UGA’s year of living dangerously continued with a come-from-behind win at Auburn.
That’s five games in a row where the still undefeated Dawgs have gotten off to a slow or sputtering start, and both of their SEC wins to date have seen them trailing in the second half. Georgia didn’t take its first lead (20-17) until 10:57 was left in the game. The Dawgs finally went ahead for good, 27-20, with 2:52 remaining.
But, despite all that, Georgia still is undefeated and again showed a resiliency Saturday that was even more remarkable this time, since it came on the road in one of the conference’s loudest and most intimidating venues, Jordan-Hare Stadium.
As Kirby Smart told CBS’ Jenny Dell after the game, “it’s tough to come here and play.”
And Smart told DJ Shockley of the Bulldogs radio network that he thought Georgia was the better team but “we seem to find a way, whether through turnovers or whatever, to hurt ourselves.”
So, Smart’s Dawgs survived a scary game on the road, winning for the 22nd consecutive time and notching their 7th straight over Auburn. And, in doing so, they showed composure in getting out of 10-point and 7-point deficits in the 128th renewal of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.
Also, while Carson Beck looked a little shaky early on in his first road game as Georgia’s starting quarterback — again overthrowing a couple of open receivers — he stepped up big in the second half.
That was due in part to Beck relying heavily on two of his most formidable “playmakers’ (as Smart called them): superstar tight end Brock Bowers and wide-receiver Ladd McConkey, who played his first game of the season after recovering from back trouble and caught 4 passes, 3 of which converted on key third-down plays.
Bowers, who wasn’t used much in the first three games of the season and finally started to show his stuff the previous week against UAB, had one of his greatest games Saturday, particularly in the second half, as he became Beck’s go-to target.
Bowers wound up catching 9 passes for a career-high 157 yards and 1 TD (a terrific 40-yard play that saw him break a tackle, allowing Georgia to take the lead for good at 27-20).
Bowers could have had even more, but a clingy Auburn defense broke up a couple of red zone passes to him in the first half.
It was No. 19′s ninth game as a Bulldog in which he had more than 100 yards receiving. Asked by Dell after the game about his reliance on Bowers, Beck grinned and said, “He just keeps making play after play after play, so of course he’s going to get the ball.”
Also, while offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, many fans’ favorite whipping boy, was a bit conservative with some of his first-half calls, he and Beck were superb on third-down attempts after intermission. Overall, Georgia converted on 8 of its 13 third-down tries, while Auburn converted on just 2 of its attempts to convert. That was a big key in the game.
For the day, Beck completed 23 of 33 passes for 313 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception (a close play where the receiver and defender fought over the ball, finally decided by video review).
Beck led Georgia on a couple of key long drives, including a 98-yarder that featured good calls by Bobo and some flinty play by the Dawgs’ QB. It probably was Georgia’s best drive of the season so far.
The Dawgs were 4-for-4 in the red zone Saturday, with 2 touchdowns and 2 field goals.
Georgia wound up with 107 yards on the ground, but the running game was inconsistent much of the day. Daijun Edwards gained 76 yards on 19 carries and 2 TDs while receiver-runner Dillon Bell had 25 rushing yards on 4 carries.
Overall, it wasn’t a great day for the Dawgs’ defense, either, with some poor tackling at times as Auburn’s one-dimensional attack had 307 yards of offense on 63 plays, with 219 yards coming on the ground. That was the first time a Georgia defense has given up more than 200 yards rushing since LSU in 2018.
Said Smart: “We didn’t do a good job against the run today. … That’s not who we are. And we’ve got to do a better job. … It was not our caliber of performance.”
Leading tackler for the Dawgs was Smael Mondon (11 plus a sack), while Javon Bullard had a career-high 9 tackles. Tykee Smith also had a sack, as did Xavian Sorey.
