AUSTIN, Texas — Kirby Smart had his chest out Saturday night after Georgia beat Texas, playing the nobody-believed-in-us card, saying, “They tried to rob us” and shooing off anyone saying Carson Beck didn’t play well.
“I think he played really good,” Smart said of his quaterback.
An opinion not shared by, among other people, Beck.
“I was just off, it felt like, the entire game,” Beck said. “I gotta get better. I gotta be better for this team. It’s a great day that our defense showed up the way that they did, considering the way that I played.”
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He threw three interceptions, and the offense set a season-low for yards per play, and yet, Georgia went into the stadium of what was the No. 1 team in the country and won by 15 points. No wonder Smart was feeling feisty. Well, that and the whole “They tried to rob us” thing.
We’ll get to that (briefly.) We’ll also get to how the defense played like it was 2021. But first, after returning from Austin and watching the broadcast version of the game, let’s begin with thoughts on Beck and the offense.
Beck’s not back
When Smart said Beck played well, Georgia’s coach pointed to a couple of key plays: a third-down completion to Arian Smith and a third-down scramble for a first down to essentially seal the game. Those were indeed big plays by Beck.
Smart pointed to what he estimated were eight drops by his receivers. Whether it was that many depends: On the first two plays of the game, Dillon Bell didn’t haul in two passes that were not perfect but probably catchable. Beck’s second interception was a slightly high throw that Lawson Luckie could have caught, but the ball went off his hands and to a Texas player. Then there were some out-and-out drops, including a clear one by London Humphries.
But there were some out-and-out poor throws and poor decisions, including Beck’s first interception, for instance, when he threw into close coverage. A few other passes were just off.
It’s clear why Smart is handling Beck the way he is. Smart defends players when they’re down, and Beck is down. His body language can seem like he’s discouraged, almost defeated. But the thing about Beck is he keeps going out there. Maybe the body language is about steadiness. Beck is a golfer, and a good golfer forgets about a bad tee shot to try to reach the green on the next shot.
Smart keeps pointing to Beck not having last year’s receivers. That doesn’t just include the long-gone Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey, who Beck knew he would be without entering the season. Rara Thomas and Colbie Young, both dismissed from the program, were outside receivers who could be relied on for the third down-type catches that Bowers and McConkey made last year.
The idea that Georgia lacks enough good receivers is overblown and not backed up by the stats. Smart either disagrees or is using it to back up Beck. Or there’s a middle ground where the receivers are good but Beck just hasn’t built trust, which may be a bit on the quarterback. It’s not clear what Dominic Lovett or Bell need to do anymore, frankly, and they’ve been around for a couple of years. Maybe Smith’s drops are an issue, as is Luckie’s inexperience. But Lovett and Bell are experienced and explosive and have been dependable enough.
And yet, for all this angst about Beck, the Bulldogs keep passing the ball: 41 passes, 23 runs, with seven of those runs coming in run-the-clock-out time. Could Georgia have run the ball more? Sure. But it was part of an overall strategy that, by the way, worked.
Offensive game plan
To the bullet points:
• Watching the first six games, Georgia has been better when it had a downfield passing attack that helped set up the run. In this game, Georgia came out passing: The first three plays and 11 of the first 14 plays were passes. The result was a three-and-out and two interceptions, so on its face, it was a failed strategy.
Georgia kept passing. After getting the ball at the Texas 27-yard line early in the second quarter, all six plays were passes. The result was the Bulldogs settling for a field goal.
But did all that passing set up the run and made the run more effective as the game went on? Texas did take more players out of the box, opening the running lanes. The second time Georgia got a short field — after a Daylen Everette interception — Georgia again came out throwing the first two times, this time having success, and then handed the ball to Trevor Etienne for a 15-yard run.
In the second quarter, there were 10 passes and only five runs, and Georgia extended the lead to 23-0. On a 90-yard touchdown drive in the second half, Georgia began with a run (for no yards) and then had five straight passes to get down near the goal line. Even with Beck struggling, offensive coordinator Mike Bobo kept putting the ball in his hands.
• It’s too simplistic to say: Here are the rushing numbers, and here are the passing numbers; Georgia should have run it more. It’s all connected and the pass-first strategy worked, and it would have gone even better if Beck and the receivers had played more cleanly.
Also, Georgia passing that much shows the coaches think that’s what the offense does best. Maybe when Tate Ratledge returns from injury and Jared Wilson is fully healthy that will change. But as Kirk Herbstreit pointed out, Georgia entered the game second-to-last in the SEC in tailback yards before contact. The pass-heavy attack played to the offense’s strengths or at least avoided the weakness.
• Etienne is so good. We know how dynamic he is, but he runs with experience: On his first touchdown run, a 2-yarder, he waited a moment for Oscar Delp to seal the edge then sprinted toward the pylon.
• Was the offense great? No, but it was effective: When it got short fields, it usually capitalized, getting the 23 points in the first half.
But when things got closer in the second half, the offense went 90 yards for a touchdown.
The yards-per-play metric took a hit: 3.99, which was Georgia’s lowest of the season. The previous low was 4.88 at Kentucky, and the season average is currently 6.44. But the scoring output (30 points) was just three below the season average.
Defense
• Getting healthier on defense has been important. Mykel Williams returning gets much of the attention, but don’t forget Warren Brinson, who lined up in the middle and stuffed a second-and-6 run for basically no gain late in the first quarter. That happened when Brinson beat his man one-on-one, and there was a lot of that in this game: Georgia’s defensive line beating Texas’ offensive line, which was a great sign for the Bulldogs. There still isn’t that dominant Jalen Carter or Jordan Davis player in the middle, but players like Brinson and Nazir Stackhouse are still better than most of the centers and guards they line up against.
