Yet again in 2026, the Dawgs started the game with fury, strong execution and confidence. There was a point in the first half, while Oklahoma was peeing down its leg, that I realized that this team has really embraced the mission to break the other team’s will. And, for 3 of the 4 quarters in the game, they did that really well. Their OL did not enjoy dealing with the Georgia front 7, their DL was frustrated most of the day, and Mateer lost a significant part of his soul yesterday. I don’t think he, or that team, will ever recover from that game. You’re welcome, Horns. On to the bullets:
- Like I alluded to above, the defense was incredibly fast and punishing early on. I know Kirby was disappointed in them not finishing on Mateer, but there are few QBs that elusive in CFB this year, and I thought they finished pretty dang well. 3 sacks and lots of pressures.
- You could definitely see the difference in talent reveal itself in the way Sacovie and Peanut went down on first contact more than in the first 3 games. Good lesson for them and hopefully they work on that going forward because we need their speed for explosive plays.
- I’ll say it again, but I love the way our backs run with their pad level. Chauncey does not look fun to tackle, and I saw even some OU guys make business decisions on him. Great early blitz pickup by him as well.
- Gunner still looked like he was in complete control, even against that defense. Sure he made a couple of bad decisions, especially on the INT, but that’s an elite defense with confusing looks and he still performed well. I wish he could layer his throws a little better, but that’s more of an NFL problem for him anyway.
- Beautiful set up with a double move by Talyn and a laser beam from Gunner before taking a big hit. Was that the same play from the Bama home game last year?
- I don’t care what they’re listed at, but OU’s OL is the smallest I’ve ever seen for that program in this century.
- I think I’ll probably always think about this as “The Chris Cole game.” Dude was errrrywhere.
- Couple of weird things I noticed about an otherwise amazing performance by the defense: much more space given to the OU receivers than I expected (other than Sategna, who deserves it), and the middle of the field was open for their TEs to roam freely. Anyone have an insight on that strategy? Was Schuman baiting Mateer or just being conservative?
- I’ll get to the third quarter mind melt shortly, but OU actually had an impressive drive in the second quarter, using pace and better blocking to move down the field….until IT happened.
- I don’t know what I would do if I saw Elijah Griffin and Chris Cole coming at me full speed, but it might look like Mateer’s blooper reel fumble. Coach 30 layup there.
- Mateer is so bad under pressure, as long as you maintain rush lanes, and UGA did for the most part.
- Let’s pause for a moment and give some flowers to the crowd yesterday. Well done! We could feel it through the screen. I love how we’ve turned Sanford into a place where offenses go to die. I counted 3 delay of game penalties and 2 timeouts caused by the crowd. Just, damn.
- Raylen Wilson is quietly putting together a day 1 or 2 NFL draft pick kind of season.
- OK, let’s get this out of the way. The team clearly looked at the scoreboard (and Mateer’s eyes) too much and took their foot off the gas coming out of halftime. Bobo must’ve pulled out his Sphincter Salmon and Booger Green crayons and made a mess out of the third quarter. Kirby finally got pissed off and tore a couple heads off (including Gunner’s), and things got back to normal before the game ended. But, whatever that was, let’s not go back to it ever again.
- Venables apparently also was shook by the moment. When they finally scored a TD, the math didn’t make sense going for 2. Dawgs made them pay for it.
- Even though the TEs were free over the middle most of the day, Dinkins got a little bit of revenge with the sweet strip and fumble recovery. Love the secondary depth this year.
- There was a lot of squawking from the OU defense yesterday. Which made Zykie Helton’s shit-talking of David Stone during Peanut’s long TD run even funnier. Scoreboard, bitchez!
- Not a great statistical day for the offense (other than Peanut), but that’s to be expected against the OU defense.
- ESPN announcer Louis Riddick gave a rousing Georgia Football program commercial (and not behind a paywall) late in the game. Thank you for your service, sir.
Survive and advance has always been the key to successful college football seasons. This Georgia team is doing a whole lot more than that. They’re sending messages to future opponents by demoralizing everyone they play, regardless of the competition. There are still things to get better at on both sides of the ball, but it’s mostly consistency rather than deficiencies. Next week, Jared Curtis comes to Athens. Pretty sure the front seven are gonna anchor his ass down into the turf a few times. Georgia by a million. Go Dawgs!
Good analysis Austin.
