This one felt different than the Bama loss, where a ferocious comeback provided hope.
Kirby Smart’s No. 3-ranked Dawgs were beaten by No. 16 Ole Miss Saturday in nearly all phases of the game, but especially in the trenches, where the offensive line was outclassed glaringly while UGA’s defensive front struggled with Mississippi quarterback Jaxson Dart’s quick passes and the secondary had severe coverage problems.
Georgia quarterback Carson Beck was sacked 5 times by Mississippi, which came into the game leading the nation in that defensive stat. And the Dawgs never were able to establish much of a rushing attack — or much of an offense at all, for that matter — as the best defensive front that (NIL) money can buy generally had its way with UGA’s banged-up offensive line, which, at best, has been inconsistent all season.
The Dawgs were unable to gain much traction offensively Saturday, getting only 3 points after an early touchdown resulting from a turnover that gave them a short field.
And, so, on a rainy afternoon in Oxford, Mississippi, Georgia suffered a second regular-season loss for the first time since 2020.
It was kind of a strange day all around at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Billed as the biggest game ever in Oxford, it was, at times, a wild one in ways that you wouldn’t expect — stoppages for a squirrel on the field and again for smoke lingering after a between-quarters fireworks display, and then thousands of Ole Miss fans rushing the field — with 16 seconds still on the clock.
After the field was cleared, the Rebs took a final knee and then the fans swarmed out again — SEC rules and fines notwithstanding — and Georgia players had to put up with drunken fools trying to run into them or taunt them.
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin undoubtedly would agree with the old maxim that revenge is a dish best served cold, as it was the Georgia offense’s complete domination of his defense in last year’s win by the Dawgs in Athens that led him to hit the transfer portal in a major way in the offseason. With the help of Ole Miss boosters’ money, Lane ended up bringing in top-notch defensive talent up front.
So, Saturday’s game was a much different story than last year, when second-ranked Georgia whipped then ninth-ranked Ole Miss 52-17 Between the Hedges.
As Kiffin told ABC’s Molly McGrath after his team’s 28-10 takedown of the Dawgs Saturday, “We planned for this game for a year.”
Ironically, the game started out briefly looking like a repeat of the previous year.
The Dawgs’ defense got a great start, stopping Dart for a 1-yard run on the first play from scrimmage and sacking him for a loss of 6 (and injuring his ankle) on the second play. Then, on the third play, Georgia safety Dan Jackson intercepted a Dart pass at the Rebel 34 and returned it 13 yards to the Mississippi 21.
The Dawgs drove for a score, though it took them 7 plays, with a still-banged-up Trevor Etienne running four times to get the ball down to the 4. The drive then stalled until Smart elected to go for it on fourth-and-goal at the 2, rather than kick a field goal. Nate Frazier ran it in and Georgia took a 7-0 lead.
While Dart limped off the field after throwing that interception that set up the Dawgs’ first score, backup QB Austin Simmons flipped the momentum, leading the Rebels down the field to tie it up. It quickly became obvious that Georgia’s defense couldn’t handle Ole Miss’ quick passing game, which exposed bad coverage by the Dawgs’ secondary, where defenders frequently were caught looking in the wrong direction.
After that series, Dart returned to the game with an ankle bandaged, which perhaps made Dawg defenders believe he wouldn’t take off running as much as usual.
They were wrong, as Dart ran the ball 8 times for a net 50 yards, with a long run of 28 yards.
He ended up as Ole Miss’ leading rusher. I’d hate to have seen what he would have done to Georgia’s defense with two healthy ankles.
In hindsight, it seems as if Smart going for it on 4th-and-goal on that first Georgia drive might have been because of some awareness that the strong start for his defense wasn’t going to hold up, and that his offense might have trouble against the Rebs’ stout front.
That proved true, as Georgia punted on its final five possessions of the first half, with Ole Miss ahead 16-7 at the break. The Bulldogs have trailed at halftime four times this season, all SEC games, and are 2-2 in those contests.
Beck, constantly under pressure as his offensive line struggled to provide protection, ended the half 6-for-10 for 49 yards passing, and the Dawgs couldn’t establish any running game.
Georgia had just 69 total yards of on 28 plays in the first half.
And that basically established the pattern for the rest of the game, as the Bulldogs continued to be inconsistent offensively and susceptible defensively to explosive plays (Ole Miss had eight plays of more than 20 yards in the game). And that was with the Rebs’ leading receiver and leading rusher missing the game!
