Damn that was fun!

I admit it, I was worried as hell before this game. Ole Miss plays exceptional at home and after watching the two games against Ole Miss last year, Chambliss looked to be Dawg kryptonite…not to mention another night game on the road against a great opponent. Even if I knew we were the more complete team, the better team doesn’t always win.

All due respect to our performance in Tuscaloosa, this was the best I’ve seen the Dawgs look in 2026. On to the grades…

Quarterback: He’s back!

I know the completions and yardage numbers aren’t going to jump off the page, but the efficiency was outstanding to the tune of a 95.1 QBR.

Loved the first big 3^rd down completion to Taylor to keep our initial drive going where we didn’t have to settle for a field goal. The 58 yarder to Talyn Taylor made me jump out of the seat…I could have sworn the DB was going to pick it off, but replay showed it had a little more margin than the live action indicated.

The almost infamous DPI call against Dandridge was a beautiful throw (Gunner seems to throw those deep sideline routes very accurately) and good chance he catches that one if he has use of his left arm. Great ball to Luckie on 4^th down that almost allowed us 3 more points before the half.

Couple of drops that would’ve made Stockton’s final line look even better…Canion had one in the chest (tough catch, but he’s capable) and Sacovie had a crossing route hit him right in the mitts that was going to go for a while. Who didn’t love the Johnny Football impersonation to stretch the lead to 35-0 and officially empty the stadium. Oh yeah, the big F-U bomb in the 4^th quarter hit Taylor perfectly in stride.

Not a lot to criticize…only one batted ball this week, maybe the attempt to Taylor that was picked (and overturned due to the roughing), but if he’s able to get that ball out a fraction of a second sooner, that’s a major explosive. I’m not going to over think it…Gunner was a badass on Saturday night.

Grade: A

Running Back: Outstanding

The running backs put up 233 yards on 35 carries…6.7 YPC.

Nate Frazier set the tone early ripping off a 46 yarder to let Ole Miss know they were in for a long damn night. Loved the little jump cut he made to his left on that run to hit the open field (reminded me of Sony). I’d say Nate is back to early season form when he was averaging a touchdown on every other carry. If Nate saw a crease, there was zero hesitation…feels like he’s almost always good for 5+ on first down runs.

Dwight Phillips didn’t do anything to make me get off the Dwight Lightning train. 66 yards on 11 carries is a more than solid line and he continues to lead the SEC in YPC as far as I’m aware. We all know about the speed he possesses, but it’s unusual how easy it looks when he’s hauling ass…totally different player, but reminds me a little bit of Terrelle Pryor back in the day. When Dwight bounces one outside, it’s very rare that someone stops him for no gain…he just outruns defenders to the sideline, turns upfield and seems to always get a solid/great gain out of it.

Bo Walker and Nick Peal handled clean up duty very well and allowed our O-Line to put a few more Ole Miss defenders on the injured list after 50+ minutes of mauling them.

It’s not their fault, but will hold back from a full A+ because there were no touchdowns from the group, but phenomenal performance overall.

Grade: A

Offensive Line: Elite

295 yards rushing at 6.1 YPC is going to win you a lot of believers in Dawg nation.

Gunner was sacked once, and put on the ground very unceremoniously on the roughing penalty (which I admit, I’d have been pissed as hell on that call if I were an Ole Miss fan), but for the most part he had clean looks to make throws.

We had the one false start penalty that backed us up off the goal line, which would have been very annoying if we were in a close game…alas, we weren’t in a close game and Gunner pulled a rabbit out of his hat anyway on the next play.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this group looks far better than last year’s squad in my opinion. Pass protection looks better, much better in the running game, winning nearly all short yardage situations…just a better unit overall.

I’ll take this all day.

Grade: A

Receivers (WR’s + TE’s): Fun To Be Talyn Taylor

Taylor had an AJ Green level stat line for this game…4 catches, 140 yards and 3 TD’s. That’s the kind of thing you see from guys like Jeremiah Smith. Great to see a wide receiver for UGA have that kind of a night!

We had 3 TE’s catch passes (including a touchdown for Barbour) and Reddell added a couple of rushes on his stat sheet…one of which oozed memories of Brock Bowers…dude is so fast for a guy his size and when he hits the open field, DB’s are ready to vomit at the prospect of tackling that guy one on one.

Dandridge didn’t catch any passes, but drew an important DPI call and took a sweep for his first rushing touchdown…and it looked unbelievably easy.

Sacovie added another 14-yard rushing attempt, but no catches on the evening…had one go right off his hands that would have been a big gain as mentioned in the QB section. Canion had the one target in his return to action, but couldn’t bring it all the way in.

For as few passing attempts as we had, we couldn’t have gotten a whole lot more production out of this group. Loved how we were able to get the TE’s more involved with the ball in their hands and clearly we hit on some explosives with Taylor. What a difference a week makes.

Grade: A

Defensive Line: Peaking

This group continued their excellent play following the complete demolition of the Gators. Griffin and Hall are the anchors, but Gabe Harris has been coming on the past couple of games after being a little quiet the first half of the season.

Valdin Sone and Anthony Lonon are seeing the field (and making plays) way more than I would have assumed coming into the season.

Josh Horton has been a very steady presence (did he get hurt?) and makes things happen, even when he’s not showing up on the stat sheet.

JJA sat this one out, but he’s only going to make this group better when he returns.

When you hold Ole Miss to 66 yards rushing on 2.1 YPC, you’re doing a hell of a lot of things right…not to mention, these guys were allowing our pass rushers to give Trinidad Chambliss a night he’d prefer not show up on his resume for the NFL draft.

