The scene, by all accounts, and contrary to what you would think, was calm. Kirby Smart walked into the Georgia halftime locker room and saw the offense on one side of the locker room and the defense on the other side. Everyone calm.
No need for a fiery speech that challenged anyone. Just a few words about taking the comeback one play at a time and a reminder about last year’s game at Missouri.
“I used that as a reference of, ‘We’ve been here before, we’ve done this before,’” Smart said after his team rallied for a 24-14 win over South Carolina. “We are resilient. Shane (Beamer) said after the game, ‘You showed why you have a championship-caliber football team.’ Teams that are championship caliber, they find a way when they don’t have their best game.”
Then Smart added: “We’ve got to figure out why we didn’t have our best game.”
That’s his job. It’s everyone else’s job to judge how concerning it is that Georgia hasn’t looked all that great so far, especially on Saturday. It seems there are a couple of moves here:
Option 1: Panic. A team that gets outplayed so badly at home by an unranked team is due for a loss, especially one with a new quarterback who has looked OK, a new offensive coordinator whose unit seems in no hurry to score points, a new kicker who is missing way too many field goals and a defense that should be the core of the team but looked mortal for 30 minutes on Saturday.
Option 2: Look around the country and feel better.
Michigan, the No. 2 team in the land, was clinging to a 14-6 lead over Bowling Green in the second half on Saturday.
Ohio State, the team that almost knocked off Georgia last year, has had three “meh” performances.
Florida State barely escaped Boston College. Texas was losing to Wyoming after the first quarter. Alabama, well, who knows what’s happening there.
Notre Dame actually has been impressive. Washington and Penn State too. But if they played Georgia next week on a neutral field, who would you pick? (I might actually pick against the Bulldogs. But those games aren’t next week.)
There’s something to be said for surviving, as Georgia did on Saturday, as it did last year against Missouri. The team that barely won that game was not good enough to go unbeaten the entire season and win the national championship. But that team either learned from that or was so good it won on a bad night (or both).
This year’s team can do that. It would just be nice to have a standout, dominant game to lean on to know the first half against South Carolina was an aberration, rather than a potential red flag.
“I have expectations to go out and dominate and create a nightmare and make them never want to play you again. We didn’t do that today,” Smart said. “But we did respond to adversity. And that’s all it is. It’s happening all over the country guys. Go look. All over the country, people have to play close games to get better. And the expectations that is created of these top-tier teams, it wasn’t created by them, it was created by perception.
“You are what you do on the field. We are what you do on the field. We are right now a team that’s played three average first halfs. I don’t know if you’d even consider them average. But they have responded.”
As convenience would have it, one of the players who was on the other end of that Missouri game last year is now on Georgia’s team. Receiver Dominic Lovett was asked whether a better team sometimes needs a spark, or whether there was another lesson to be gleaned.
“Heart,” Lovett said. “You’ve gotta have heart. If you don’t have heart and you feel like you’re defeated, you’re gonna play defeated.”
So the heart is there. Composure is there. That’s great. But other points of real concern are even more evident after this game:
Slow starts
Notably, Smart switched from a what-me-worry outlook last week to acknowledging the team needs to start better. That went for all three phases on Saturday, not just offense, but the offense has had trouble the whole way, accounting for only 10 points in the first quarter through three games. Last year’s offense had more than that after its second possession of the season.
It’s not clear if offensive coordinator Mike Bobo needs to have a better game plan, quarterback Carson Beck needs more time to get going or something else.
“I would say that if we’re going to play good in the second half, we better figure out what’s going on in the first half,” he said. “I thought that we created an identity today in how we came out and played in the second half. Give them credit, and say, ‘Hey good job; what can we do better?’”
Kicking game
Freshman Peyton Woodring is 4-for-7 on the season, including two short misses, plus a makeable 42-yarder on Saturday. Woodring won the job over fourth-year junior Jared Zirkel during the preseason, but it may be worth revisiting that, especially if Georgia is going to be in some close games.
“I’ve seen better in practice,” Smart said. “We’re going to continue to re-evaluate because we’ve gotta do something there. We’ve gotta be able to score points. I’d like to not have to kick those field goals. That’s the first thing.”
Speaking of which:
Red zone
The misses are made more glaring by the field goal misses, but Georgia is leaving more than just three points on the board, as Smart pointed out. And it did get better in the second half.
“I feel like I’ve said that a few times. But it’s something we have to work at,” Beck said. “It’s football. We have a new offense, a few new players in here. It’s just getting down there and executing. Obviously when we were really able to really run the ball that’s when we started rushing it in (the end zone).”
Beck
The question before the season was whether Beck would perform well under pressure, meaning when the game was on the line. For what it’s worth, he did on Saturday. It wasn’t leading a game-winning drive in the final minute, but two quick scoring drives when down 14-3 at halftime mean something. As they went into halftime, Smart went to Beck to tell him: “We believe in you.” But Smart came away thinking Beck didn’t need the pep talk.
“He was not frustrated,” Smart said. “That’s the thing about that kid, he’s not emotional. And that’s the opposite of me.”
Still, part of the reason Georgia was behind falls on the quarterback. Beck has been good with not turning it over, but does the way he aired it out in the second half on Saturday need to be the way he does all the time, lest there be other games the defense isn’t on its A-game?
Health
Receiver Ladd McConkey missed a third straight game with back problems. His prognosis is up in the air. Safety Javon Bullard, clearly missed in the first half, could return from his ankle injury this week. Right tackle Amarius Mims hurt his ankle on Saturday, but the severity is unclear. Tailback Kendall Milton hurt his knee on Saturday, with Smart saying he could return, but any tailback injury is critical with Branson Robinson already out for the year.
There are others dealing with minor injuries. If this team’s margin for error is going to be smaller than other teams, it can ill afford the injuries to pile up.
But what is the margin for error? It’s too early to tell. The SEC is becoming a week-to-week mystery, especially the teams on Georgia’s schedule: Is Tennessee just that bad, or is Florida better than it looked in Week 1? Do we buy into a Missouri team that pulled off the top 15 upset, even if it didn’t inspire confidence the first two weeks? How good is Ole Miss? What will Auburn show in Georgia’s first road game in two weeks?
The national picture is just as muddled. There’s a potential College Football Playoff team in all five power conferences, even the Pac-12, where Caleb Williams and Southern California have looked good, but what would happen if that offense had to play Georgia’s defense?
We can play this game for a while. Or we can look at Georgia and, rather than expecting it to “create a nightmare” for every opponent, grant that it may not be as great this year. And then wonder whether it will need to be.
“There’s lots that we can talk about that they can do better. Lots,” Smart said. “Starting better, what’s causing it, why are we doing it. The world has questions about all these things. But you know what, I found a lot more about my team today than I did any other day this year.”
Source : THEATLETIC