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New Georgia looks like the old Georgia in ugly loss
COLLEGE
By Jeff Schultz - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OXFORD, MISS. â This is the kind of game that got a head coach fired.
This is the kind of game that would cause everybody â boosters, fans, administrators, media, a series of Ugas â to look around and wonder: Shouldnât Georgia be better?
Shouldnât Georgia be at a level where the offense doesnât go scoreless on its first nine possessions ⊠where the team doesnât fall behind 45-0 ⊠where the defense doesnât get gutted for more than 500 yards in the first three quarters ⊠where on a day when the starting quarterback is having enough problems making a completion, his receivers donât compound the misery by dropping three consecutive passes in one series?
Didnât Georgia fire Mark Richt and hire Kirby Smart because it wanted to get past humiliation?
âWhat a tremendous atmosphere to play in and we didnât respond the right way,â Smart said Saturday.
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Georgia quarterback Jacob Eason looks for an escape route before being sacked by Ole Miss Rebels defensive tackle D.J. Jones during ... Read More
No. They didnât respond. They got knocked down and laid down and stayed down.
Ole Miss 45, Georgia 14. If that doesnât suggest the win over North Carolina wasnât an aberration, what does?
Think about it. Since that season-opening win, the Dogs barely defeated an FCS opponent (Nicholls State) it was expected to destroy and pulled out a win at Missouri only because of unlikely last-minute heroics by their freshman quarterback, Jacob Eason.
There was no possibility of a comeback against Mississippi, at least nothing this side of locusts or divine intervention.
The Bulldogs were punched in the face and didnât respond. Youâre never going to hear a player or a coach say, âWe quit.â But teams donât fall behind 45-0 when theyâre matching the effort level of their opponents. They fall behind 45-0 when they give up big plays, fall behind, look up at the scoreboard and suddenly think, âGet me out of here.â
âIt snowballed and we didnât have anybody step up and make a play,â Smart said.
To be clear, he wasnât putting it all on the players. He accepted responsibility for his teamâs performance but seemed shocked by it. This kind of thing never happened in Tuscaloosa.
The Dogs trailed 31-0 at halftime. The last time Georgia collapsed like that came in 2008 in Sanford Stadium, the opponent was Alabama and Smart was the Tideâs defensive coordinator.
Different view. Different team. Different culture?
When Smart took over, he talked about raising the standard in Athens and changing the culture of a program that he believed was comprised of too many players âwith a sense of entitlement.â
His analysis wasnât inaccurate. As many solid seasons as Georgia had under Mark Richt, there were too many games like Saturdayâs when they just didnât show up. So a change was made.
A change was made, wasnât it?
At 45-0 midway through the first quarter, this game was on the way to being a worse loss than any Richt experienced as coach â 49-10 to Florida in 2008. But two window-dressing touchdowns prevented that level of humiliation, as if 45-14 in a coachâs fourth game isnât bad enough.
âI had no idea,â Smart said when asked if he believed his team was capable of such a performance. âI expected our team to come out and fight and play well. You never believe youâre going to play like that. We didnât respond well when they had success. In every other game, weâve responded. Itâs disappointing to be in a big game like this and have a letdown.â
Some will blame the young quarterback. Donât.
Eason was an island. Heâs talented but heâs young. Heâs playing behind a dreadful offensive line. He completed only 16 of 36 passes for 137 yards with a pick six in the first quarter. He was sacked three times and appeared to have âhappy feetâ on a few plays.
Georgiaâs 230 yards rushing was a stat-sheet mirage. They were mostly empty yards, coming after the game was out of reach, and many against Ole Miss backups. Nick Chubb left the game in the second quarter with an ankle sprain.
The worst sequence for the offense came in the second quarter when, trailing 24-0, Smart felt compelled to try something different. So on fourth-and-7 from the Georgia 40, he called a fake punt. It worked, with Marshall Long completing a 29-yard pass to Sony Michel. And then âŠ
Jayson Stanley dropped a perfect pass from Eason in the end zone. And Isaiah McKenzie dropped a would-be first-down pass at the 12. And McKenzie dropped another pass.
McKenzie still seemed dazed afterward.
âShocking,â he said.
Just as nobody on offense could bail out Eason, the defense couldnât bail out the offense. Compounding the lack of a pass rush was fractured coverage.
âAt one point, we were playing different coverages,â defensive back Juwan Briscoe said.
The best summary came from Dominick Sanders: âWe kinda screwed up on the back end. We kinda screwed up on the front end.â
Ole Miss scoring drives looked like a series of races. The elapsed times: 2:20, 2:57, 10 seconds, 1:27, 1:47, 53 seconds.
Defense is Smartâs specialty. Even thatâs not going well. It was a short honeymoon.
