It’s time for recalibration.
We entered this season with our eyes fixed solely on a threepeat, a third consecutive national championship, for the Georgia Bulldogs. But after a number of underwhelming performances and a narrow escape down on the Plains in a 27-20 win over Auburn, that threepeat is looking less and less attainable by the week.
It’s not the fact that we’ve played close games that makes me rethink this team’s ceiling—it’s the performances in those games. In the past, teams were able to hang around through some combination of big plays on their part and mistakes on ours, whether that be turnovers or penalties. While Auburn had help from those on Saturday, they were also able to run the ball on us like no other team has in years.
The Tigers’ 216 rushing yards was the most the Dawgs have allowed since losing to LSU in 2018. A large chunk came on quarterback Payton Thorne’s 61-yarder down the sideline, setting up a first-quarter Auburn field goal. Outside runs by the QB have proven a valuable weapon against this defense, as UAB also made plenty of hay with them a few weeks ago. This Georgia defense just doesn’t fly to the edges the way its immediate predecessors did, and it will create problems on outside runs and passes into the flat.
Auburn was also able to capitalize on turnovers, scoring touchdowns on the ensuing drives following a Carson Beck interception in the first quarter and an Oscar Delp fumble on the first snap of the second half. There’s a general sloppiness about this team that wasn’t present the last few seasons.
“Good football teams don’t [turn the ball over], and good football teams don’t let people run the ball on them for 200 yards,” Kirby Smart said after the game.
So how did we stave off disaster? With a little help from a dude named Brock Bowers, maybe the best player in college football.
Bowers was a nonfactor in the first half with only two catches for nine yards. Then Mike Bobo remembered there was a generational talent basically doing nothing and decided to get him involved. (In truth, Auburn cornerback Jaylin Simpson, who had been helping shut Bowers down, went out with an injury.)
Beck connected with Bowers six more times in the second half to bring the tight end’s total for the day to eight catches for 157 yards. Included in that was a one-handed catch on a ball thrown behind him and an even more eye-popping one-handed snag on the next play that didn’t count thanks to a penalty. Bowers capped it off with a 40-yard touchdown catch and scamper to win the game in the fourth quarter, and also tie A.J. Green for the second-most receiving touchdowns in school history (23). It was the kind of play that would highlight most players’ careers, but Bowers has about a dozen other amazing plays, as well as that late touchdown, in Indy to hang his hat on.
But I don’t know if Bowers can save us every week, and it feels like the slip-up is coming. I can’t tell you where it will be, but it feels like it is around the corner. Put simply, these Dawgs ain’t the ‘21 or ‘22 Dawgs. There isn’t as much elite talent in the trenches defensively, and Beck doesn’t have the same spark Stetson Bennett had. At some point you have to look at what’s happening on the field and take it at face value, especially after more than a month of play. There’s a chance that this team finds another gear and starts blowing out opponents like we’ve done the last few years. It’s more likely that this is just the level that we’re at this season.
Kentucky is up next, and they will put our run defense to the test. The ‘Cats ran for 329 yards in a win over Florida last weekend, including 280 from star tailback Ray Davis. If they come to Sanford and beat us next week, I would be surprised but not shocked. There’s just a lot that is still not working on this team, and we’re running out of time to fix it.
Until we lose, though, you ain’t gonna hear me say we don’t have a shot at that threepeat. But if we do manage to somehow pull it out this year, it’s gonna be ugly.
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