Ole Miss 28, Georgia 10: Hard Truths Revisited
Petre Thomas-Imagn Images A wise man once said: This Georgia football team is somewhere between the third and fifth best team in an extremely competitive SEC. It has several warts that will prevent it from winning a national title this season. That sentence is going to make some readers pretty upset. They’ll say I can’t possibly know that at this stage. They’ll say that Kirby and the staff are coaching them up hard every week. They’ll send me boozy late night emails accusing me of being a complete moron, a closet Alabama fan, or worse. That’s okay. Wait, that wasn’t actually a wise man. That was me. The Georgia Bulldogs played the first two minutes of this game like a championship football team. The problem is that they played the remainder of the game like the 2024 Georgia Bulldogs. The result was a frustrating, albeit predictable, 28-10 loss to the Ole Miss Rebels. Everyone likes to hear the hot new hits. But it’s also fun when the Bulldogs play the Classics. And the 2024 Bulldog classics were on display in this one from beginning to end. Slow starts on the road are dangerous. Georgia squandered a chance to take command of the game from the word go when Jaxson Dart went out after the first series with an ankle injury, letting backup Austin Simmons lead a seamless touchdown drive. Mental errors on the road will kill you, and Georgia followed that drive with a pair of them, mishandling a squibbed kickoff, then committing an illegal procedure penalty that backed them up inside the 10. Giving up big plays is a great way to deflate your own momentum and keep the home crowd in the game. Seven of Ole Miss’s first fifteen offensive plays went for more than 10 yards. The Rebels averaged 6.20 yards per offensive snap despite the wet track. The 397 yards of total offense surrendered by the Red and Black defense somehow felt like so many more, in part because when the Bulldog secondary and linebackers were out of position, The pass rush didn’t help matters. After getting to Dart on the first series for a sack the Bulldogs never registered another one in the ensuing 59 minutes of game time. Glenn Schumann’s charges were outplayed. He was outschemed. One of the hard truths that is emerging is that Fran Brown was truly doing unbelievable work with the UGA secondary, and that Muschamp’s influence and experience may have been more valuable than we appreciated at the time. Perimeter blocking continues to be a serious issue for the UGA offense. I am also beginning to wonder if the offensive line will ever truly gel this season. The lineup changes and injuries just seem to have prevented this group from ever really getting its feet under it. The offense eked out 59 rushing yards on 33 attempts, an anemic 1.80 yards per attempt. We got our butts beat up front. Again. I’d love to hear what offensive line coach Stacy Searels has to say about that. Actually, scratch that. I really don’t care. But I think Kirby Smart needs to evaluate at the end of the season whether Searels has an answer. And Carson Beck. Heaven help Carson Beck. Or Mike Bobo, if it’s within his power. If Mike Bobo has faith in Carson Beck’s abilities he had a funny way of showing it. Beck finished the night 20 of 31 for 186 yards and no touchdowns. He threw an interception, but at this point only one back-breaking red zone interception is actually an improvement. So I guess there’s that. Carson Beck is the quarterback who gives this team its best chance to win. But that’s the crux of our current dilemma. Bobo’s lack of faith in his dropsy-plagued receivers and his shell-shocked quarterback has rendered the UGA offense unsettlingly reminiscent of the screen and quick game attack that was the hallmark of the worst Jim Donnan offenses. When you can’t control the line of scrimmage and you can’t execute in the downfield passing game that’s what’s left. It’s predictable and defendable, as was on display this afternoon. I’m not entirely confident this team will beat the Tennessee Volunteers next week. I’m also not entirely confident that they can beat Brent Key’s Georgia Tech squad in Atlanta, where the Yellow Jackets just took down the #4 ranked Miami Hurricanes today. They could. But I can’t say with any certainty that they will. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but this is a good Georgia Bulldog football team. It is not a great one. And great is what we have become accustomed to under Kirby Smart. It’s felt for much of this season as if Coach Smart was struggling and tinkering to get this team to find that next gear. Against Texas it looked like they may have. The last two weeks have demonstrated that if they do have that fifth gear, they can’t get into it reliably or frankly that often. With a veteran quarterback, impact transfers, an experienced offensive line, and superstars at every level on defense this Bulldog team was supposed to be special. I guess it is, just not in the way we were hoping. I’m proud to be a ‘Dawg, and
A wise man once said:
This Georgia football team is somewhere between the third and fifth best team in an extremely competitive SEC. It has several warts that will prevent it from winning a national title this season. That sentence is going to make some readers pretty upset. They’ll say I can’t possibly know that at this stage. They’ll say that Kirby and the staff are coaching them up hard every week. They’ll send me boozy late night emails accusing me of being a complete moron, a closet Alabama fan, or worse. That’s okay.
