Thursday’s first-half Sugar Bowl stalemate got out of hand very quickly for Georgia.
A largely defensive struggle was tied 3-3 as the clock wound down toward halftime.
Then, all it took was 54 seconds — the last 39 ticks on the clock in the first half and the first 15 of the second half — to end the 2024 season for Kirby Smart’s Dawgs in a Sugar Bowl game that was delayed a day by an apparent terrorist attack and was played under stringent security before a less than capacity crowd.
Late in the second quarter, after a quick three-and-out on three consecutive incomplete passing plays by the Georgia offense, Notre Dame got the ball back with 3:07 on the clock. Thanks to quarterback Riley Leonard’s running, the Irish managed a 48-yard field goal to break a 3-3 tie with 39 seconds left.
Georgia got the ball back and quarterback Gunner Stockton dropped back to pass. However, offensive lineman Monroe Freeling, who struggled in pass protection throughout the game, allowed a blindside hit that resulted in a strip-sack fumble recovered by the Irish at the Georgia 13. Leonard quickly threw a TD pass, giving the Irish a 10-point lead at the half instead of just 3 points.
Then, Notre Dame’s Jayden Harris took the second-half kickoff and, aided by a missed tackle (a recurring problem for Georgia this season), ran it back 98 yards for another touchdown.
Still, it wasn’t just that short period of the game that prevented the Dawgs from being able to keep up with Notre Dame in the 23-10 loss College Football Playoff quarterfinal loss.
Basically, on top of all the crucial mistakes made by Georgia players Thursday, the same inconsistencies that recurred throughout the 2024 season cropped up again.
For the seventh time this season, Georgia did not score in the first quarter. And a big reason for that was the lack of a functioning rushing attack.
Smart had said before the game that Dawgs really needed to be able to run the ball against the Irish, but they couldn’t, so a decent performance by former backup Stockton in his first game as UGA’s starting quarterback wasn’t enough.
Stockton — starting in place of injured Carson Beck, who is leaving for the NFL — completed 20 of 32 passes for 234 yards and a touchdown and added 16 rushing yards on 6 attempts, but he was sacked four times.
As Smart noted after the game, any time you don’t have pass protection, “it’s tough.”
An inability of the Dawgs’ offense to finish off drives was another big factor. Again, that largely came down to offensive line play. As my brother Tim pointed out, the Dawgs’ OL outweighed Notre Dame’s injury-depleted defensive line by something like 40 pounds a man and still Georgia could gain only a net rushing total of 62 yards. That’s terrible.
The OL, which underperformed all season as it battled various injuries, played a very poor game against the Irish. Georgia’s line was unable to open many holes for the running backs and subjected Stockton to constant defensive pressure.
Also, when you lose the turnover margin at this level of the competition, you generally lose the game.
Throw in that special team disaster to open the second half, and the Dawgs, known for their tenacious comebacks this season, simply dug themselves too deep a hole this time.
Defensively, Georgia predictably had trouble containing dual-threat Leonard at times. He had a net 80 yards running. There also was a costly offsides on a trickeration fourth-down play that kept a clock-chewing Irish drive alive.
But, overall, the Dawgs played well enough defensively to win, holding the Irish to 244 yards on 61 plays while Georgia’s offense finished with 296 yards. Leonard had only 90 yards passing.
The bottom line for Georgia was the mistakes. As Smart summed up the game: “When you turn it over twice and they return a kickoff for a touchdown, you’re not going to have a lot of success.”
And so the Dawgs’ season comes to an end, with Bulldog Nation having to take solace in another SEC championship trophy at Butts-Mehre.
I’ll take a deeper look at this up-and-down season — and how it ended in New Orleans — in my Sunday Blawg post.