Yes, THANKS, very much appreciated from us neophytes
I’m going to rewatch. Didn’t see live but monitored radio (still don’t care for Danztler) and only zipped through the DVR recording later. I don’t get some of the gameday thread criticism after we have a 28-0 lead and the defense is just embarrassing Mateer when he’s not embarrassing himself. That was a dominating performance over a top 25 team full of studs with a good coaching staff. We made the biggest statement of the weekend but as pointed out the media will swoon over others which is perfectly fine by me. We have things to keep working on and Bama and Florida ahead of us but we passed our first real test with more than flying colors. GO DAWGS!
Because some people are never happy. If you remember, people comaplined the entire ‘22 season while going undefeated and wanted Carson Beck the whole time. And if you pushed them on it to this day they would still say they were right.
Yeah, I wondered what happened to Corch. I assume that was him showing up yesterday.
I went to an alumni game watch party back in ’21 against Missouri. Some guy bitched every snap about Stetson until i finally asked him to shut it. We won by 40-something to a small number. Some people just like to complain about every little thing.
No, it was not.
Sadly, I don’t think Corch enjoyed my rejoinders. That may have cost us his company.
Its also possible that he is too busy exploring ways to reanimate Mike Leach’s corpse to post “Kirby doesn’t get it!!”
Nice summary. It was Senator worthy.
The best compliment one can receive. Thank you, sir.
WTF is bobo calling a QB sweep up 25 in the 3rd ? And it was right after a helmet to helmet hit.
That whole quarter for the offense made no sense. It was bizarre.
I love the swagger of this defense. They absolutely won’t let anybody run on ’em. Oklahoma putting the entire load on Mateer clearly didn’t work out—under pressure he folded like a cheap lawn chair. Once we cashed in on his gifts, it was over. I’m not going to nit pick anything after we hit 28-0, other than we need to protect against injuries for the long haul. October shaping up to be a large month–need all hands on deck.
I have to say that it was a great statistical day – 34 offensive points scored is a great statistic, especially against that D. Otherwise, fine job.
‘The final score is the only statistic that really matters.’
Yep, the yardage was low because the defense kept giving the offense the ball on short fields. That’s good.
I love how games are our first “real test” until it’s not. I did not expect to destroy OU like we did, but I loved every second of it. It’s amazing to me how UGA gets buried in the highlight shows when we put a beat down on an opponent, but if we get beat, it’ll be the first thing that they show. I know that there were a lot of other games that were close and came down to the last play, so I get it, but it’s still frustrating to see that not many are talking about UGA (a few are, but not many). I guess we’re going to have to go to Tuscaloosa and win there before anyone really props UGA up. Vandy is next, let’s focus on them and TCOB!
I’m perfectly content with the media not talking about us. I’ve heard several people, including Ryan McGee, say that UGA is the most overlooked team in the country right now. I’m sure Kirby can channel that into disrespect to keep the team fired up.
Joey Galloway closed out College Football Final by saying that he thinks we might be the best team in the country. People are noticing.
I guess it’s because “we’re boring”, but that’s fine. It IS actually good to stay under the radar as long as you can as it allows you to stay humble since no one is singing your praises too loudly.
Rolling into Tuscaloosa with the #1 ranking doesn’t seem like its ideal.
The next day? I’ll take it.
Bama looks really good. Still gettable, but formidable.
Good performance and good win. Defense was terrifying. I always watch the skycast when it’s available. You can see so much better. To me it seemed like the receivers being open innthe middle of the field was us being conservative. Kirby and GS knew Oklahoma couldn’t move the ball consistently against us and just gave them that.
As for the offense, Gunner was knocked goofy on the Talyn Taylor touchdown. He had cotton shoved up his nose after that. I think that had a lot to do with his off balance play afterwards.
I am going to preface what I’m about to say with a disclaimer. I am in no way affiliated with UGA Sports. If you are like me and hate the announcers regardless of who they are and think they add nothing valuable to the game, watch skycast when available, but even when it isn’t, mute your TV and have Radi Nabulsi’s Watch Along Show with Coach Jim Donnan playing on your phone and let that be the commentary. Coach is absolutely hilarious and his ability to call what play is coming next is uncanny. Yesterday when Cole scooped Mateer’s first fumble he yelled, “Run, Forest!” And when Peanut went right he said, “Touchdown! I promise ya!” He saw it as soon as it began to develop. I’ll never listen to another TV broadcast team again since discovering this.
