Cocktail Aftermath

For a while it looked like it was going to be one of the best days Georgia has ever had in Jacksonville, but things are never that easy with the 2013 Dawgs. After leading 17-0 in the first quarter, and holding a 23-3 lead at half time, Georgia had to hang on for a 23-20 nail bitter.

I know they were talking on the broadcast about this being an eastern division elimination game, but none of that really matters. The standings will take care of themselves if Georgia takes care of business. Today’s game was all about getting that third straight victory over the Gators.

Once is an occasion, twice is a trend, and three times is a streak.

In the 90’s Georgia lost to Florida annually with less talent on the field and on the sideline. In the 2000’s the trend became that Georgia was losing with similar and sometimes better talent on the field and on the sideline. Florida has been down since losing the ’09 SEC title game to Alabama. Of course, losing Time Tebow and Percy Harvin also has something to do with that. Georgia has taken advantage of Florida being down, just like they should. Now, momentum is driving down from Athens each year with the Dawgs. Next year, you will have a group of seniors that will be trying to finish their careers having never lost to the Gators.

The game itself seemed like two different games. Georgia was as dominant as they have been all season in the first half. Offense was clicking, defense was getting stops, and the special teams were actually doing their job. There was some jawing back and forth, but really no more than any other game.

In the second half, Florida got some momentum and the game started slipping away from the Dawgs. Emotions were running very high, and the referees did a good job of trying to throw flags without having too much of an impact on the game. There were a couple of instances where players could have been ejected, but the officials handled it as well as they could.

It was obvious that the high emotions had more of a negative impact on Georgia than Florida. The Gators used the emotions to cause havoc with their defense, while Georgia never really seemed comfortable offensively in the second half.

Obviously the turning point in the game was the fumble that was called on Murray’s lateral to Lynch. It was called a lateral on the field, so I understand why the officials couldn’t overturn the call. However, it looked to me like it was an even pass, which would have just resulted in an incomplete pass and would have left Georgia with a third down. Florida did a good job of capitalizing on the Georgia mistake and scoring a touchdown with their good field position.

I thought it was a bad play call to run play action out of your own endzone when Florida had been blitzing for most of the day. At least keep Gurley in to block on the play rather than sending him out on a route, and leaving the offensive line exposed. Georgia was lucky to get away with only a safety.

Even though Georgia survived the mistake, it was inexcusable that Georgia had 12 men on the field following a time out on the fourth and short play in the second half. These types of mistakes just keep happening. It might have cost Georgia the Missouri game. I don’t know what we have to do to fix the issues, but it seems to me that we shouldn’t have such a hard time getting the right personnel in the game.

After Florida scored a fourth quarter touchdown to cut the lead to three, Georgia’s defense held despite the fact that the offense failed to give them any wiggle room. After looking so impressive in the first half, Georgia’s offense was terrible in the second half, and Todd Gurley didn’t look like himself at all. Even on the last series of the game, where Georgia was able to have a long, sustained drive to close out the Gators, Gurley just didn’t seem like he was 100%. I hope it was just conditioning and not something more serious.

Obviously, winning is the most important thing. I feel better about Georgia’s offense watching it with Gurley and Bennett back in the game. That should get even better once Chris Connelly gets back from his injury.

Defensively, Georgia actually played pretty well. The Dawgs gave up just over 300 yards of total offense to the Gators, but ¼ of that came on the one long pass play on Florida’s first drive of the game. Maybe we will be able to look back on this performance as the beginning of the turnaround for the Georgia defense.

Now Georgia will prepare for Appalachian State on Homecoming next Saturday, with a pending trip to Auburn close to the front of their minds. The best thing the Dawgs have going for them is the fact that two of their last four games come against two of Georgia’s biggest rivals. There should be plenty of motivation for the Dawgs against Auburn and Tech, even if the SEC is out of reach.

I would like to close this post by thanking one of the men that I have come to both admire and respect: Will Muschamp. Muschamp made it clear when he got the Florida job that he was a Gator and he had to affinity for his alma mater. Well even if Will doesn’t love us, we love him. I hope, with all of my heart, that Florida AD Jeremy Foley stands by Muschamp at the end of the season. I think it’s unlikely though because there is no way Florida will be able to beat FSU at the end of the season, and if the game is ugly, like it probably will be, then it will be hard for Foley to keep Muschamp around another year.

Maybe after he gets fired, Georgia could hire Muschamp as their defensive coordinator?