Wait, that wasn’t actually a wise man. That was me.
The Georgia Bulldogs played the first two minutes of this game like a championship football team. The problem is that they played the remainder of the game like the 2024 Georgia Bulldogs. The result was a frustrating, albeit predictable, 28-10 loss to the Ole Miss Rebels.
Everyone likes to hear the hot new hits. But it’s also fun when the Bulldogs play the Classics. And the 2024 Bulldog classics were on display in this one from beginning to end.
Slow starts on the road are dangerous. Georgia squandered a chance to take command of the game from the word go when Jaxson Dart went out after the first series with an ankle injury, letting backup Austin Simmons lead a seamless touchdown drive.
Mental errors on the road will kill you, and Georgia followed that drive with a pair of them, mishandling a squibbed kickoff, then committing an illegal procedure penalty that backed them up inside the 10.
Giving up big plays is a great way to deflate your own momentum and keep the home crowd in the game. Seven of Ole Miss’s first fifteen offensive plays went for more than 10 yards. The Rebels averaged 6.20 yards per offensive snap despite the wet track. The 397 yards of total offense surrendered by the Red and Black defense somehow felt like so many more, in part because when the Bulldog secondary and linebackers were out of position,
The pass rush didn’t help matters. After getting to Dart on the first series for a sack the Bulldogs never registered another one in the ensuing 59 minutes of game time. Glenn Schumann’s charges were outplayed. He was outschemed. One of the hard truths that is emerging is that Fran Brown was truly doing unbelievable work with the UGA secondary, and that Muschamp’s influence and experience may have been more valuable than we appreciated at the time.
Perimeter blocking continues to be a serious issue for the UGA offense. I am also beginning to wonder if the offensive line will ever truly gel this season. The lineup changes and injuries just seem to have prevented this group from ever really getting its feet under it. The offense eked out 59 rushing yards on 33 attempts, an anemic 1.80 yards per attempt. We got our butts beat up front. Again. I’d love to hear what offensive line coach Stacy Searels has to say about that. Actually, scratch that. I really don’t care. But I think Kirby Smart needs to evaluate at the end of the season whether Searels has an answer.
And Carson Beck. Heaven help Carson Beck. Or Mike Bobo, if it’s within his power. If Mike Bobo has faith in Carson Beck’s abilities he had a funny way of showing it. Beck finished the night 20 of 31 for 186 yards and no touchdowns. He threw an interception, but at this point only one back-breaking red zone interception is actually an improvement. So I guess there’s that.
Carson Beck is the quarterback who gives this team its best chance to win. But that’s the crux of our current dilemma. Bobo’s lack of faith in his dropsy-plagued receivers and his shell-shocked quarterback has rendered the UGA offense unsettlingly reminiscent of the screen and quick game attack that was the hallmark of the worst Jim Donnan offenses. When you can’t control the line of scrimmage and you can’t execute in the downfield passing game that’s what’s left. It’s predictable and defendable, as was on display this afternoon.
I’m not entirely confident this team will beat the Tennessee Volunteers next week. I’m also not entirely confident that they can beat Brent Key’s Georgia Tech squad in Atlanta, where the Yellow Jackets just took down the #4 ranked Miami Hurricanes today. They could. But I can’t say with any certainty that they will.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but this is a good Georgia Bulldog football team. It is not a great one. And great is what we have become accustomed to under Kirby Smart. It’s felt for much of this season as if Coach Smart was struggling and tinkering to get this team to find that next gear. Against Texas it looked like they may have. The last two weeks have demonstrated that if they do have that fifth gear, they can’t get into it reliably or frankly that often.
With a veteran quarterback, impact transfers, an experienced offensive line, and superstars at every level on defense this Bulldog team was supposed to be special. I guess it is, just not in the way we were hoping.
I’m proud to be a ‘Dawg, and I always will be. But on this night I’m not proud of the effort or preparation I saw from my ‘Dawgs. I wasn’t pleased with the obvious surrender I saw on the field in the last ten minutes of this one. Ole Miss, to borrow a Kirbyism, made our a** quit. That’s supposed to be our move.
This Bulldog team is pretty good. So are a lot of teams in the newly cutthroat SEC. The new reality of college football may be that there are no enduring dynasties. And the new reality in Athens may be that Kirby Smart needs to take a long, hard look at some aspects of his program this offseason. That’s not where any of us thought this program was. But if you watched Ole Miss dominate both sides of the ball today in Oxford I don’t see how you could reach any other conclusion.
Until later…
Go ‘Dawgs!!!
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