The college football regular season is now 1/4 done, and last night the Dawgs did their best to provide the biggest upset of the young season. In an intense and fairly entertaining defensive slobber-knocker, Georgia held on against the fightin’ Vandagriffs and their shockingly reinvigorated rushing attack. Kirby Smart’s repeated promise that playing on the road in the SEC is “really hard” appeared to have fallen on deaf ears in preparation for this game, as the team struggled mightily to complete passes, get consistent OL push or beat blocks on the DL. If football is mostly about blocking and tackling, the Dawgs might have been graded a C on both. But give the Cats credit, clearly they looked past Souf Cackalackee last week to this game, and they played like it was their natty. On to the bullets:
- Not sure if any of our Refugees were at the game and can confirm, but the crowd sounded frenzied and extremely loud on TV. The Bourbon Trail must have been packed out yesterday. The Dawgs seemed ok communicating throughout, but I’ve got to imagine it had an impact on the offensive performance.
- UK did a nice job disguising their fronts and coverages, forcing Carson Beck into numerous bad decisions. Their defense played with a lot of intensity and the Georgia offense just didn’t rise to the occasion.
- That said, this was clearly Beck’s worst game of his career. His accuracy was off, he wasn’t reading defenses well which resulted in several poor decisions, and he looked rattled for the first time.
- Largely vanilla WR route concepts didn’t help, but the ability of the WR group outside of Smith and Lovett to to get separation has to get better. Or, Colbie Young needs more snaps and targets, because he catches everything.
- Speaking of Lovett, he gets the offensive MVP with a close second to Etienne for playing well with an injury and behind poor blocking. Also, how fortunate was it that the pass to Lovett was ruled incomplete, erasing the pick-6?
- On that note, losing Tate Ratledge was tough, in that Micah Morris hadn’t played as many snaps at RG, but the OL was getting dominated to that point already. Other than the TD drive, the OL got whipped. In particular, Earnest Greene had a night to forget. Really hope Tate can return before the end of the year, because he’s the heart and soul of that group and their best leader.
- The Dawgs offense didn’t play a down in UK territory until 4:45 left in the first half. Not good! And while picking up the tempo in the second half seemed to spark the offense somewhat, they still struggled overall.
- Disappointed Kirby didn’t go for it on 4th and 1 from midfield with the free timeout between the first and second quarters. Did it communicate the wrong message? But Stoops returned the favor with 3 minutes left in the game. Two conservative coaches showing their colors last night.
- Really hard run on the TD by Robinson. I thought that was going to be the letdown that allowed Georgia another TD drive, but UK continued playing with their hair on fire and instead it was the Georgia defense with more busts and missed tackles to allow a final FG.
- 5 for 13 on third down on the road at night in the SEC will get you beat sometimes. Another (not) fun stat? UGA total points at Kentucky the last 3 visits – 43. Total points last year against Kentucky in Athens – 51.
- On to the defense, which had some amazing performances, some gutty performances and some terrible performances. To the good, holy hell again, Jalon Walker off the edge was unblockable. Also, Dirty Dan Jackson and Julio Humphrey delivered some nice and timely plays in the secondary and in run support.
- The DL was super thin and maybe only played 3 guys with significant experience. Nazir Stackhouse, Ty Ingram-Dawkins and Christen Miller played a lot of snaps, and because of that got beat more than they should have. The young pups didn’t look very good when they subbed in. LBs had to clean up a lot of messes 4-6 yards down the field. Of all the issues to fix, giving up 170 rushing yards to Kentucky will likely bring out the most “attention” from Kirby the next two weeks.
- Second place will be the poor edge defending and tackling that allowed the second FG by UK at the end of the first half, as well as multiple scrambles from Brock and chunk gains by the RBs.
- That said, what a gutsy performance after being on the field for most of the game to only allow UK into the red zone once and shut Kentucky down with multiple pressures on Brock at the end. And without Mykel Williams.