And another positive for the D was that a couple of key stops resulted in the Tigers being stymied on 4th-and-1 deep in Georgia territory late in the first half, which ended up looming large in the final result. Another key defensive play was the interception by Malaki Starks that sealed Auburn’s fate with 1:28 left in the game.
Special teams play generally was solid, with placekicker Peyton Woodring making both his field goal attempts and Brett Thorson averaging 46.7 yards on 3 punts. Mekhi Mews did put a scare into Dawgs fans, though, when he tried to catch a booming Auburn punt over his shoulder and dropped the ball. He recovered it, but hopefully he’ll learn to let those balls go in the future. On the plus side, Mews had a 41-yard kickoff return in the first half that helped set up Georgia’s first score.
Still, Georgia comes out of the hard-fought win over Auburn with some pressing concerns.
First among them: the defense, especially against the run. The Dawgs’ defense especially seemed to have trouble handling it when Auburn’s two quarterbacks ran the ball, and the defensive front was manhandled at times by the Tigers’ offensive line.
We haven’t seen the Dawgs gashed that badly in a long time. They couldn’t set the edge or contain Auburn’s backs and QBs for much of the game and seemed lost at times against what basically was a very limited offense. (The Tigers don’t really have much of a passing attack.)
For a program that has prided itself on shutting down opponents’ rushing attack for the past two years, this was a rude awakening.
Of course, injuries have played a part in that, as well as being a factor in Georgia having a hard time establishing a consistent running game, especially up the middle, where opponents are selling out to stop Dawgs rushers. The offensive line, rejuggled due to injury, didn’t get a consistent push against Auburn’s defensive front, which hampered the Dawgs’ rushing attack. Subpar play by the guards also hampered pass protection, meaning Beck frequently was throwing under extreme pressure or as he was hit.
The question that lingers after the game: Were basic weaknesses in Georgia’s run defense and offensive line revealed by the Tigers, or are these problems that can be corrected?
One issue that definitely should be fixable is ball security. Turnovers have become a problem for the Dawgs, with two of them Saturday resulting in touchdowns for the Tigers.
As for those slow starts, Smart said after the game that he still is trying to figure out what the problem is, but it looks like maybe Bobo just needs to accept that he’s got a pass-first offense and let his air game set up whatever rushing attack the Dawgs can establish, rather than wasting early possessions on attempts to run up the middle. Also, rather than starting conservatively and waiting to see what the defense is going to do, Georgia just needs to attack all-out right from the start.
That’s particularly important now that the Dawgs are into the conference schedule. So far, through its first two SEC games this year, Georgia’s average margin of victory is 8.5 points. The past two years, Georgia posted back-to-back 8-0 marks in SEC action with the average margin of victory being 25.5 (2022) and 31.9 (2021). Quite a change.
At end of day, UGA beat a hated rival on road on a day when made it lot of mistakes and showed resilience doing so. But, overall, this team definitely looks bit behind its immediate predecessors.
Summing up, Smart allowed in his post-game press conference that “obviously, we did not play our best game today, but we are a very resilient team.”
He granted, though, that “you don’t know how many times you are going to be able to do that when you turn the ball over and give people extra possessions. You just can’t do that. Good football teams don’t do that, and good football teams don’t let people run the ball on them for 200 yards. That is one of the things we knew they would do well. I thought they really ran the ball well, and they used the quarterback and rushed the ball on us. We can’t do that. We have to run the ball better, too.”
The head coach said he was “proud of the way we competed, and we’ve got to continue to get better. That is the most important thing for our team.
“So, lot of things we did wrong, lot of things we did well. We aren’t going to get to where we want to go if we don’t get better, and that is the biggest thing.”
The optimistic view was expressed by McConkey, who conceded, “we can definitely play better football,” but noted: “Anytime you come out with a win on the road in the SEC, Coach Smart is always pumped up about that. We can play better football.”
They’re going to need to, what with a red-hot and hard-running Kentucky team coming into Athens for an SEC battle of the unbeaten.
