Are UGA fans too spoiled by success to appreciate a 2-touchdown win over Florida?
If so, that’s easy to understand, as the program’s recent glory run under Kirby Smart has set a new standard that the mistake-prone, injury-plagued, come-from-behind 2024 Dawgs frequently haven’t met, despite having a 7-1 record so far.
My friend Joel put it like this after Saturday’s nationally telecast game against the Gators at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville: “There were many years we would have been overjoyed by this win. Times have changed.”
Still, when you consider that Georgia quarterback Carson Beck played two and a half awful quarters, throwing 3 interceptions (for the second game in a row and for the third time this season), and leading running back Trevor Etienne missed much of the game after getting hurt (adding to a nagging list of injuries the Dawgs have dealt with all year), winning by 14 over the hated Gators isn’t a bad day.
Of course, you can’t say it was a stellar day for the Dawgs, either, especially when you consider that UF was down to its third-string QB (a Yale transfer) for more than half of the game, was missing its own starting tailback and had four players go down on its already injury-plagued defense — and yet Georgia didn’t manage to put the game away until the final 4 minutes.
Let’s face it, that game was a lot closer than the final score would indicate, and the chief reason was the subpar play of Beck.
In addition to his 3 interceptions, Beck nearly had another couple of passes picked off and missed his targets on several others. To be fair, he also had a couple of passes dropped by receivers.
It’s a troubling trend for the Georgia QB, who in the past two games has thrown as many interceptions as he did in all of last season. Also, last season his completion percentage was second-best in the SEC at 72.4; so far this year, it’s down to 65.5 percent.
At times Saturday, Georgia’s quarterback, a Heisman Trophy contender when the season began, looked a little lost, and I got the impression from the way he was sitting and moping on the sideline, rather than studying someone’s iPad, that he isn’t getting as much coaching as he needs during games, though Smart did pull him close for a confab after one of his picks.
For much of Saturday’s game, Beck looked even less confident than in earlier outings, as he made bad decision after bad decision, throwing into coverage and trying to heave a ball as he was getting hit.
Beck admitted after the game that he had made some bad decisions. “There’s times where it’s OK to throw it away if it’s not there,” he said. “I think that’s something I did a lot better last year. And whether that’s me just trying to make a play and thinking that it has to happen every single time, which it doesn’t, then that’s just me out there trying to compete and trying to make a play.”
Smart, who has been known to apply tough love to some of his quarterbacks in the past (particularly Stetson Bennett), continued to be supportive of Beck, while acknowledging his quarterback’s mistakes.
At his post-game press conference, the UGA coach said of Beck: “Some of the throws he makes, guys, are big-time elite throws. He just has a couple times where he threw the ball in the middle late. You can’t do that. You can’t turn the ball over and be a good football team. He knows that, and I don’t think it’s a matter of decision making. I just think sometimes he presses there.
“He continues to grow and mature. He’s not perfect. I think that he puts a lot of pressure on himself, and we’ve got to continue to help him. And the players around him have got to help him, because he’d probably have 12 or 13 completions in a row if the guys would get their signals and know what they’re supposed to do in the perimeter. We don’t ask a lot of those wideouts, but we do ask them to execute it at a high level, and they’ve got to help him.”
Smart conceded that Beck “can’t throw the ball down the sideline on the scramble, just throw it up for grabs. Those are things he can’t do.”
But, he said, interceptions are a fact of life when you pass a lot. “You throw the ball, that’s going to happen sometimes,” the coach said. “I mean, we’ve got to try to do a good job of preventing it. But we also won the game because you throw the ball. We weren’t able to run the ball in the fourth quarter. We threw the ball.”
Indeed, it didn’t help that the Georgia’s running game took quite a while to get warmed up against the Gators, especially after Etienne exited the game with damaged ribs.
However, as the game wore on, freshman back Nate Frazier started showing some of that speed and determination that was so impressive early in the season, and seemingly willed himself over the goal line for Georgia’s first touchdown, which didn’t come until 7:01 was left in the third quarter. (The celebrating back drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. I assumed it was for him doing the Gator Chomp, which seemed a bit much, considering the frequency with which Florida players have taunted opponents with that move for years, but an old sportswriter friend says he believes it was for a throat slash gesture at the end of the chomping, which I didn’t see. If so, that makes the flag more understandable.)
For the day, Georgia had 455 yards of offense, with 146 rushing yards on 33 attempts. Frazier led the runners with 82 yards and that touchdown.