- That call on Jalon Walker (who otherwise played excellent again) was enormous, and most of the UGA penalties (9 for 85 yards!) I thought were either drive killers or big play killers.
- Special teams were almost perfect again, and thank Gawd for that. But Anthony Evans needs to play every return.
I haven’t seen Georgia run into that many seven and eight man boxes in a game since 2019. I don’t need to remind anyone how well they performed on offense that year. That said, I have a funny feeling Kirby and Bobo simply didn’t want to show Bama anything in this game and believed they could handle the Cats without doing so. They almost left Horse Town with their tails tucked between their legs.
The Dawgs have been here before: Missouri in 2022, Auburn in 2023 and now Kentucky in 2024. A seemingly overmatched opponent in their home stadium with a frenzied crowd and a poor offensive performance by Georgia. Each time the Dawgs gutted out a tough win and the team was better for it. By Monday they’ll be ranked either #2 or #3, and Kirby will be loving it.
The off week comes at a good time, given the litany of injuries to the DL and to Tate and Etienne. Beck also may have tweaked his non-throwing shoulder on that last drive as well. Time to get well and get better, and fast.
Well written, DAWG!
My biggest concern throughout the evening which was a continuation from last year…
Why can’t we set the edge on the defense?? Now, there was some holding, especially by #15 of the blue pussy cats that wasn’t called, but damnit, SET THE EDGE!!
Then, the penalties.
We let them extend drives and eat the clock, or we killed our drives. Either way, NOT GOOD.
Like Mizzou in ’21, glad for the victory, it will help down the road, and Good Lord willing, this victory will set the tone for another National Championship!!
As always…
GO DAWGS!!
Holding doesn’t get called now unless it’s completely blatant. I saw multiple holds on the edge which should have been called, and the block in the back called on Arian Smith on what should have been the clinching run by Etienne was ridiculous.
Yeah there were a bunch of missed calls by that crew.
Got to get the dline healthy. Not use to seeing us get manhandled on the oLine like that. Putting Freeling at left tackle seemed to help though. Hate to say it and my opinion only, but we are not as strong at LB as in the past. Got 2 weeks to figure it out. Then we will find out what kinda team we have.
Agree on Freeling, I meant to add that as well. Looks like a keeper. By LBs not being as strong, are you thinking OLB or ILB? I think the ILBs are flying around really well, but occasionally miss run fits. The OLBs are just struggling mightily to set the edge and shed their blocks to make plays. Not having Mykel was tough this week in that sense.
Should #11 be as healthy as Dr. Ron Courson can keep him, this UGA football student/athlete looks/acts very similar to (soon to be next level great) Mr. Roquan Smith….GO DAWGS!!
The crowd sounded loud but the stadium wasn’t even full.
This team will probably lose 1-2 games this season but hopefully the road experience will pay off in the playoffs.
I definitely remain concerned about the Bama and Texas games. Got to get healthy and better in a couple spots for sure.
Great job, Austin. You’re really doing a good job on these and while it’s defining your own voice it reminds me of the Senator’s write ups and I mean that in the best way.
I think you’re spot on about Kirby and Bobo deciding to play a super conservative offensive game to keep Alabama from having anything they could use on tape. Seems reasonable that the sluggishness on that side of the hall can be after tat least partially to that. And while I’m glad he doesn’t panic, Carson didn’t seem rattled to me, he seemed a little too much the other way, almost half asleep. I bet he and the offense don’t look like that in two weeks.
Losing Tate sucks but man oh man did it seem like Pop had spent all of the week of SC and all this past week telling them every little detail he knew along with Brock. Stoops knew his only hope was a rock fight and Kirby was happy to give him just that. He was just betting he would come out on the winning end since he has the better players.
I agree that on TV it made the Kentucky crowd seem crazed and loud but people that were there described the crowd as “fine”. Hard to say.
