Good Day, UGA: The don’t beat yourself up edition

Georgia has a good shot to win this Saturday against Florida ... if it doesn't beat itself first.

Curtis Compton/AJC

Posted 4 years ago

Good day, UGA. Welcome to your one-stop shop for all the relevant UGA football news and takes every Monday through Friday. Today, we look at what Georgia has to do to beat Florida and remember a time when the Bulldogs did just that to a top-ranked Gators team.

How to beat Florida

We’re only two short days away from the WLOCP. With kickoff quickly approaching, you’ve probably snapped out of your bye week by starting to remember all the terrible things the Dawgs have done this season and then asked, “How the hell are we gonna beat these guys?”

Luckily for Georgia, things like records and odds tend to mean less in big rivalry games — anecdotally, at least — so the Bulldogs’ prospects may be better than you think. But here are three things that need to happen in order for Georgia to spring the upset:

Play defense like you know how

Georgia’s defense has been a bit underrated this season. The Bulldogs have the 20th-best unit in the country in terms of total defense and the 16th-most turnovers gained. It’s been mainly because of the defense that Georgia has been in a position to win games so often this year. Conversely, Florida has struggled on offense, scoring only 13 points against Vanderbilt and 26 of the team’s 40 points against Missouri. If Bulldogs defense plays like it has most of this season, Georgia should be in the fight until the final snap.

Have more than one facet of the offense work

The Bulldogs offense has been unable to find a balance between the pass and run games this season. When the run game is humming, no one can catch a cold. When the pass game is rolling, the tailbacks get stuffed for 1-yard runs. There has yet to be a truly complete game by the Georgia offense this season. If the Bulldogs want to come away from the WLOCP victorious, Saturday is the time to have one.

No special teams mistakes

It’s always something with the Georgia special teams. Early in the season it was field goals. Rodrigo Blankenship finally seemed to figure those out against Vanderbilt, but then poor tackling on the opening kickoff led to a Vandy touchdown and Reggie Davis’ brain fart on the opening kick of the second half happened. Giving the defense good field position and making almost every kick that’s within field goal range will go a long way to curing many of the problems with this team. If the special teams don’t give the Gators good field position and make field goals when the offense comes up short, it will make everyone else’s job a helluva lot easier.

When you’ve still got two days until the WLOCP

ICYMI

For this Georgia team, a thin line between winning and losing (Seth Emerson, Dawg Nation)
Georgia’s Reggie Davis: ‘I should’ve let it go’ (Seth Emerson, Dawg Nation)
A look at Georgia’s defense under Mel Tucker, as he returns to a place he knows well (Seth Emerson, Dawg Nation)
Jonathan Ledbetter, coming off a 4-tackle game against Vandy, poised for bigger role (Jason Butt, Macon Telegraph)
Florida-Georgia 2006: Looking back on an SEC game that changed the league (Alex Martin Smith, SEC Country)
Gary Danielson: Jacob Eason has ‘most NFL potential’ (Rusty Mansell, Dawgs 247)

Great moments in Gator-hatin’: taking down No. 1

Florida came into the 1985 game ranked No. 1 in the country by the Associated Press, hot off the heels of a big win over Auburn. But even at No. 1, the Gators were unable to contain Georgia’s mighty backfield of ’85, which might be the best in school history.

Keith Henderson and Tim Worley had monster games that afternoon, and became only the third and fourth rushers to gain over 100 yards against the Gators since 1983. Henderson ran for 145 yards and Worley gained 104, 90 of them coming off a single run late in the fourth quarter.

Georgia fans rushed the field in Jacksonville following the 24-3 upset over the top-ranked team in America. Check out full highlights, with calls from the late, great Larry Munson below.

Georgia Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2017

Four people with UGA connections — tailback Garrison Hearst, golfer Laura Coble, tennis player and current UGA men’s tennis coach Manny Diaz and administrator Liz Murphey — were announced as inductees into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame’s 2017 class.