Apologies for no posts following the Auburn contest…my boys were on Fall Break for school last week and we took a quick family vacation. Ready to get back to the grind!

Say what you will about the 2025 Georgia Football team (and I will below in just a moment), but nobody can deny the entertainment value of this team…we make for some seriously compelling television! The games in the first season of Friday Night Lights were less dramatic than our weekly conference matchups. Who needs a comfortable, stress-free victory anyway? Warning, there are going to be some polarizing grades below…buckle up and let’s have some fun!

Quarterback: A+

• Welcome to the first A+ grade of the season for any position group. If we want to get nitpicky, Gunner missed on a couple of throws in the 1^st quarter and there were a couple of plays where Gunner didn’t find a receiver running open for a potentially explosive play. News flash…playing QB in the SEC is difficult. But let’s look big picture, Gunner played his a** off Saturday and deserves his accolades. When you have as many TD’s accounted for as incompletions against a Top 5 team (let that sink in), you’re playing at a very high level. We scored on every possession (not including victory formation to end the game) and Gunner was a big reason why. His TD run was a thing of beauty and he dropped one in the bucket to Dillon Bell on our final scoring drive…enormous play to flip the field and take more time off the clock. Did I mention Gunner is still the toughest SOB on the planet? I think he’s approaching levels reserved for Walter Payton…after the Auburn game I thought we would rename Gunner Stockton to Scott Sterling (YouTube it…funny stuff). Awesome leadership, awesome execution, clutch as hell…would not trade him for any other QB in the country.    

Running Back: B+

• Thought the RB room was excellent on Saturday. Over 160 yards on the ground for this group, as well as a TD reception for Frazier. I think Frazier is starting to get his groove back a little bit following the Bama fumble episode…didn’t rip off any explosives, but a whole lot of 5+ yard gains and helped us get into good down and distance situations. You can tell he’s still very conscious of the fumbles the way he wraps up when contact is coming. Bowens was very productive with his touches and seems to be good for at least one 15+ yard carry every week…loved the 3^rd and long run to convert a first down. McCray didn’t have a monster statistical day, but he seems to be pigeonholed into the short yardage guy role and difficult to tear off big runs in those situations. Most importantly, he managed to convert a 4^th and 1 when he looked to be stopped cold (one of the only play calls I didn’t like on the day). If we get stopped on that play, I think we lose the game. Why not an A grade? Cash Jones has got to get rid of the ball on that halfback pass, rather than take a big loss…that could have really come back to haunt us. Also, would have liked to see another couple of 10+ yard runs…the blocking looked to be there on some opportunities. Still, great day for the RB room when we needed every one of our 34 first downs.

Offensive Line – A-

• I’m trying to keep everything in perspective because that Ole Miss defense doesn’t evoke memories of the 2000 Ravens. That said, I’m probably not going out on a limb if I think this was their best performance of the season. It looks like we had our Fall camp starting five all lined up to begin the game, and from what I could see, Earnest Greene held up pretty well in his return. If we can use the off week to get further healthy and maintain some continuity for this group, it’s possible they’ll be a team strength…would have not said that even two weeks ago. It wasn’t a perfect performance…there were some TFL’s, but they gave Gunner time and the RB’s had enough room to get positive yardage on first and second downs. McCray did have to bail them out on the big 4^th down play because he had zero blocking, and would have loved to see us ice the game on our final drive, but couldn’t get 3 yards on Frazier’s final carry…so some things to nitpick, but when you get over 500 yards of total offense and score on every possession, it’s hard to find too much fault in their performance. Overall great effort from this group.  