Now, maybe Radi and Andy Stowe won’t kick me off the Post Game Overreaction Show again just for saying Ellis Robinson got hit innthe balls. lol.
Go Dawgs.
I think a lot of people are able to easily predict Mike Bobo’s playcalling. I would, however, love to listen to someone else besides the TV commentators as they usually suck.
Well he does it regardless of who had the ball. But never ket an opportunity to complain about Mike Bobo go to waste, amirite?
What was telling from the skycast too was that we weren’t getting any separation on the outside on any of those 3rd q deep shots AND Gunner’s ball placement wasn’t great.
Run game, screen game, misdirection is going to have to be how we move the ball.
If Gunner has to keep up or bring us back from a deficit making plays from the pocket, we may be in lots of trouble.
Hopefully, there isn’t a really good team with an unstoppable force at qb and we can survive on defense, small ball and kicking game.
It will be interesting to see how Keelon plays against us. If he thrives, it may be a bad night for the good guys.
I just feel like the third quarter was so bizarre, we can’t take much from it. It was almost like Bobo was either trying out random plays, leaving traps for future games, or having a stroke.
Keelon is a concern, no doubt. And I’m sure the conference will give them a night game, to boot.
Rant following:
At this point, I want respect. I want to stop the game, take a 45 min review, and then come back and tell me Gunner was not ‘targeted’. But I WANT IT. take the review…just take a look. Any ol random Thursday nighter w Directionial St vs MaryCatherine U and they delay the damn thing an hour to see if it’s targeting. But not the UGA qb, nope. And it’s not just Gunner, been this way a long time. And then the next play. He gets tackled. But only 9 yards out of bounds so you know, play on. It’s a weird thing man. Give us the respect of stopping the game and take a look. You know, like they do everywhere else in the country.
That concludes the rant.
Man we looked pretty damn good kicking that blue blood’s ass yesterday, amirite??
Go Dawgs!
Agreed, they let both plays go.
I agree. I yelled at my TV when that happened. We get a penalty when the reserves are in for roughing the passer but on a clear case of targeting by Oklahoma they could not be less interested and then the next play the guy doesn’t even start trying to tackle hom until Hes going out of bounds and there is no interest in that either. It was absolutely inexcusable.
Agree that Gunner was off after the hard hit on TT’s TD. After the INT (which I think was tipped) it seemed like Bobo was pressing to get him back on the horse when RTB would have been just fine. Reminded me of back in the day (90’s) when BB player Jody Patton would be determined to shoot himself out of a slump. Dawg, sometimes it’s best to let it go…
I agree it looked like it was tipped, I still didn’t think it was a good decision to throw into double coverage, and the pass needed a little more arc and touch.
The second one wasn’t a penalty. The first defender was tackling him in bounds and the continuation took them both out of bounds. The second guy came in and ended up hitting his own guy out of bounds when he tried to pull up. He didn’t touch Gunner. It looked really late but once I saw the replay it was clear why they didn’t flag it.
Great summary, DIA. Thanks!
The schedule is working out perfectly for us. Difficulty ramping up slightly each week (well, except for next week) and the Dawgs seem to have that hunger. I don’t know that Kirby’s Dawgs have covered 4 times in a season, much less 4 times in a row. Dawgs look like they are on a mission and I expect them to make some real noise in the tournament.
Also, how fast is Chris Cole? Dude looked like he was moving and his stride is enormous.
Allegedly he runs a 4.4!
I think it was SEC Final – maybe Ben Watson – that commented on that. I really love watching guys with speed keep running without looking around to see if anyone is getting close. When look around you shorten your stride and that’s how they catch you.
Why did he look like he was AI implemented on the screen yesterday. It was like he was Shaq and the rest of Chokelahoma were Mugsy Bogues.
All in all a good day and agreed with your observations. I noticed the D giving OU the center of the field. Bama, Ole Miss, and the Crocs will make you pay for that. OU’s QB couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. 3rd quarter offense was a head scratcher. If that is a top tier defense, UGA looks good with obvious notation that they’ll need to play all 4 quarters likely at some point.
Smart has plenty to be happy about and plenty to humble the team (which he may also secretly like).
Good to see anoother SEC interloper get handed a loss. To the interlopers:
You get nothing, you lose, good day sir.