And after Beck got back on track in the second half, Smart is right that the passing game was a big reason Georgia won the game.
Following Jalon Walker’s recovery of a fumbled snap on a Gator field goal attempt, the Dawgs went up 20-13 on a 3-play 36-yard scoring drive capped by a 22-yard pass from Beck to running back Cash Jones (isn’t that a great football name for this era?). On the play, Jones broke a tackle and then ran right through two other defenders for the touchdown.
After Florida had scored again, the Dawgs broke a 20-20 tie with 4:01 left in the game on a 7-play, 75-yard drive that saw speedster Arian Smith catch a 34-yarder, Lawson Luckie snag a 21-yard throw and then Dominic Lovett catching a 3rd-down pass on a 10-yard scoring play.
Less than a minute later, linebacker CJ Allen jumped high for an interception to get the ball back for the Dawgs. A penalty against Florida for tripping gave Georgia the ball 1st-and-goal from the Gator 7 and they scored two plays later on a jet sweep by freshman back Dwight Phillips Jr. to reach the final 34-20 margin of victory.
Beck completed 25 of 40 passes on the day for 309 yards with 2 touchdowns and those 3 picks. Nine Dawgs had a catch, with Lovett’s 7 receptions for 52 yards and a TD leading the pack. Dillon Bell caught 4 passes for 50 yards, one of which was a very athletic play on a bobbled ball, and also had a career-long 33-yard run on one of Georgia’s scoring drives.
Smart said Bell is “a spark of energy. He’s a good guy that we have to get touches to, and we try. And the touches he got were difference-makers. That bobbled catch that he came down with was huge.”
The head coach added that “Cash Jones continues to be a playmaker for us, and we’ve thought that all along. I mean, he’s kind of a self-made man. I mean, he just works his butt off since he’s been here, and Cash and Dillon came up with some big plays.”
As for Georgia’s defense, it generally played well, except when it didn’t — which particularly was the case on a Florida drive late in the first half when bad schemes and poor tackling allowed the Gators to move quickly downfield and tack on another 3 points right after Georgia had kicked its second field goal with just 43 seconds left in the second quarter.
And on the first play after Beck’s first pick, the Gators were able to strike for 43 yards and take the lead on a play where communication in the secondary seemed lacking. (Dan Jackson and Joenel Aguero both had to sit out the first half because of targeting suspensions from the game against Texas.) Smart also noted that “we didn’t stop the run well. I didn’t think that we tackled on the edge.”
But it’s also true that the defense faced some short-field situations due to those offensive turnovers, and the SEC officiating crew was inconsistent, allowing the Gators to get away with offensive holding many more times than it was called.
Overall, the D held the Gators to 228 yards and allowed them to convert just 3 of 16 3rd-down attempts. Allen led the defense with 8 tackles and the interception, and linebacker Raylen Wilson added 7 tackles. Chaz Chambliss had a pair of sacks for 2 of Georgia’s 6 tackles for loss.
Smart had said prior to the game that he expected “a slobberknocker” physical contest, and Saturday’s win over the Gators was just that. At one point, it seemed hardly a play went by without someone prone on the field as trainers gathered around them.
However, resilience is the word that Smart has used to describe the No. 2-ranked Bulldogs as they progress — sometimes stumbling a bit — through what appears to have become a year of living dangerously, and that was the case again Saturday.
Florida was ahead 13-6 after two quarters, making this the third game this season where the Dawgs have trailed at the half. But they’ve only lost one of them, and as the oft-quoted maxim goes, a win is a win, no matter how littered with ugly potholes the road to victory might have been.
Also, those big wins over Clemson and Texas show what this team can achieve when it believes in itself, as did Georgia’s 28 second-half points scored against the Gators.
All in all, Beck had a very rough day, and the defense was put in some bad positions but also blew some plays. It’s also true, though, that Florida losing starting QB DJ Lagway to injury two-thirds of the way through the second quarter was a break for the Dawgs.
Looking ahead, there’s the lingering concern over whether Beck can stop having multi-interception games and improve his accuracy. If not, the Dawgs will run into a better offense that makes them pay.
But it’s still true that a win over the Gators, no matter the score, always is sweet and Georgia now has taken four in a row and seven of the past eight against Florida.
Saturday’s win was ugly at times, but those who remember what this series once was like will know that a victory for the Dawgs in Jacksonville never is to be taken for granted.
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!
