Last Week’s Game: #2 Georgia @ South Carolina, Win, 14-7
General Comments: As a Georgia fan I was happy with the win over South Carolina last week and just relieved that we didn’t lose. I was completely satisfied with eking out a victory and being undefeated for at least another week. I really think that’s the way that Georgia fans have to look at it. Focusing on how we’re doing in the polls and concentrating on winning a National Championship takes the fun out of it. Look, to be honest with everyone, while I’d absolutely love for the Dawgs to win a National Championship, what I really care about is the SEC Championship. As far as I’m concerned, the SEC Champ is the National Champion. Anyway, that’s the only thing that Georgia can control all by themselves. Things are always tight in the SEC. The game with South Carolina is always tight and we normally come out on top and that’s what happened again this year. Although beating South Carolina is not that big of a deal to Dawg fans, not losing to them should be, and thankfully we don’t have to hear any crap from Gamecock dorks this year. Also it’s always fun to beat the Ol’ Ball Coach.
As a completely objective observer, I wasn’t very impressed with Georgia’s performance against South Carolina. I understand that South Carolina has a great defense, but how good can they really be as a team if they lost to Vandy? Maybe Vanderbilt is really good but they’re normally not and just the week before the Cocks had fallen to them while giving up 24 points. Yes, this was an SEC road game, and you might expect a bit of a struggle, but the Dawgs struggled throughout this game. The Dawgs played pretty sloppy and they made some mistakes. Had South Carolina not made some of the mistakes that they did it might have been even closer.
When you really think about it, this game wasn’t that much different from the UGA-SC game last year other than the fact that the Dawgs won this won 14-7 instead of losing 16-12. Either team could have won last season and I think you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think this game could have gone the other way. At this point, I still don’t think the Dawgs have done much this season that can differentiate this team from the Bulldawg teams of the last 8 years. That’s good in the sense that the Dawgs are now 75-19 under Mark Richt. It’s not good in terms of wanting to be a National Champion or #1 in the country, because the Dawgs haven’t gone undefeated under Coach Richt and they’ve lost at least 2 games in 6 of the 7 years under Richt. And we all know the kind of schedule that lies ahead for Georgia.
Winning ugly doesn’t mean you aren’t a good team and it doesn’t even mean you can’t win a National Championship. In 2007, Florida won a National Championship going 5-7-1 against the spread. They won 5 games by 7 points or less, including a 6 point win at Vandy, a 1 point win at Tennessee, and a 1 point win at home against South Carolina. Last season LSU won the championship going 5-7-2 against the spread, losing twice, and winning 4 games by 7 points or less. I think these two examples of the last two National Champs illustrates what I said above: that winning ugly or even losing a game or two does not mean that you aren’t a great team or that you can’t win it all. But you do have to get into the BCS Championship Game in order to win it and that’s harder to do with losses and ugly wins. It all depends on the year. For me, it’s annoying to have to pay attention to how pretty Georgia’s wins are and I’ve tried to make a point of not having too many expectations about this season. I’m simply not going to be unhappy if Georgia wins the SEC but doesn’t play in the BCS Championship (unless of course I think we’re getting screwed over).
The Good: Matt Stafford’s numbers might not be that great but he ran and threw the ball well. The 39 yard bullet to AJ Green on 3rd and 21 towards the end of the first half was one of the key plays in the game. And Stafford did not turn the ball over once against a pretty damn good defense. I feel the same about Moreno’s performance against SC. While his numbers aren’t overly impressive, he still played well. I got nervous seeing Moreno returning a punt but he did pretty well, returning it 32 yards. And the Dawgs as a team never turned it over on Saturday. Georgia’s defense held SC to 7 points and shut them out in the second half. The Dawg defense held the Cocks to a total of 18 yards rushing on 16 attempts for an average of 1.1 yards per carry. And the defense came up with some gigantic plays to help win the game. Rennie Curran made a pair of huge plays. First he sacked Smelly on 3rd and 5 at the end of the 3rd quarter to stop SC’s drive and move them out of field goal range. Then he made the biggest play of the game, blowing up Mike Davis at the goal line to force a fumble that Asher Allen recovered to keep SC from tying the game with 8 minutes to go. Reshad Jones saved the game at the very end with his interception of Smelly at the goal line with just seconds remaining. Also, while it may seem strange at times to praise players for just doing what they ought to do, I have to give credit to Jones for stopping and taking a knee rather than trying to make a return. He showed good self control in doing so because he was obviously very excited. And it was nice to see a guy put winning and his teammates ahead of trying to make a return that would bring him attention. Again, I know it seems weird to praise someone for not being selfish and immature, but I seriously think the majority of defensive backs in the NFL would have not only returned it but what have lateralled the ball to someone before they were tackled. Anyway, there were some other positive things. The Brians did well. Walsh was 2 for 2 on FG attempts, including one from 42 yards. Brian Mimbs averaged 52.2 yards per punt on his 5 attempts and he saved the Dawgs defense from having to protect a short field in the 4th quarter. After Allen’s recovery of the fumble in the UGA end zone, the Dawgs went 3 and out and had to punt the ball away from their own 12 with less than 7 minutes to play. Mimbs got off a rocket that landed and rolled all the way to the Gamecock 11 for a 77 yard punt! The Bulldawg defense held at the Georgia 31, stopping SC on 4th and 1, but again the Dawgs went 3 and out. This time on 4th and 2 from the UGA 40, Mimbs got off a high hanger that pinned SC at their own 10 with 1:42 to play. The Dawgs would end up needing both of Mimbs’ punts to hold off South Carolina.