Receivers (WR’s + TE’s) – A

• I cashed in big when I predicted Lawson Luckie would have 3 TD receptions in this game…wait, nobody on earth said that before the game. Great to see #7 get that level of statistical production in such an important game…dude brings maximum effort every week even if he isn’t catching balls. Delp was also productive chipping in with 40+ yards on 4 catches. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t really care who makes plays on a week-to-week basis, as long as the offense is successful…but it does seem we are more successful when the TE’s are more involved in the pass catching arena. Even Elyiss got a target that resulted in a DPI…that’s as good as a 15-yard reception. As for the WR’s, major bummer about Colbie Young after making a huge play on the opening drive, he was having a great year and looked like a monster on the field…opportunity for Thomas and Wiley to step up and make some plays. Branch did what Branch does…feels like we’re going to consistently get somewhere between 60-80 yards from him every week, with some drive extending conversions. Humphreys snagged a couple of passes, and of course Dillon Bell with a monster grab to deflate the hell out of the Ole Miss defense on our final drive…to the officiating crew, if you’re going to call DPI on us for nearly every 1:1 contested throw, you have to call it on Ole Miss on that Dillon Bell reception as well. Defender had him by the shoulder pads and covered his arms before the ball got there…phenomenal catch. Bell also chipped in with a well blocked 17 yard run to keep momentum going in the 4^th quarter. Like the rest of the offense…phenomenal day for this group.    

   Defensive Line – C+

• This is where the grades will begin to change. Let’s get to the good…this group showed up better on the final 3 drives and made some key plays by getting pressure and batting balls…absolutely crucial. The Ole Miss rushing attack was not terribly effective with 88 yards on 24 carries…but they did convert some key drive extenders on some runs and QB escapes. For as good as things went in the 4^th quarter, I can’t say all is well when our opponent scored 5 TD’s on their first 5 possessions, and we didn’t have even 1 TFL all game. I hear all the platitudes about “they showed up when it mattered” and “we’re a 4^th quarter team” and that’s all fine and well. I get what people are saying and I understand the idea…but it doesn’t mean the 4^th quarter counts more than the others. Last I checked, TD’s in the first 3 quarters count just as much, yards are the same distance the entire game and defensive stops are valuable whenever they occur. I guess my point is this, if a unit plays well the entire game, we won’t HAVE to rely on being a 4^th quarter team. One thing I’ll concede is it’s hard to get pressure when Ole Miss is getting rid of the ball as quickly as they do, but that pocket looked awfully clean for the first 3 quarters. Just one man’s opinion.   

Linebackers – C-        

• Coming off a tough night game in Auburn and turning around to play a great Ole Miss offense the next week is a difficult ask…and it showed. This unit looked a step slower than I’m accustomed to seeing, some bad angles were taken and more than a few missed tackles on the day. I love Chris Cole, but he’s now missed out on multiple sacks this year by over running the QB when he’s completely unblocked. I’m not sure we’ve covered a shallow cross the entire year…correct me if I’m wrong. Quintavious made a couple of great plays on those 4^th quarter stops, so kudos to him…he seems to get better the later the game gets. These guys have me confused because I feel like they should be the towering strength of the team…but they don’t seem to cover very well, they haven’t gotten home very often on blitzes, they’ve put a lot of bad angles and poor tackling on tape this year…doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.    

Defensive Backs – D

• This was not pretty. I’ll start with the good…Demello had a crucial pass breakup to kill one Ole Miss third down attempt, and Daylen Everette had great coverage on our first defensive stop. Other than that, pretty rough day for this group. I’m a big believer that officials are way too quick to throw the flag for DPI, but it is what it is…and we get a lot of them. I can’t imagine our coaches aren’t teaching these guys to turn their heads in these 1:1 battles…but I don’t see it happening in the game and it makes it easy for officials to throw yellow on the field. Aguero had a coverage bust that resulted in an explosive play for Ole Miss and set them up with goal to go. Very little went right for this group on Saturday. One caveat to this and I’m not sure I’ll ever know the true answer…how much of this is on the coaches? When we gave them cushion, they happily took the 8-10 yard throws, so I’m not sure what the players are supposed to do if they’re told to give cushion. Everette got victimized on that long TD reception, but the entire secondary was playing 15 yards off the LOS…it was an incredibly easy throw and it’s a tough 1:1 tackle to make if you’re Everette. I think we’re in an era where OC’s are great at scheming ways to move the ball against soft coverage, and good QB’s are too accurate and skilled to count on them missing open guys. Again, just one man’s opinion.       

