Georgia-Vanderbilt went exactly how you’d expect a No. 1 team’s Homecoming game to go.
There was lots of color and pageantry, with Saturday’s game the culmination of a week that saw ABC’s “Good Morning America” come to town to soak up the collegiate atmosphere (and have one of its anchors, UGA-educated Amy Robach, honored).
However, if you were looking for an exciting Homecoming game full of explosive plays, this wasn’t it.
But, even with a few key players still not healthy enough to play — and the game between Alabama and Tennessee that was being played simultaneously no doubt in the backs of their minds — Georgia was focused and highly efficient on both offense and defense. The Dawgs dominated time of possession, 39 minutes to 21 minutes.
That said, it wasn’t a game full of the sort of gaudy plays that make “SportsCenter” — the closest contender probably was a big reception by tight end Darnell Washington who was tight-roping the sideline with an early-arriving Vanderbilt receiver draped all over him.
Another play by the Dawgs that almost qualified as “explosive” (one of UGA head coach Kirby Smart’s favorite words) was Dillon Bell catching an 11-yard pass, falling on top of a would-be tackler and then scrambling up and hot-footing it for what looked like a 66-yard score.
Unfortunately, the play was called back to where he first caught it, because someone in Birmingham saw an elbow that might possibly have touched the ground (apparently with a camera angle that wasn’t available to the SEC Network).
Georgia went 7-for-7 in the Red Zone Saturday, with 5 TDs and 2 field goals.
On the opening touchdown, tailback Kenny McIntosh made a great move after catching a swing pass to get to the end zone, sidestepping a defender who should have had him. McIntosh scored the second TD, as well, on a play where the offensive line opened a huge hole for his run.
On Georgia’s third scoring drive, there was a good mix of plays, but the running game got it done in the end. I loved the toss sweep to Daijun Edwards on a 4th-down play that set up a short run by him for the score.
And, Georgia’s last score of the day was a highlight, as walk-on tailback Cash Jones scooted 36 yards for a touchdown.
Edwards led Georgia rushers for the day with 49 yards and a TD on 10 carries, while McIntosh had 43 yards and a TD on 9 carries and also had 2 catches for 20 yards, including that first TD.
In the passing game, Washington impressed with a one-handed catch on a 34-yard gainer, as well as the sideline catch previously mentioned.
And, it was great to see Dominick Blaylock coming back from two knee injuries and catching passes again, including Georgia’s fourth touchdown of the day (his first TD catch since 2019), as well as transfer Arik Gilbert making his first catch as a Bulldog and then also catching a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter.
Bell led Georgia receivers with 5 catches for 54 yards and a touchdown, and Washington finished with 4 catches for 78 yards, both career highs.
The best news of the day: Before taking off his helmet for the rest of the day in the third period, starting quarterback Stetson Bennett looked to be back in form, throwing a pair of strikes that broke a touchdown-pass drought that had lasted three games. He ended up completing 24-of-30 passes for 289 yards in three quarters of play. Most of the damage was done in the first half, when Bennett was 18-of-20 passing for 211 yards and threw both TDs.
The Dawgs wound up with 579 yards of total offense (192 rushing and 387 passing) while holding Vanderbilt to 150 total yards of offense, including just 45 on the ground.
The leading tacklers for the Dawgs were senior defensive back Christopher Smith with 5, while sophomore linebacker Jamon “Pop” Dumas-Johnson and freshman Jalon Walker had 4 each.
Overall, it was a thorough beatdown of a conference opponent, albeit a game that didn’t manage to keep a lot of Georgia fans in their Sanford Stadium seats to watch the fourth quarter.
(For those who left early: Backup QBs Carson Beck and Brock Vandagriff both led scoring drives, and Beck looked particularly sharp passing the ball as he also threw for 2 touchdowns while completing 8 of 11 passes for 98 yards.)
So, on the one hand, it wasn’t a particularly exciting game. But, if you’re like me, and are perfectly happy to watch the Dawgs looking like a methodical, merciless death machine as they roll over a hapless SEC opponent, Saturday’s 55-0 steamrolling of the Commodores suited you just fine.
Who needs dramatic games that get your pulse racing? Getting more game experience for almost everyone on the depth chart is a lot more important in the long run.
