Legge's Thoughts: Dawgs Sloppy, but Still Lethal
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ATHENS - A few weeks, and certainly a few years from now, today won’t be remembered for Kirby Smart’s No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs 33-0 win over Samford.
The win, not as crisp as you might like, was a win.
Notre Dame and Texas A&M don’t know what that’s like right now. Nebraska, which should have fired Scott Frost by the time you’ve read this, is beyond a mess. Alabama’s survival at Texas was due at least in part to their DNA.
Kentucky took out the Gators, which wasn’t a surprise to anyone that’s been listening to Dawg Post of late (if I don't self congratulate myself who will self congratulate me?)
What Georgia did Saturday was unimpressive. The Dawgs were sluggish in the red zone. Stetson Bennett threw for 300 yards, but Georgia’s kicked too many field goals. And FG attempts get you beat. These Dawgs seem like they are missing more often than they should in the run game.
Maybe that will get better. Maybe that’s not their style any more. Maybe it won’t get better, but watching the Cats and Gators tonight it is pretty clear that Florida can get run on - hard. Kentucky gutted them in the Swamp.
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Meanwhile, Desmond Howard had a tough day Saturday. Texas A&M, the team he picked to win the national title, lost to Appalachian State at home. Pitt, another team he picked to be in the playoff, lost at home. I’m watching as BYU leads another of Howard’s picks in the second half; Update: Baylor lost in overtime.
Imagine picking three teams to get the the playoff, and them all losing in week two. That’s hard to accomplish.
What are we doing? Did he really pick those teams as serious playoff teams? Does he actually watch the games that are played? Don't we owe our audience more than this?
Back to Nick Saban and Alabama - that was a gutsy win at Texas. Louisville had a gutsy win at UCF Friday night, but when Alabama plays down to the level of its foe, and comes back to dig the game out at the end it is something we’ve grown to expect.
Two things. First, Bryce Young is a heck of a player. He does a lot of really good things in the clutch. That scramble late earned Alabama the win. Leading against Alabama is not the same thing as beating Alabama. Georgia is aware of that fact. Knocking Alabama down is not the same as knocking Alabama out. Those, too, are not at all the same thing.
Texas knocked Bama down, but Alabama always gets up.
Second, with all of that said - Alabama does need to play better… particularly on the road. This is another example of them getting a win, but looking really poor in the process. If Will Anderson is the best player in college football why is he jumping offsides twice and committing late-hit personal foul penalties? That’s not good, which is one way to describe the way Alabama plays on the road the last few times they’ve traveled.
Bama has to go to Arkansas, Tennessee, LSU and Ole Miss. It might look and sound strange to say this, but the way they’ve played on the road with Young as their starting quarterback they could lose any of those four games.
Arkansas looks like it could run around with Alabama. After this weekend, and the amount of mistakes Bama had, at lot of people look like they can.
That’s not to say Georgia was flawless - they were not.
“We’ve got to play better. We didn’t play our best game. We know that. Our kids acknowledge that. We start the SEC gauntlet next week,” Kirby said after the game.
It wasn’t the standard we’ve grown accustomed to. Several offensive players said after the game that Samford gave some looks they were not expecting. But it was about a lack of execution on Saturday. We didn’t see that last Saturday in Atlanta, and did you see the Ducks score 70 on Saturday?
Georgia is going to be a heavy, heavy favorite to beat the Chickens. Cootlumbia is a tough place to play, and USC hates the Dawgs. Decades of beatings will do that. But I fully expect Georgia to be near full throttle when the heat starts to beat down on the field this coming weekend.
Carolina’s loss in the Ozarks showed they don’t easily quit. It also shows they are in the bottom half of the league. UGA didn’t play efficient on Saturday and still had nearly 500 yards of offense. I watched Spencer Rattler play the Hogs - this isn’t going to end well for him unless the Cocks control the line of scrimmage, and that’s not been the pattern over Kirby’s tenure in Athens.
I expected a beating; I think a lot of folks expect that. Georgia not being totally in tune for the game with Samford probably isn’t ideal for the Cocks. Because while Georgia wasn’t crisp - they weren’t trash, either. We saw Alabama rack up tons of penalties. We saw Texas A&M fall apart. We saw Notre Dame have the ball jammed down their throats by the Men of Marshall. We saw Kentucky manhandle the Gators.
What we saw in Athens is that this program can win in any different numbers of ways. They can outscore you, or they can not permit you to score. We’ve not seen them totally control a game with the run yet, but that might not be their style.
It wasn’t great, but considering the bullets that were flying in college football on Saturday - a 33-point shutout win is not a horrible result. But we’ve grown to expect a show from the Dawgs… we don’t always get that. Every day can’t be special.