Grade: A+

Linebackers: Broken Record

Chris Cole is still a pretty good football player.

Raylen Wilson is as well. So is Justin Williams (who did an awesome job of not drawing DPI on an Ole Miss downfield shot).

Khamari Brooks is getting on the field a lot…and that has to scare the hell out of SEC teams for the next few years.

These guys were sharp with everything they did on Saturday night. Tackling was great, don’t remember any penalties on this group, made life absolute hell on Chambliss…just looked like they were playing in another gear compared to Ole Miss. When you hold Ole Miss to 7 points on their home field, you’re going to get high marks.

Grade: A

Defensive Backs: Best In Show

Thank you for coming to UGA Khalil Barnes. Looked like a heat seeking missile out there all night…and Chambliss will forever remember your name. Huge impact on the game and that was without a near pick six early on. If you don’t win SEC DB of the week, or some sort of accolade for that performance, then you are getting robbed.

Demello Jones with another great night chipping in with 5 tackles…for a pretty skinny dude, he’s fearless when it comes to physical play.

I’m completely sold on Resean Dinkins…think he’s Javon Bullard 2.0. He was flying off the edge when he caused the Chambliss fumble and somehow got the recovery as well. Absolute baller.

KJ Bolden with the alert interception after Chambliss tried to throw some sort of a hero ball before the end of the half…I thought that was going to the house when he caught it.

And of course, Ellis Robinson with a great PBU early in the game to get our defense off the field. He had the DPI, but not going to nitpick that one since it was very deep in Ole Miss territory and didn’t cost us very much in penalty yardage.

Best game of the year for this bunch…caused havoc all night.

Grade: A+

Special Teams: We Can’t Be Perfect

Peyton Woodring…so you’ve lost some mojo. A 49-yard miss isn’t some embarrassing indictment on you as a kicker, but those were the kind of kicks you seemed to make automatically the past couple of years. When you’ve got a 28-point lead, not the end of the world, but in a close game…those will be more crucial. Also, kicking it out of bounds when we know you can crush it through the endzone…why?

Drew Miller was more than solid.

Sacovie looked a little more comfortable this week in my opinion…one of his fair catches was a little hairy, but didn’t drop anything.

Blake Stewart almost committed the sin of getting blocked into a bouncing punt, but Sacovie alertly fell on the ball just in case…good heads up by Sacovie on that one.

In a closer game, special teams could have haunted us…thankfully Ole Miss was getting a thorough ass kicking and it didn’t matter. Still…the missed kick going into the half could’ve made the Ole Miss student section cry and I would’ve enjoyed that, combined with the inexplicable kick out of bounds, and Blake Stewart being in the wrong place at the wrong time…some things to clean up.

Grade: C+

Offensive Coaching: See, Was That So Hard?

I’ll say this again…I’m neither a Bobo hater, nor am I a Bobo apologist. He’s called some great games (Bama) and some real head scratchers (Florida).

Saturday night we got a great version of Bobo. From the opening possession, he looked to have a plan, he mixed up his pitches beautifully, he utilized his personnel in creative fashion…most importantly, the offense moved the ball with relative ease and put tons of points on the board.

I don’t know what last week was and I’m tired of trying to figure it out. What I do know is Bobo is capable of putting together these kinds of games and picked a great night to do it.

Take a bow…enjoy the accolades, you deserve it…that was a masterclass. And thanks for the deep shot to Taylor after Ole Miss finally got on the board…that was comedy at its highest level.

One more thing…because I’m a little snarky…the infamous WR screen was not a part of the game plan. I don’t recall any thrown (unless you want to count that one Dwight Phillips caught, but that’s a bit of a stretch), certainly none that looked like the 8 we threw last week. It was nice to leave that one on the shelf this past weekend.

Grade: A+

Defensive Coaching: Revenge On The Mind

Will keep this brief…

Complete and total destruction of a very good team…an excellent team at home…with a QB many consider the best in the conference.

We brought the whuppin’…they brought the ass.

Grade: A+

Random Musings: Ready For Some Conspiracy Theories?

How could the team we watched Saturday night lose to Auburn a few weeks ago? It doesn’t seem at all possible. I know teams don’t play their best every single week and you’re not going to be able to bring your A+ game for an entire season…but seriously, the team we watched Saturday night, at 50% of that same level, could beat Auburn by at least two touchdowns. So what gives? Well, I’ve got a theory…

Have any of you seen the documentary of the 1992 USA Dream Team? Remember the part how the Dream Team lost their very first scrimmage to a bunch of college guys? Then, Coach K gave the big reveal that Coach Daly almost certainly threw that game to get the attention of all the Dream Team players…he wanted to let them know they could lose if they didn’t bring their focus and effort every game.

I want to be clear, I don’t believe Kirby threw the Auburn game…he wouldn’t do that. But, I do think something similar was going on. I know we had a lot of injuries and the team was pretty beat up going into that one, but it still doesn’t add up for me. Look at the way the offense played after those first two touchdowns against Auburn. More importantly, look how the defense played for much of the game…it’s like we were playing a different sport when you compare those two games.

My working theory is Kirby wanted to win, but he wanted his team to face some adversity along the way to see how they’d respond…especially on defense. If you look at what we did to Ole Miss on Saturday night and the way we used our personnel, it was incredible to see how effective we can be on that side of the ball. Against Auburn, we didn’t throw anything at them that was even close to what we saw Saturday night. Against Auburn, I’m positive he wanted to win…but he wanted to win a close one…and it got away after a series of unfortunate mistakes on offense.

Again, just a dumb theory. What I’m almost certain of, nobody in the country is beating the Georgia we saw Saturday night.

Enjoy the rest of your week and Go Dawgs!