The Bad: Though the Dawgs did win the game, I have to admit that there were more than a few problems. To begin with, the Dawgs got outgained by 37 yards and had 3 fewer first downs. If the Dawgs hadn’t gotten the 2 turnovers the game would have been different. And don’t forget about Knowshon’s fumble at the UGA 20 near the end of the 1st quarter that he somehow recovered himself or Stafford’s fumble that the Dawgs recovered at midfield when they were already down 7-3. Georgia’s defense made the Gamecocks one dimensional by shutting down the run, but when you consider that they were going up against Chris Smelly, the Dawgs pretty much got lit up through the air. SC threw for 271 yards and completed a 30 yard pass and a pair of 34 yard passes. Georgia DB’s were often reduced to committing obvious penalties in order to keep SC from completing passes. Other times there was no one near the receiver. It’s not all the fault of the secondary. The Dawgs are simply not getting enough pressure on the QB. When you consider that South Carolina dropped back to pass 42 times, the fact that Georgia only recorded 2 sacks is alarming. Granted they were big plays but there just aren’t enough of those plays occurring right now. On the other side of the ball the offensive line struggled just as it did in this game last season. That was the number one thing that I was concerned with going into this season and that was before we lost Trinton Sturdivant. The O-line is really inexperienced and this was the first road game. It’s fortunate that the Dawgs survived and learned lessons without having to suffer a loss. The Dawgs allowed 4 sacks on Saturday for 33 yards and they all came at bad times. The first two came on 1st and 10 and took the Dawgs out of field goal range for the moment. The last two came inside the UGA 20. Also, because he was hurried and worried about the rush, Stafford missed on some throws and overlooked wide open receivers.
And I can’t really ignore the penalties anymore. This was the third game and it was worse than ever. The Dawgs committed 11 penalties for 112 yards! Some of them were those unnecessary roughness type calls that the refs are way too trigger happy with and I can’t really find much fault with them. I mean if you’re diving at the QB when he still has the ball and then he throws it right before you hit him, what the hell are you supposed to do about it? Still, they’re committing way too many. Also, an old bugaboo that I thought was gone reared its ugly head in this game, and that was the drops by the receivers and tight ends. I think to be fair you have to point out that the first ball that Chandler dropped was behind him and the second one had been tipped by a defender, but he probably should have had both of them, and he’s used up all of his benefit of the doubts at this point. He needs to catch the ball. Durham also should have had the ball he dropped, but again, it wasn’t exactly an easy ball to catch. The Dawgs really should have scored 2 more TD’s in this game. Durham should have caught that pass in the corner for a TD and the Dawgs ended up settling for a FG on that drive. Then just before the half Richard Samuel had no business being stopped at the 1 on the screen pass he caught on 2nd and goal from the 5.
Next Week: at Arizona State
Preview: For the second week in a row the Dawgs will be playing a tough road game this Saturday. And for the second week in a row their opponent will be coming off an embarrassing defeat that was bad enough to drop them out of the polls. Admittedly, Arizona State’s loss was much worse than South Carolina’s, but both teams were clearly looking ahead when they shouldn’t have been. SC was ranked 24th when they went to Vandy on a Thursday night as 9.5 point favorites and lost 14-7. That loss knocked them out of the polls and they received only 2 points that week in the AP poll, ranking them 38th. Last Saturday the then 15th ranked ASU Sun Devils welcomed in UNLV as a 25 point favorite and then lost 23-20 in overtime. The Sun Devils promptly fell out of the AP poll and were ranked 30th in terms of votes. I don’t know what to make of all this but I will say that I doubt it can be a good thing for Georgia. I mean at least with SC they had lost to a team on Georgia’s schedule. Since Vandy’s stature would be elevated by the win it kind of negated the fact that South Carolina would now appear as a lesser opponent. But ASU’s loss to UNLV and subsequent drop from the top 15 to out of the AP poll does not do Georgia any good. Also, in a psychological sense, ASU now will be playing with a mindset similar to the one SC played with. The Georgia game was always going to be huge for SC, but after the loss to Vandy, beating Georgia would be a way to save the season and ease the pain. Had SC beaten Vandy they would still have wanted to beat UGA badly but they would be playing with the expectation that perhaps this would be the year they finally got over the hump and competed for an SEC Championship. Once they lost to Georgia nobody thought they were any better than last year and everyone expected them to get beat by the Dawgs so there was less pressure. Arizona State was obviously looking towards this game and the entire Pac-10 has been anxious to beat the SEC. But had they beaten UNLV they would have gone into this game ranked 12th in the country. A win vs. Georgia would have vaulted them into the top ten and at 4-0 they would have been alive for a National Championship. At this point their season has been completely derailed by an unthinkable loss. All National Championship and dream season hopes are dashed. They’re still without a loss in the conference and this game doesn’t have any effect on their hopes of winning the Pac-10. They’re already the joke of the college football world and everyone on campus thinks they suck. It’s not going to get any worse if they lose to Georgia, but a win would change their situation a lot. There’s no pressure on ASU.