The defense has been getting raked over the coals and I I don’t think that’s fair personally. The offense played the opposite of complimentary football. I would say the bad tackling had more to do with being worn slap out than anything else. The one thing that really bugged me was they would get the Kentucky running back’s forward progress stopped but wouldn’t take him to the ground, then he would lunge forward for another two or three yards. That bothered me more than them being worn out and not making good open field tackles. I got so sick of hearing Sean McDonough say, “Debbie Sue Carbondalay!” I know that’s not his name but dammit that’s exactly what it sounded like McDonough was saying.
This went exactly how Kirby wanted minus the injury to Tate. Onward and upward. Go Dawgs and thanks God for GTP Refugees.
I under stand the “drove him into the turf” mantra, but that was a text book tackle and I certainly didn’t think he drove him in the turf. That was a HUGE call. All day I saw Ticky Tack targeting calls too. Officials are just getting more sensitive to off field injury ramifications.
That call was a freaking joke.
A similar call on South Carolina on their pick 6 cost the Gamecocks the game yesterday.
Folks…we got their best shot.
Also, the stupid penalties were maddening. Kirby said pist game everybody seems to be getting penalized more this year. That crew last night was dreadful. Just horrible. The roughing the passer call on Jalon was complete horse shit and you could tell by the look on his face that he knew it was. Jarret’s penalty was idiotic as far as just being a horrible call. They kept adding seconds to the game clock and then talking them off. I have never seen anything like that. And it took them so long to do everything. They were just awful.
Excellent write-up, DIA. Two less technical observations: I found Carson’s decision to saunter to the sidelines on a broken play—gaining 5 yards instead of running full speed, staying in-bounds, and possibly taking a hit for a first down—concerning. What would Stetson have done?
Secondly, Kirby has used every press interaction over the past week to emphasize the difficulty of playing on the road in the SEC. I suspect he’s doing some ‘foretelling.’ Not sure if he meant Kentucky, but I believe he’s tempering expectations for Alabama and Texas.
I won’t speculate as to the game’s outcome if the preponderance of talent had been on the other side of the field. Something Bear Bryant is supposed to have said is rolling around in my brain.
Happy for the win, disappointed in the performance.
Interesting, I don’t remember which play you’re referring to that Beck slowed down going out of bounds on his scramble. I guess depending on the context I’d be ok with him protecting himself. If it’s third down or game on the line, I’d probably feel differently.
“Upon further review,” as they say, the play I’m referencing is at 7:45 in the 4th. Carson gained 8 instead of 5, but IMHO, there was more to get with a little more effort. The game was 13-12 at that point, so my opinion of his effort could have been tainted by my high blood pressure and decades of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. :~)
I was fine with the Plain Jane Vanilla offense….for the first half. After we had proven we couldn’t manball them, we should have opened it up in the 2nd half. I’m sure there is something in the playbook between “Save for Alabama” and “Pure Manball Vanilla”. Everyone wants to blame Bobo, but I would bet everything I own, that Kirby could make a call up to the coach’s box and say, “take the wraps off” and it would look way different. Bobo works within the boundaries that Kirby sets.
The lines are very concerning as are the missed/broken tackles. At times it looked like our defense was participating in a greased pig contest.
As usual the SEC officiating was slightly less competent than Pop Warner League officials.
Knowing the bammer staffers were viewing this event, not showing more than needed vs willing to travel through the “manball twilight zone” with the opposition 7/8 in abox all friggin’ night is a bit more than mine Red & Black soul could take, in one seating…GO DAWGS!!
Yes We missed some tackles and yes we struggled, but dammit guys our defense allowed them 38 yards on 29 plays on our side of the 50. No TD’s. That is impressive. Won turnover battle too. Look at our last 2 trips to KY. They obviously man up for us. Our Dline needs to get well. I am sure we will look better against Bama. We show courage, grit and Resiliency. Win and move on. Go Dawgs!
Our offensive line seemed, frankly, offensive at times. Very little push and we didn’t manhandle Clemson on the line either. I never played on the line and have no answers. They won because they are winners, and I enjoy saying that.