Of its two units, Georgia’s defense had a slightly more effective game than the offense, in that it did hold Ole Miss’ high-octane offense to field goals on 5 drives and also stopped a 2-point conversion attempt.
But outside of the red zone, the Rebels, who also got another touchdown in the third quarter, seemed to move with impunity, as Dart consistently targeted wide-open receivers in the middle of a seemingly confused Georgia defense.
As you’d expect of a game in which Georgia’s offense mostly was ineffective, the Beck bashers immediately erupted on social media, but he wasn’t the reason Georgia lost the game.
Yes, Georgia’s quarterback did have 1 interception (his 12th of the year), but that was on a tipped ball. And he fumbled twice, but those were the result of strip sacks by the Ole Miss defense resulting from the crappy protection the OL was providing.
Otherwise, Beck played competently, though Mike Bobo called a probably too conservative game in the rain, with a lot of screen passes that the Dawgs didn’t block for effectively. Still, Georgia’s QB kept drives alive with his feet and made passing plays when his receivers could manage to hold on to the ball. Two season-long problems for Georgia receivers continued Saturday, with the Dawgs’ pass catchers having trouble getting open and at least 3 passes dropped, along with a couple of other catchable balls not being pulled in.
And Georgia’s running game, hampered by injuries all season, was not a factor in the game.
UGA did open the second half with a 70-yard drive that included four plays of at least 12 yards, but the Dawgs ultimately had to settle for a 23-yard Peyton Woodring field goal that cut the Rebels’ lead to 16-10 with 9:44 left in the third quarter. Unfortunately, those 3 points were Georgia’s last of the game.
The Bulldogs were driving as the fourth quarter began and moved down to the Rebel 27, but then came that tipped-ball interception of a Beck pass on a fourth-and-10 play with 7:22 left in the game.
Ole Miss tacked on another couple of field goals before the game’s end.
The Rebels outgained Georgia offensively by 397 yards to 245, averaging 6.2 yards per play to the Dawgs’ 3.8. Dart completed 13 of 22 passes for 199 yards and a touchdown, plus his 50 yards on the ground.
Beck completed 20 of 31 passes for 185 yards and no scores. He ran the ball 8 times but ended up with a net loss of 20 yards, due to all those sacks. Georgia was held to a net 59 yards rushing for the game on 33 attempts — a miserable 1.8 yard per run average.
Smart had said at halftime that Georgia needed to be able to “run the ball enough to keep their pass rush honest,” but that didn’t happen.
Georgia also fumbled the ball 4 times, with Mississippi recovering 2 of them, and had a couple of 1st-downs negated by penalties.
For the defense, linebacker CJ Allen was the leading tackler with 8, plus 2 QB hurries, while Malaki Starks and Jalon Walker had 6 tackles apiece.
But, as I said before, while the Dawgs holding Ole Miss to field goals kept the Rebs’ margin of victory from being less embarrassing for Georgia, the game really wasn’t as close as the score, and that’s very concerning and disappointing.
Georgia’s Starks summed it up succinctly after the game: “They just played better than we did.”
“We obviously struggled in a lot of areas,” Smart conceded in his post-game press conference, noting that his team was outplayed and outcoached.
On the struggles of his offense, Smart noted that “when you have the penalties we have and the sacks, you’re not going to be very successful, right? Penalties stop drives and sacks stop drives, and we had both of those.”
But Smart didn’t really want to dwell on what happened Saturday.
“It’s on to the next, welcome to the SEC, baby,” the Georgia head coach said. “We’re not riding this roller coaster wave of emotion; we’re on a long journey. It’s a long journey, and you’ve got to play the next play, and you’ve got to play the next game, that’s the goal for this group.
“That’s what I told [the players in the locker room]. Guys, our future is in front of us, we’ve got to figure out how to get better.”
And, so, despite quality wins against Clemson and Texas, the 2024 Georgia Bulldogs’ College Football Playoff hopes now probably depend on a do-or-die game next next week against Tennessee — which, like Ole Miss, has quite a defensive front.
And while there’s still one cupcake left on the schedule in UMass, the season-ender against Georgia Tech suddenly looks like it might be a challenge, as well, after the Jackets knocked off No. 4 Miami.
The bottom line is that Georgia, which has played the toughest schedule in college football this year, just has to “embrace the grind,” as Smart said Saturday.
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