New Georgia looks like the old Georgia in ugly loss | www.myajc.com
COLLEGE
By Jeff Schultz - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OXFORD, MISS. â This is the kind of game that got a head coach fired.
This is the kind of game that would cause everybody â boosters, fans, administrators, media, a series of Ugas â to look around and wonder: Shouldnât Georgia be better?
Shouldnât Georgia be at a level where the offense doesnât go scoreless on its first nine possessions ⊠where the team doesnât fall behind 45-0 ⊠where the defense doesnât get gutted for more than 500 yards in the first three quarters ⊠where on a day when the starting quarterback is having enough problems making a completion, his receivers donât compound the misery by dropping three consecutive passes in one series?
Didnât Georgia fire Mark Richt and hire Kirby Smart because it wanted to get past humiliation?
âWhat a tremendous atmosphere to play in and we didnât respond the right way,â Smart said Saturday.
+
Georgia quarterback Jacob Eason looks for an escape route before being sacked by Ole Miss Rebels defensive tackle D.J. Jones during ... Read More
No. They didnât respond. They got knocked down and laid down and stayed down.
Ole Miss 45, Georgia 14. If that doesnât suggest the win over North Carolina wasnât an aberration, what does?
Think about it. Since that season-opening win, the Dogs barely defeated an FCS opponent (Nicholls State) it was expected to destroy and pulled out a win at Missouri only because of unlikely last-minute heroics by their freshman quarterback, Jacob Eason.
There was no possibility of a comeback against Mississippi, at least nothing this side of locusts or divine intervention.
The Bulldogs were punched in the face and didnât respond. Youâre never going to hear a player or a coach say, âWe quit.â But teams donât fall behind 45-0 when theyâre matching the effort level of their opponents. They fall behind 45-0 when they give up big plays, fall behind, look up at the scoreboard and suddenly think, âGet me out of here.â
âIt snowballed and we didnât have anybody step up and make a play,â Smart said.
To be clear, he wasnât putting it all on the players. He accepted responsibility for his teamâs performance but seemed shocked by it. This kind of thing never happened in Tuscaloosa.
The Dogs trailed 31-0 at halftime. The last time Georgia collapsed like that came in 2008 in Sanford Stadium, the opponent was Alabama and Smart was the Tideâs defensive coordinator.
Different view. Different team. Different culture?
When Smart took over, he talked about raising the standard in Athens and changing the culture of a program that he believed was comprised of too many players âwith a sense of entitlement.â
His analysis wasnât inaccurate. As many solid seasons as Georgia had under Mark Richt, there were too many games like Saturdayâs when they just didnât show up. So a change was made.
A change was made, wasnât it?
At 45-0 midway through the first quarter, this game was on the way to being a worse loss than any Richt experienced as coach â 49-10 to Florida in 2008. But two window-dressing touchdowns prevented that level of humiliation, as if 45-14 in a coachâs fourth game isnât bad enough.
âI had no idea,â Smart said when asked if he believed his team was capable of such a performance. âI expected our team to come out and fight and play well. You never believe youâre going to play like that. We didnât respond well when they had success. In every other game, weâve responded. Itâs disappointing to be in a big game like this and have a letdown.â
Some will blame the young quarterback. Donât.
Eason was an island. Heâs talented but heâs young. Heâs playing behind a dreadful offensive line. He completed only 16 of 36 passes for 137 yards with a pick six in the first quarter. He was sacked three times and appeared to have âhappy feetâ on a few plays.
Georgiaâs 230 yards rushing was a stat-sheet mirage. They were mostly empty yards, coming after the game was out of reach, and many against Ole Miss backups. Nick Chubb left the game in the second quarter with an ankle sprain.
The worst sequence for the offense came in the second quarter when, trailing 24-0, Smart felt compelled to try something different. So on fourth-and-7 from the Georgia 40, he called a fake punt. It worked, with Marshall Long completing a 29-yard pass to Sony Michel. And then âŠ
Jayson Stanley dropped a perfect pass from Eason in the end zone. And Isaiah McKenzie dropped a would-be first-down pass at the 12. And McKenzie dropped another pass.
McKenzie still seemed dazed afterward.
âShocking,â he said.
Just as nobody on offense could bail out Eason, the defense couldnât bail out the offense. Compounding the lack of a pass rush was fractured coverage.
âAt one point, we were playing different coverages,â defensive back Juwan Briscoe said.
The best summary came from Dominick Sanders: âWe kinda screwed up on the back end. We kinda screwed up on the front end.â
Ole Miss scoring drives looked like a series of races. The elapsed times: 2:20, 2:57, 10 seconds, 1:27, 1:47, 53 seconds.
Defense is Smartâs specialty. Even thatâs not going well. It was a short honeymoon.
New Georgia looks like the old Georgia in ugly loss | www.myajc.com
