The Night Georgia Became the Bully
ATHENS - Often program-changing moments happen when you least expect it.
The vast majority of Georgia fans think the Dawgs under Kirby Smart changed the moment Jacob Eason was hurt in the 2017 season opener, and that is true. But I was there in Lexington two years ago, and I witnessed first hand the reaction and fallout from the program growing up in a big way that night.
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I would argue that Georgia’s final-play win over the Cats that night was as important as anything else that followed in 2017. It gave them confidence that they could play Bully Ball and win. They found a place kicker who could hit game winners. Slowly, and without many folks noticing it, things were coming together.
But that moment and game has been forgotten because that wasn’t a team that played for a national title, and the foe was a Kentucky program that wasn’t respected by anyone nationally. My how times have changed.
To set the stage - Georgia was a narrow 2.5-point favorite (the lowest such line in the series since 1998), and the Dawgs were 4-4 and coming off back-to-back losses to Vanderbilt and Florida where the team struggled to run (75 yards vs. Vandy; 21 vs. the Gators).
The Auburn game loomed a week later. Georgia needed this win on a lot of different levels. A bowl game was not a certainty - neither was a winning record in Kirby Smart’s first year.
What happened that night was that Georgia committed to Bully Ball in the very simplest of ways. It quit asking Jacob Eason, the young talent from Washington, to throw a ton like it had in games like Ole Miss, Missouri and Vanderbilt. Instead, UGA focused on running the ball with what they had - a not-great offensive line with two star backs.
It was a struggle, but it worked.
Georgia ran it 42 times for 215 yards. UK ran it, too, 40 times for 186 yards. In the end the Dawgs rallied from down 21-13 in the third quarter to win the game with an Eason-led 75-yard FG drive.
It was his third great drive of the season to end a game.
We learned that night that Rodrigo Blankenship, who hadn’t even begun the year as the starting place kicker, was clutch. We already knew Eason could lead a game-winning drive, but he proved that again that night. We found out that the defense would stiffen when it had to - like when the Cats were driving the field to win the game, and the UGA defense forced a FG after absorbing first and goal with Benny Snell breathing down their necks.
I saw the reaction after the game in a corridor at Commonwealth Stadium. It wasn’t the typical “we beat Kentucky”, or even the “we won a road SEC game”. The team and support staff were enthusiastic about what they had accomplished.
That night Georgia, and maybe even Kirby Smart, found themselves as a program. Since then they’ve lost exactly four games, which is as many as they had traveling to Lexington that night.
They started becoming the bully - disposing of No. 8 Auburn a week later and going 7-3 against ranked foes ever since driving the field for the win against the Cats. Georgia’s philosophy may not have changed, but its execution has. UGA has had exactly one game (2017 at Auburn) with fewer than 100 yards rushing. It came into that cold night in Lexington with back-to-back sub-100-yard rushing games.
Everything changed.
That’s not sexy, but it is true.
The 2016 Kentucky game jump started this program… you just forgot about it.
Understandably.
Something tells me you will be paying closer attention this Saturday in Lexington.
