Hard but fair, as my late buddy Slick used to say.
Of course, many fans at Saturday’s game took Smart’s criticism last week to heart and responded with so much noise that MSU players had trouble hearing their signals, which is exactly what Smart wanted. By game’s end, Georgia’s head coach was back to praising the fans in attendance, saying “I was really pleased with the crowd … the energy in the stadium.”
Unfortunately, those fans aren’t as pleased with the way his team has performed both on (and off) the field.
Once again, Smart did not get the “fast start” he wanted. Although the Georgia defense did force a three-and-out on State’s first possession, the Dawgs’ offense opened up miserably, with Beck turning the ball over on the second play with a tipped pass being picked off.
But while MSU was given a short field, they lost ground and ended up kicking a field goal for the game’s first score.
Georgia’s offense looked a bit tentative when it got the ball back and, after a bit of gamesmanship from MSU with an “injury” preventing a quick snap by UGA, the Dawgs eventually stalled, and Peyton Woodring kicked a field goal to tie it up 3-3.
MSU, operating with a freshman quarterback in Michael Van Buren Jr., continued to have trouble gaining any offensive traction. After a scoring run by Branson Robinson (who later would leave the game with an injury), the Dawgs took a 10-3 lead into the second quarter.
With the Dawgs’ offensive line playing very inconsistently and a holding penalty negating a touchdown run by Trevor Etienne, a Georgia drive stalled again, resulting in another field goal for a 13-3 lead.
MSU’s passing game started to click then, with Georgia defensive backs getting beaten badly on some plays. Although the noisy crowd forced a false start by the Other Bulldogs, they eventually scored, to make it an uncomfortable 13-10.
Then Georgia drove for another score with a great, athletic catch by Dillon Bell in the back of the end zone. The Dawgs led 20-10.
An MSU drive was extended by a needless roughing of the passer by Georgia, but eventually ended in another punt.
Then Beck pulled out the old “hidden ball” play that David Greene used to do to perfection and completed a long pass to Arian Smith. That drive featured another bit of trickeration by the Dawgs in which running back Cash Jones took a direct snap, gave the ball to Beck who then threw a pass to Oscar Delp for a 1st down. Beck ended up throwing another TD pass to Lawson Luckie, and Georgia led 27-10 at the half after a quickie drive with under 30 seconds on the clock couldn’t quite get close enough and Woodring missed a 55-yard field goal attempt.
State made only one of its seven third-down conversion attempts in the first half, but that trend didn’t last.
As the second half began, Beck was on fire, with passes of 29 and 42 yards to Smith getting the Dawgs quickly into the end zone for a 34-10 lead.
But despite the home crowd forcing a delay-of-game call, a couple of key penalties by the Dawgs defense extended an MSU drive that should have ended and the Bizarro Bulldogs scored again to make it 34-17.
During a very promising Georgia drive that saw Anthony Evans have a couple of great plays, including a long run on an end-around, Beck ended a run of 16 straight pass completions by throwing the ball straight to a defender in the end zone.
MSU then got another drive going and Georgia gave up a TD pass on 4th-and-goal with the scoring receiver somehow left uncovered in another defensive mistake. State had scored on back- to-back TD drives to get within 10 points again at 34-24.
For most of the day, it had been all about passing for the Dawgs, but after forcing MSU to punt early in the fourth quarter, Georgia rediscovered its running game and ate a lot of clock on a scoring drive that ended with extra effort by Etienne getting the ball over the goal line on 4th down to put the Dawgs up 41-24 with just 3:33 left in the game.
But the Georgia secondary’s tendency all day to give up explosive plays reared its ugly head again and another coverage breakdown resulted in State getting a 35-yard scoring pass, resulting in the final 41-31 score.
For the day, the Dawgs posted a season-high 605 yards of total offense on 77 plays as Beck was 36-for-48 passing, for 459 yards and 3 TDs, completing throws to 11 different receivers. Of course, he also had those two picks, but his 36 completions tied a school record and his 459 yards passing was the third most in a game in Georgia history, and the most since 1994.
Etienne had the most catches on the day with 6 for 35 yards and Smith had 5 catches for a career-high 134 yards and a TD.
The Dawgs had 146 rushing yards on 29 attempts. Evans was the leader, thanks to a single 52-yard scamper, followed by Nate Frazier’s 10 carries for 43 net yards and Etienne with 11 carries for 38 yards and a touchdown.
Georgia’s leading tacklers Saturday were Malaki Starks with 7 and Dan Jackson with 5. Freshman KJ Bolden notched his first career interception late in the first half.
So, what do we make of the injury-plagued 5-1 Dawgs midway through the season? Well, unfortunately, I think it’s time to believe what this team has been telling us in recent weeks — Georgia has its weakest secondary since perhaps Smart’s first season, getting shown up time and again when left on an island in man-to-man coverage, and the front seven haven’t been disruptive enough to help them.
As Smart told the Bulldog radio network’s DJ Shockley after the game, the problem with Georgia’s pass defense was a case of “undisciplined eyes, not looking where you’re supposed to.”
He added: “We gifted them three third-downs in the game. We can’t do that.”
The Dawgs have had a continuing problem with poor tackling, too, particularly on the perimeter.
Offensively, Georgia has had a badly underperforming O-line (hampered by injuries) and lacks any super playmaker receivers (with the chickens coming home to roost on less than stellar recruiting in that area).
Also, while Beck’s overall numbers are good, he hasn’t looked like the quarterback he was last year, when he could rely the now-absent Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey to bail him out.
Yes, Georgia’s QB has had to carry most of the load offensively, and the Dawgs certainly would have a worse record if it hadn’t been for him, but his play is suffering because he tends to bail too quickly in the pocket since he apparently doesn’t trust his line and he probably doesn’t see guys getting open enough.
Bottom line: That game at Texas is going to be a major challenge.
FOLLOW THE BLAWG
To keep up with the latest UGA athletics developments, as well as other stuff going on in the Junkyard, be sure to go to the new Bill King’s Junkyard Blawg page on Facebook and click “like” to follow it!
