Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs answered the doubters Saturday.
Yes, the Dawgs looked every bit like the nation’s No. 1 team as they won convincingly over a hungry bunch of Florida Gators who arrived in Jacksonville with something resembling momentum, even if much of it was media-generated.
Amid some uninspired earlier performances, skeptics had questioned Georgia’s continued extended run atop the AP and coaches’ polls — saying the Dawgs were there simply because they’re the back-to-back defending champions and hadn’t lost. But even those folks had to have been impressed as the Dawgs scored 36 unanswered points, cruising to a not-as-close-as-it-looks 43-20 win over a Florida team that was just outside the Top 25 in last week’s polls.
We won’t know until Tuesday evening whether the committee that assembles the College Football Playoff’s rankings will agree with the traditional polls that have had Georgia at No. 1 all season, but it doesn’t really matter. Last year, the CFP went with the team that had the most hype and ranked Tennessee over Georgia in its initial listing. Then the Vols were whipped soundly by the Dawgs, who took over the top spot for good.
If Smart’s Bulldogs continue to win — facing three currently ranked SEC opponents in the next three weeks — they’ll wind up topping the CFP list, too.
Saturday’s win answered another burning question that sports media had been debating for two weeks: Can Georgia win without Brock Bowers? That’s a resounding yes, though, of course, they’d rather do it with the superstar tight end who has looked like the nation’s best college player.
To make up for not having the injured Bowers, Smart and his staff expected the rest of the team to take up the slack, particularly the skill players. The replace-Bowers-by-committee concept was a success, as wide receiver Ladd McConkey, running back Daijun Edwards and quarterback Carson Beck all turned in stellar performances.
McConkey, who missed the first four games of the season with a strained back, had his second career 100-yard receiving game, finishing with 6 receptions for 135 yards, both career highs. He had a very impressive 41-yard TD catch, his first of the year and his 13th overall. It was one of the plays that have become typical of him, in which he catches the ball then changes direction, leaving defenders flatfooted.
“The yards after catch is what he gives us that a lot of other guys haven’t done,” Smart said. “He catches it and runs with it, and he does a tremendous job.”
Edwards, meanwhile, led Georgia’s rushers, carrying the ball 16 times for 95 yards and a pair of TDs, with an average of 5.9 yards per play. His second-quarter 20-yard scoring run around right end was particularly pretty.
And Beck, who had reason to be more excited than usual since he grew up in Jacksonville, completed 19 of 28 passes for 315 yards and 2 TDs, staying in for all of the game except Georgia’s final two plays, when Brock Vandagriff took a couple of knees in the victory formation to run out the clock.
Beck’s passing tally included the 41-yarder to McConkey and a 55-yard pass to Dominic Lovett. Overall, he completed passes to nine different Bulldogs receivers and played a fine game, making multiple elite throws. If he ever gets his timing down on the really long passes downfield — Beck overthrew one open receiver Saturday and placed the ball just off the fingertips of another — he’s going to be pretty much unstoppable.
“I don’t worry about Carson,” Smart said after the game. “He’s very confident. He’s calm. He understands football. He’s never real high or real low. He studies really hard, texts questions all week. He studies and meets with Coach Bobo. He puts a plan together and he makes good decisions.”
Georgia’s quarterback did have a couple of passes batted down, but the pass protection by the offensive line generally was pretty terrific Saturday. (The run blocking still isn’t as consistent, but it’s getting better.)
Besides McConkey’s showing in the passing attack, Lovett had 4 receptions for 84 yards, Dillon Bell caught a 17-yard touchdown pass and Oscar Delp, taking Bowers’ spot as Georgia’s No. 1 tight end, caught 2 balls for 31 yards, one of them a memorable one-handed snag on Georgia’s first scoring drive.