Besides, November promises plenty of pulse-pounding thrills, as the Dawgs get back to playing ranked opponents.
Thankfully, though, this one didn’t start out like the past couple of games, where the Dawgs seemed on autopilot. Smart had said before kickoff that he wanted a “fast” start, and he got it.
Really, unlike the past couple of weeks, you had to look hard to find anything to complain about.
Even Smart, known to pick the tiniest of nits after games, whether the Dawgs win or lose, was pretty generous in his post-game assessments, though he did grant that, considering what lies ahead, his team, as always, needs to “get better.”
And, there are areas where Georgia wasn’t quite perfect against the Dores.
Late in the first half, the Georgia defense gave up an explosive play when it had Vandy at 3rd-and12. Also on that drive, on a 3rd-and-5, Georgia missed a tackle, and was flagged for a hit out of bounds. Finally, though, came a hit on Dores QB AJ Swann, who was called for intentional grounding. A Vandy field goal attempt was no good.
However, the Dawgs’ defense still isn’t racking up the sacks (they had 1 Saturday) and didn’t really pressure Swann much for most of the game.
And, in the first half, the pass coverage was a little loose. Vandy converted a 3rd-and-8 with a 25-yard completion, but then subsequently Georgia’s Tykee Smith forced a fumble and Christopher Smith recovered.
Vandy receivers were wide open a few other times, but Swann couldn’t manage to get the ball to them.
The Dawgs will need to tighten up their coverage before Hendon Hooker and the high-octane, Bama-beating Vols offense comes to town in a few weeks.
But, Saturday’s game was a shutout, and Vandy didn’t get its first 1st down of the second half until about 6 and a half minutes was left in the game.
On the offensive side, the only real disappointments were a first-quarter drive that resulted in a punt after the 3rd-down pass was a poor play call, way short of the marker. And, there were the two third-quarter drives that came up short and resulted in just field goals.
On the first of those, McIntosh was stopped behind the line on 3rd-and-4 when the blocking wasn’t good and Vandy defenders got penetration. And, the other drive was particularly frustrating, as it featured two great passes from Bennett, but he also was sacked twice, with the OL again not at its best.
As Smart noted to DJ Shockley in his locker room interview for the Bulldogs radio network, “Vanderbilt got aggressive and started coming after us, and that forced a couple of field goals.”
The head coach was pleased, however, that Georgia only had to punt once in the game, and “we did convert a fourth down, and you’ve got to be able to do that.” (That came on a 14-yard pass from Bennett to Kearis Jackson on 4th-and-10.)
Georgia also had three nice punt returns, though one of them was called back for a block in the back.
Summing up the game, Smart said he was “really impressed with the performance early. I thought Stetson had good rhythm, he was more accurate. He did have a high ball to Darnell that I thought he should have hit over the middle. Outside of that, he played with good rhythm and good composure. We ran the ball, we mixed run and pass, and we got to play a lot of players.”
On defense, he said, “I thought we had a couple picks that we should have had and dropped those, but I was really proud of how the defense played.”
Georgia will be off this coming Saturday, before taking on Florida in Jacksonville, and then high-flying Tennessee comes to Athens on Nov. 5 for what’s shaping up to be the regular season game of the year.
The Dawgs are a bit banged up right now. Jalen Carter, Adonai Mitchell and Smael Mondon still aren’t ready to play, and McConkey and left guard Xavier Truss both left Saturday’s game with leg injuries of some sort, though neither appeared to be serious.
Georgia fans are hoping the week off will see some of those injured players get healthy, but, in his post-game comments, Smart noted that “there’s nothing about an off-week where you magically get everybody back. We have to see how they progress, how much pain tolerance they have. Some players handle injuries better than others. It’s not realistic to think all these kids are going to be back by Florida week. I’m not sure we’ll ever be completely healthy.”
Looking to what’s still to come, Bennett said: “I don’t know what’s ahead; it depends on how we keep going. I’d say we executed the plan today very well, and I’d say we felt comfortable with it. But, there were a few times that we weren’t on the same page and that’s got to be fixed.”
He sounds a lot like his head coach, doesn’t he?