Special Teams – B

• Thorpedo had a clean uniform to start and finish the game…never a bad sign! No punt returns other than fair catches and no kickoff returns…all going to come down to Woodring. The good…Woodring was perfect on all XP’s and all 3 FG attempts with a long of 51 yards…can’t do a lot better than that. The bad…WTF was up with back-to-back kickoffs going out of bounds? We know you can kick the ball out of the back of the endzone, and we know you’re an accurate kicker…just kick the ball straight and out of the back of the endzone. Why flirt with the sideline? We’re just giving them a first down to start a drive. Our defense is having enough problems to start games, we don’t need to stick our finger in that bullet wound. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference at all with how well Ole Miss was moving the ball, but would have been nice to see.              

Offensive Coaching – A+

• Going to break this up into offensive and defensive coaching. First things first…I’ve said it before and I’ll say it till I’m blue in the face…things are rarely as bad as they seem and things are rarely as good as they seem. In this case, Bobo and team threw a near perfect game. 500+ yards of offense and scored on every possession. We threw out some new wrinkles, great game plan, completely prepared…no complaints (other than that halfback pass in goal to go, felt like overkill and it backfired…and didn’t love the 4^th and 1 call that McCray had to bail us out). Aside from the grade, I’m going to keep some perspective…we were playing a rather porous Ole Miss defense. I’m not going to proclaim our offense is ready to go on a tear the remainder of the season and we’re suddenly fixed…even if I hope that’s the case. We’re not that far removed from the first half of the Auburn game, so I’ll still hold on the offense stock till I see a similar performance against Florida. I’m neither a Bobo apologist, nor a Bobo hater…I think he’s had some great games as OC for Georgia (dating back to Richt tenure), and I think he’s had some bad games. If he’s able to hit on all cylinders now that he’s got a healthier OL and a QB who’s playing great as he gets more starts…that’s awesome. If we play ultra vanilla offense against Florida and struggle to move the ball…I’m not going to be completely shocked. I think everything is in play.

Defensive Coaching – D+

• To recap, for 3 straight quarters, Ole Miss scored a TD every time they touched the ball. Truth be told, it didn’t look like they were having much trouble doing it…no spectacular plays or unbelievable individual efforts (aside from one amazing catch where Demello got flagged for DPI). They methodically moved the ball and were scoring with relative ease. We’ve played 5 conference games and in 4 of those games…our defense has been SHREDDED to start the game. I can’t think of anywhere else to pin the blame than on the defensive coaching staff. When you look at Tennessee, Bama, Auburn and Ole Miss, they aren’t coming out scoring touchdowns on every possession to start games against other opponents…this seems to be a Georgia issue. Here’s where I’ll give them some credit…they seemed to switch to more press man in the 4^th quarter and we obviously had more success getting stops. If that’s what we need to do to get some stops, I can live with the occasional big play and DPI. Curious where others are on this?

Sanford Crowd – A+

• I know we’re a spoiled bunch and don’t necessarily show up big for out of conference games where competition is vastly inferior. But, having to watch this one from home, the crowd seemed absolutely electric to start the game. More importantly, after Ole Miss was scoring touchdown after touchdown, it’s really easy for a home crowd to get deflated and make less noise on later defensive possessions. When we were down 35-33 and had Ole Miss in 3^rd and long, you could feel the stadium shaking through the TV before the play and after the pass breakup. That same energy was delivered on the next Ole Miss possession and another three and out. There are other tough places to play in America, but I’ll put a crazy Sanford crowd against anyone for a big game atmosphere. Well done!

Let’s enjoy an off week, get some dudes healthier and enjoy the stretch run!

Go Dawgs!