RR: I didn't go into this game thinking UGA could not win, but considering what we had seen from them, the offense against Bama, MSU, the Kentucky thing...but my god. For them to dominate the way they did with their edge guys, all those..no. 10, 11, 13 against that Texas OL? That's the most impressive performance I've seen from one single unit all season long. They are where we're going to start.
TM: It was 17-0 when I was able to start watching. Ewers was benched at that time. Carson Beck was still in the game. Then I watched the tape yesterday. And I'm looking at Beck and wondering why isn't he the guy that's benched. I thought Ewers looked more confident than Beck, but he just ran into a freaking buzzsaw. But as it went on, I started to understand. He was feeling it. Ghosts in the pocket. He wasn't getting settled. Sark just benched him to calm him down. He was doing everything right the first three series but the series or two before he was benched, you could see the pressure was affecting him. That's when the bad decisions, hurried throws were happening. And in the second half he started to settle down and the offense started moving it a little bit.
But at the end of the day, you play that well on defense? As angry as they were, as disciplined as they were....that's the secret sauce for Kirby. It's the disrespect card to get through to every single player on that defense. It's not to get them in a lather at the start of the game, but during the week in practice telling them "No one believes in you", what you're gonna get is a great level of focus. All of the plays they made were by great players, but also because the scheme was dialed up really well and the players were exactly in the spots they needed to be. And the result is Jalon Walker, one of the most versatile defenders in the entire country, having all the plays he made. That resulted in M. Williams with two sacks. And another dude, no one is talking about him. But I got to study this dude. Number 6 for Georgia. My god did he jump off the tape. Sack, INT, fumble recovery...he was all over the field.
RR: Going into that game, you're like Texas checks all the boxes. And we think we have the three or four separated teams at the beginning of the year and then Georgia doesn't look like that. Beck's not playing well. I mean Beck wasn't getting benched because it's Stockton vs. Manning.
TM: Yeah, and just so we're clear, I'm not saying Beck should have been benched. Just watching on tape what I had missed earlier in the game, if one of these QBs was gonna be benched based on that, it was Beck with 3 picks.
RR: Yeah, I don't think it's as easy as saying Texas is a fraud because they haven't beaten anyone. I still think they are in this. But I also wonder if Sark thinks he has to change up his game planning a little bit with how the Oline looked. But I just came off of a week thinking Texas is this incredible team that no one can beat and now it's back to Georgia again and I just wonder if we aren't doing the same mistake again. And maybe this just varies week to week. I think Texas would gameplan a rematch completely differently considering the edge guys for Georgia.
TM: Let's learn our lesson. Georgia's second half vs. Bama was more eye-popping than what we saw from Texas in the second half. But there's some similarities. Texas' performance wasn't to that level, but it was certainly better than the first half. The other thing is, Georgia may never play that good of a game again on defense, or maybe they will and this is the new standard. Take a step back and be reasonable. Texas ran into a buzzsaw. GameDay is there. All the hype. This was the Texas show. It'll be different if there's a second time around. Let's see how Texas recovers from this. My guess is we'll see these two play again. I was overwhelmed by Oregon and how they played last week against OSU, but to me Texas is still a better football team than Oregon. I'd take Texas over PSU every time. I would give a slight lean to Texas over Ohio St. And I hope there is a rematch because I do think it will be different.
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