• This gets forgotten because of how the rest of the first half played out, but Texas began the game getting two first downs. The signs, however, were already there: Georgia was guarding the edges well and limiting the damage: a 9-yard pass and then an 8-yard run, not great but not explosive, forcing the Longhorns to be consistent. That’s the formula for success for this defense: take away explosive plays, then go after offenses in shorter fields. The more defenses make offenses work, the more they press, and then the defenses hit them with things like Everette’s corner blitz.
The effect is the defense having the initiative and being aggressive in some spots — like an all-out blitz midway through the second quarter that produced a sack — or sometimes only rushing three or four.
• The secondary coverage was generally good, as you could tell the first time Texas faced third down: Georgia rushed only three, even keeping Jalon Walker back as a spy, so essentially it was seven-on-five. But it was man-to-man defense and Quinn Ewers didn’t have anyone break open, even though he had time to pass.
When Walker sacked Ewers early in the second quarter, it was after Ewers spent about five seconds looking for an open receiver. Again, good coverage. (Not to take anything away from Walker, who beat likely future NFL first-round draft pick Kelvin Banks one-on-one to get that sack.)
• Malaki Starks was all over the field early in the game, coming up to stop short passes and was all over the receivers in man-to-man coverage. He played close to the line a lot, which puts one of Georgia’s best players closer to the ball, such as a screen pass on the first drive that he snuffed out for a 1-yard loss.
• The linebackers got to the edges much better, particularly CJ Allen. The inability of Texas to get many stretch runs was huge, forcing the Longhorns into a lot of third-down passing situations, a big reason it went 2-for-15 on third down. Recall how mediocre Georgia had been on third downs entering the game: It was eighth in the SEC after leading the conference each of the past two years. Now Georgia is fifth in the conference.
• What more can you say about Walker? Not much, other than he talked about how much he had watched Ewers’ tendencies, ready to know how and when to attack. It was notable that Walker spied Ewers on a few plays even though Ewers isn’t a runner, seeming to take away even the mild scramble. When the more mobile Arch Manning entered the game Walker again spied, ending up chasing Manning down the sideline for a sack. A play later, Walker rushed and forced a sack and strip.
The recurring theme, with Walker and the defense as a whole, is unpredictability.
• All that said, Georgia’s defense showed some bend in the second half. Texas’ first drive came on a shorter field, after an unintentional squib kick, and had only one explosive play, and that happened with Walker in the locker room. The next drive, going from its 5 to Georgia’s 31, was much the same until Georgia held, with Julian Humphrey making a fourth-down stop. Then came a Texas touchdown on a 17-yard pass up the middle, which was left open. And the next drive reached Georgia territory.
KJ Bolden then made one of the key plays of the game, smacking Quin Wisner just before he could get past the first-down marker. As a result, Texas went for it on fourth-and-1, but a false start made it fourth-and-6, and Ewers was stripped by Williams on a dropback.
Texas reached Georgia territory on its next two possessions but didn’t get points.
The two-pronged key to the second half:
• When Texas got within a possession and had momentum, the Georgia offense did its job.
• Then the Georgia defense gave ground, but it made Texas work for things, limiting explosive plays, taking up time and not getting points.
The incident
Plenty has been said, but for posterity, here’s a breakdown by time, starting when the play happened:
0:00: The play ends, with a flag thrown during the play by field judge Antonio Smith.
0:45: After consulting, the flag is announced by referee Matt Loeffler.
1:02: The crowd reacts after seeing the replay.
1:54: Play stops as the debris rains on the field after the ball has been marked and eight seconds run off the clock (from 2:48 to 2:40).
2:20: Steve Sarkisian goes over to tell the fans to stop.
3:48: Herbstreit says they’ve shown the replay on the stadium’s big screen “a few times.”
4:10: Loeffler, Smith and three other officials are shown conferring.
4:45: Loeffler announces: “After discussion, there was no defensive pass interference.”
Then there was an incredulous Smart chewing out Loeffler and holding a finger up as he walked away, in the way of someone who does not need to speak to your supervisor because he has better things to do but wants you to know how angry he is.
The targeting calls
Safety Dan Jackson and nickel back Joenel Aguero were called for targeting and ejected in the fourth quarter and thus will miss the first half of the Florida game. After re-watching, the calls seemed fair.
The key, as Matt Austin pointed out, is lowering the head as the tackle is made. It doesn’t have to be helmet to helmet. The rule exists to try to change player behavior, and as much as many people may not like it, the people on the NCAA rules committee, including Smart, say it’s having the desired effect.
Georgia didn’t get a lot of breaks with calls in this game, but those two calls looked right.
Finally …
Last week I wrote about concerns (even within the program) about not enough player leadership, that Georgia may have too nice of a group with nobody holding each other accountable. Take a look at this clip from the final two minutes of the game: Humphrey makes a nice play in the end zone, then celebrates — and Walker proceeds to berate him.
Jalon Walker is just like me telling 12 to aye aye cut that shit out. pic.twitter.com/y9sMwtfMoT
— Trey (@Trey2Triggerr) October 21, 2024
Whatever Walker’s NIL number is from the collective, triple it.
(Top photo of Kirby Smart: Tim Warner / Getty Images)