In the running game, Kendall Milton was next after Edwards, with 55 yards on 13 carries, and, overall, the Dawgs had 171 yards rushing on 38 carries, for a 4.5 average. As Smart noted to D.J. Shockley of the Bulldogs radio network after the game, the Dawgs’ rushing attack generally was effective against the Gators, though “we didn’t run the ball well in the red area,” as he calls the red zone inside the 20-yard line. (Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo’s play-calling down there also was ultra conservative; hence, a pair of field goals.)
Georgia finished the day with 486 yards of total offense on 66 plays, compared with Florida’s 339 yards on 59 plays; only 120 of the Gators’ yards came in the first half.
The Dawgs’ defense had a rough opening series, allowing the Gators to hit some slant passes and scoot down the field to take a 7-0 lead, but then started playing to the Georgia standard, holding Florida to zero points over their next eight possessions. Florida did tack on a couple of fourth-quarters scores after Georgia had started substituting liberally.
There was some excellent open-field tackling by the Dawgs Saturday, and their pass rush was much improved, with the defense collecting 4 sacks and 8 tackles for loss. As Smart said afterward, “You can cover a lot better when you can rush with four.”
This wasn’t a Georgia defense that was merely good enough, as in the earlier games this season. This time, they looked more like the defenses the Dawgs have become known for in recent years.
And, as icing on the cake, the D finally appeased Smart by forcing a couple of fumbles, recovering one of them while the other killed a Gator drive. Javon Bullard had a team-high 7 tackles, Tykee Smith had 6 and Smael Mondon had 5 stops, including 2 tackles for loss.
In addition, Georgia’s special teams contributed 2 points to the total score on a safety resulting from a blocked punt. Placekicker Peyton Woodring made 2 field goals and 5 PATs for 11 points.
The officiating was mediocre — with the Gators getting away with lots of offensive holding and an obvious horse-collar tackle, as well being allowed to grab the facemask on defense — but it didn’t affect the outcome of the game.
Georgia’s total of 43 points was 23 over what Florida’s defense had been allowing coming into the game.
Besides the scores, a highlight of the game for Dawgs fans was a 4th-and-1 attempt by the Gators that was more like “4th-and-dumb” (to hark back to an infamous play in the 1976 game of this series). After video review found the Gators to be just short of a 1st down, Florida head coach Billy Napier decided that, rather than punting or trying the traditional sneak, a trick play was in order. The ball was snapped through QB Graham Mertz’s legs to running back Travis Etienne, who was supposed to pass the ball, but was smothered by Mondon before he could even try. That set up Georgia at the Florida 29 and resulted in another Dawgs TD.
As my childhood Athens buddy Bill Bryant put it after the game: “Haven’t seen the old center through the legs of the quarterback to the fullback since we used to run that at the Y. It didn’t often work in those days, either.”
It was that kind of day, leading to the lovely sight of lots of empty seats surrounding the remaining Florida fans in EverBank Stadium as the sun was setting over the nearby St John’s River at the start of the fourth quarter.
It also was amusing to see the CBS telecast crew watching video replay of a late Florida touchdown attempt and concluding with laughter that it was “close enough” and ought to be given to them, since the outcome of the game already had been decided. (The officials ruled them short, but the Gators punched it over on the next play for their last meaningless trash-time score.)
All in all, the Dawgs making all that Georgia-might-be-ripe-for-an-upset talk seem silly in retrospect provided Dawgs fans with another sweet day in Jacksonville.
Oh, and the streaks continue. The No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs now have won: three in a row vs. Florida (all by 20-plus points), six of the past seven against UF, 25 games in a row (an ongoing UGA record), 41 of their past 42 games played, 24 consecutive SEC games (a new UGA record) and 35 regular-season games in a row (another ongoing UGA record).
And let’s add a little perspective: On Nov. 8, 2020, after his last regular season loss to date, Smart had a 48-14 record as head coach at UGA. He now is 89-15, and his teams have won two national titles and four playoff games since that day. Think about that: a record of 89-15 after being 48-14 three years ago.
As I’ve said before, the glory days continue, and we Georgia fans should savor every moment.