On the other hand, for the second straight week the Dawgs are going to have to fight the temptation to look at what their opponents did the week before and avoid suffering a let down. And once again there will be added expectations now that the view of the game has changed so much. Once SC lost to Vandy it changed the way people looked at them as a team and it changed the way people looked at Georgia’s game against them last Saturday. What’s interesting is that the Dawgs did exactly what Vegas said they should do: they beat South Carolina by 7 points. Yet the 14-7 score was seen as pretty underwhelming by the college football world. I promise you, had SC beaten Vandy, Georgia’s 14-7 win against them on the road would have looked a lot better. Before ASU lost to UNLV the game against them this Saturday looked like one of the most difficult non-conference games of the year in all of college football. It doesn’t look that way anymore but it is still going to be a major test. All you need to do is look at last week’s game for evidence that one team can lose to a weak opponent one week and come back and battle a tough opponent the next. We don’t know how weak Vandy is but they’ve had a losing record 25 years in a row so chances are they aren’t very good. A week after getting outplayed and beaten by Vandy, South Carolina came within a few breaks from beating Georgia. UNLV came into this year having won exactly 2 games in each of their previous 4 seasons. They have that many wins already this year so they probably are better than usual but chances are they’re worse than Vandy. Still, that doesn’t mean ASU won’t give the Dawgs just as hard of a fight as SC did. While the task ahead does not look as daunting as it did last week at this time, it will still be a tough trip for the Bulldawgs. This is a historic game for Georgia. They haven’t played many non-conference road games period, and they haven’t traveled this far for a true road game in decades. I’m glad the game kicks off at 5:00 PM locally so it will feel like 8:00 for us because you never know how a time change is going to affect a team. Playing at 11:00 PM EST might have been weird but it will be normal for the Dawgs to be playing at 8 o’clock at night. I don’t really know what to expect in this game. I did watch quite a few of ASU’s games last year because they typically came on FSN at 10:00 or later after all of the other TV games were over. They have a good QB and some good RB’s. One thing I noticed about them is that they have a habit of starting off badly but they were a great 2nd half team last year. When I saw that they were only up 13-10 at the half over UNLV I thought they’d turn it on in the 2nd half like normal, but this time I think it came back to bite them. They led 20-10 in the 4th but gave up 10 points in the last 6 minutes and the game went to OT. They held UNLV to a field goal but then couldn’t score a TD and had their attempt for a game tying FG blocked. The funny thing is that special teams is one of the main things that makes them dangerous in a close game. Their kicker handles place kicking and punting duties and is one of the best in the country.
Something that worries me about this game is the lack of pressure Georgia has been getting on the QB. I don’t know how the ASU O-line is this year but I know that last year protection was their major weakness. QB Rudy Carpenter is a senior and is one of the most accurate QB’s in the country. If you let him stand back in the pocket he will pick a defense apart. Georgia needs to find a way to get some pressure on him. They also have some receivers that can really stretch the field and I’m a little worried about that as well. I also know that they were a good defensive team last year but their specialty was run stopping. I think the Dawgs will be able to throw on ASU if the OL can give Stafford some time, and I think Georgia can run on any team in the country. I don’t know how much of a hostile environment Sun Devil Stadium will be but I can tell you that I was not impressed last year when I watched them play at home. Sun Devil Stadium holds 71,706 but I didn’t get the feeling that the fan base was all that rabid. Surely there was a lot of excitement created by last year’s 10 win season and I know that this game against Georgia was highly anticipated. No doubt last week’s loss will take some of the buzz away from the crowd but I don’t know how big of an affect it will have. They were 7-1 at home last year and the only visiting team to win was USC. This year they had been 2-0 at home before losing to UNLV. I’m done expecting the Dawgs to go out and beat ever team that they’re better than by double digits. They’re favored by 7. I’m just hoping for a win. It should be another tough game but the Dawgs should come out on top in the end.
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