Start well on defense? ✔️
Impose your will in the run game? ✔️
Avoid unfortunate injuries? ✔️
Play lots of young guys in the second half? ✔️
Win the dang ole football game? ✔️
Georgia came into this game with
a pretty clearly defined set of objectives and accomplished all of them, starting fast and finishing solidly to take down the visiting Charlotte 49ers 35-3.
This wasn’t the type of game that tells a national title contender much of anything about itself other than its ability to stay focused on the task at hand. As Kirby Smart said afterward, this was the type of contest to which you have to bring your own juice.
Nate Frazier certainly brought his, and freshman Bo Walker brought enough to share with the whole class. No Chauncey Bowens? No problem. Frazier and Walker combined for five rushing touchdowns behind a Bulldog offensive line that played without Drew Bobo and Ernest Greene. Frazier finished with 54 yards on 12 carries and Walker added 45 yards on 9 touches. All told seven Bulldogs tailbacks would get a chance to tote the ball in this one, as the Red and Black established the run game the way you’d expect them to against an opponent physically unable to stop them.
That’s not to say Gunner Stockton and the Bulldog passing attack weren’t clicking as well. Stockton was a tidy 17 of 21 passing for 196 yards before giving way to Ryan Puglisi early in the third quarter. He did have one poorly thrown ball that resulted in his only interception (Georgia’s only turnover of the day against a pair of Charlotte interceptions). But all in all it’s clear the Athenians could have thrown for 396 yards if they’d needed to, which they decidedly didn’t.
That was in part because the Bulldog defense was maybe even less challenged out of the gate than the offense. The 49er offense trailed 21-0 by the time they secured their first 1st down. Charlotte scrounged out 169 yards of total offense against the Bulldog D, but on the bright side they managed 39 on the ground on 17 carries, a slightly better number than the Texas Longhorns. So there is that. But had the visitors not gotten a short field on that Stockton interception there’s every reason to believe Glenn Schumann’s unit would have pitched a shut out.
As it stands the Dawgs won their tenth game of the season, the fifth such season in a row (a school record that would likely be a nine year streak but for the 2020 Covid season). They’ll turn right around and begin preparations for Friday afternoon’s 119th iteration of Clean Old-Fashioned Hate.
Go ‘Dawgs!!!
