The shoe drops.

Shot.

The Southeastern Conference has directed the University of Georgia and the University of Tennessee to postpone scheduled football games versus Oklahoma because the transition of Oklahoma into the SEC will not allow for the involved institutions to fulfill their respective contractual non-conference home-and-home appearance obligations.

Because the second non-conference game in each of the Georgia-Oklahoma and Tennessee-Oklahoma series is scheduled to take place after Oklahoma joins the SEC in 2025, the Conference is directing the postponement of the Georgia at Oklahoma game in 2023 and the Oklahoma at Tennessee game in 2024 until such time that those matchups become part of the Conference rotation of games in future years.

Chaser.

And there it is. Georgia has replaced Oklahoma on its 2023 schedule with ……. DRUM ROLL ……. Ball State! Teams will play on Sept. 9, 2023 in Athens.

— Chip Towers AJC (@ctowersajc) September 14, 2022

As the header indicates, this was inevitable.  What I don’t know is if that’s simply because of the back end game definitely coming after conference expansion, or if it’s a hint that the two Big 12 schools may be on the move sooner than we expected.  If it’s the former, that kind of sucks.

On the bright side, that means Kirbs picks up another day to show off the stadium on game day to recruits.

Advertisement

Montana is keeping the faith.

From today’s Mandel’s Mailbag ($$):

Looking at Chris Vannini’s 1-131 rankings, I don’t think I’d be surprised to see any team from the No. 4 to 15 get beat by a team 25 spots lower. Is there any team outside of Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State that you feel is elite? — Lewis C.

First of all, Georgia is the only team I’m 95 percent certain is “elite,”…

It’s good to be a king.

TFW your reputation precedes you

You may not have noticed, but Georgia is dead last in the conference in sacks.

Surprisingly, Kirby doesn’t seem that concerned about it.

“Yeah, I’m very comfortable with the things our defensive line has been able to do, the opportunities they’ve been given. They’ve affected the quarterback. If anything, I would say I wish we finished a little better on the ones that we’ve had that got away, but when you play really good athletes, I think teams will say that about Stetson, too. They had free runners and didn’t finish. Our goal is usually to bat 60 to 70 percent on free runs, because you’re not going to get them all. We haven’t been given very many opportunities, and I don’t blame them. Like, that’s not the game anymore. The game is not to sit back there and have a guy be a sitting target.”

Cool, man.  Because, given that South Carolina is last in the SEC in sacks allowed, I would expect to see more of the same quick hitters we’ve seen over the first two game.

My world turned upside down

Crazy stat from Josh Hancher:

Georgia leads all P5 offenses in success rate (reminder — a play is defined as successful if:

• It gains at least 50% of the yards required to move the chains on first down
• 70% of yards to gain on second down
• 100% of yards to gain on third or fourth down).

A brutally efficient offense combined with a rapidly improving defense that was loaded to start with?  Gee, this might turn out to be a decent season after all.

Welcome back, Boom.

Sounds like Agent Muschamp is in line for a warm greeting from the ‘Cock faithful when he returns to Columbia this Saturday.

Sports Talk Media Network in South Carolina polled its Twitter followers on what type of reception Muschamp will get on his return to Williams-Brice.

Loud booing was the response from 47.5 percent of more than 500 that responded, but that was behind the 48.9 percent who said he’d be mostly ignored and 3.6 percent who thought he’d get polite applause.

Just point to the scoreboard after the game, boss.

That’s gotta sting.

One more quote from Seth’s excellent piece on the Georgia-South Carolina series ($$):

But the run hit an end during the 2015 season. Spurrier resigned two weeks after losing to Georgia, and Mark Richt was fired after the regular season ended. And that’s when the two programs diverged.

“Georgia has been very good but maybe not as great as their fans think they should be,” Spurrier said in the spring of 2016. “Eight, nine wins a year. But they want 11, 12 wins a year. It’s one of those jobs where the expectations are higher than at most schools.”

Again, that quote came after the only redeeming moment of Georgia’s 2015 season, the evisceration of Spurrier’s South Carolina stint, punctuated by the embarrassment of Greyson Lambert setting an NCAA record for completion percentage in a game.

And now, maybe the program is as great as we think it should be.  Thanks for playing your part in that, Spurdog.

South Carolina’s Florida, or nah?

Shot ($$).

Clemson is still front of mind for Gamecocks fans, in the way that Georgia Tech is not for Bulldogs fans.

“If you told them you can beat Clemson twice in the next five years but the price of that is you will lose the next seven to Georgia … and put that to a vote of Gamecock fans, they would take it in a second,” Cline said. “They want to beat Georgia. But especially because of what’s happened the last few years, they are desperate to end this run by Clemson.”

Chaser.

Meanwhile, the Gamecocks have chosen this as their biggest recruiting weekend of the year. They are bringing in top-notch talent from the state and all over the South to Columbia for Saturday’s game.

Looks like — dare I say it? — the Dawgs are gonna get the ‘Cocks’ best shot.

Bryce Young may be a wizard…

🚨Crazy Stat of the Day🚨

Bryce Young is the ONLY SEC QB without a single completion on a throw that traveled 15+ air yds 🤯

9 SEC QBs have completed 6+.

He is 0-6, & only 2 of those att were o/s the hashes.

Last year Bryce was 10th Nationally w/ 49 comp of 15+ air yds.

— Jordan Rodgers (@JRodgers11) September 13, 2022

… but his receivers aren’t.

Shit, maybe all those Bammers had a point about Metchie and Williams.

Arik, where you at, son?

If you’re wondering why we haven’t seen more of Arik Gilbert in Georgia’s first two games after his stellar turn at G-Day, Kirby’s here to tell you.

pic.twitter.com/b817dvnMXN

— Seth Emerson (@SethWEmerson) September 13, 2022

Tough love is tough.  Hope Arik gets the message, because he’s too talented to let it go to waste.

TFW your goals are different from Kirby Smart’s

Graham did a good job in this week’s 12 Takeaways ($$) of reminding those of us who were, shall we say, underwhelmed by the end result in the Samford game that we might have been expecting more than was reasonable, given the coaching personalities involved.

Georgia has outscored its first two opponents 58-3 in the first half. It just shutout a team that put up 530 total yards/416 passing yards and 52 points in ‘The Swamp’ last November. Georgia held Samford to 128 total yards while playing 39 different players on defense. Roughly a third of those yards came on one pass on the last series of the game. I understand there were things that happened yesterday that have some UGA fans concerned, and we’re going to look at those things in these takeaways, but hear me when I say this… Kirby Smart was never going to blowout or embarrass Chris Hatcher. He gave Smart and Muschamp their starts in coaching at Valdosta State, and they agreed to a 12 minute 4th quarter ahead of time. The 3 of them and Monken looked like they were at a family reunion on the field before the game. What Georgia did yesterday was get a good look at everyone on the roster.  [Emphasis added.]

In that context, Saturday was wildly successful.

Anyone who’s already disappointed with Searles’ work this season should read the rest of Graham’s post.  He’s got three detailed takes on where things are at with the offensive line.  Bottom line, it’s still a work in progress.