ATHENS, Ga. — Kirby Good sat on a golf cart Saturday night time in a darkened hallway outdoors a room the place the Georgia coach was supposed to carry his postgame information convention. Good was holding up his information convention, nevertheless, watching the top of Vanderbilt’s upset of Alabama. The assembled media members didn’t thoughts, as they had been watching it, too.
Every week earlier than, Good and his Georgia workforce had been on the heart of the school soccer universe. On Saturday night time, they had been largely out of the highlight, slogging out a 31-13 win over struggling Auburn. It lacked model factors however regarded an entire lot higher compared to different outcomes across the SEC:
• Tennessee’s loss at Arkansas.
• Missouri being routed at Texas A&M.
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Ah, sure, Georgia has a loss. The Bulldogs haven’t been spectacular, together with Saturday, they usually may very well be headed for one more loss in two weeks at soon-to-be-No. 1 Texas.
However these searching for perfection this season are lacking the purpose. Georgia tailback Trevor Etienne, alternatively, very a lot had the best level when requested how lengthy it had taken him to recover from the loss at Alabama.
Trevor Etienne (1) had a landing run in Georgia’s win over Auburn on Saturday. (Dale Zanine / Imagn Photographs)
“You’ll be able to’t let it have an effect on you, particularly with this new 12-team Playoff,” Etienne stated.
This can be a new period. The 12-team Faculty Soccer Playoff leaves groups some margin for error and rewards groups at their greatest on the finish of the season. Based on Austin Mock’s newest projections, Georgia is tied for fourth with Penn State for one of the best probability of getting within the discipline at 81 %.
Georgia, with as gifted a roster because it has, has nearly as good an opportunity as anyone to be that workforce come December. No matter its seed, nevertheless many regular-season losses it absorbs, a fairly wholesome Georgia could be the workforce no one desires to face.
Good and his workers don’t want to achieve for a lot of examples. Final 12 months’s Georgia workforce, undefeated within the common season earlier than falling flat within the SEC Championship Recreation, missed the four-team Playoff however would have made a 12-team discipline and would have been harmful. So may need Good’s workforce in 2018.
Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo may level to the 2007 workforce, which many thought of top-of-the-line groups within the nation by the top of the season, however it didn’t make what was then only a two-team Playoff. Then there was the 2012 Georgia workforce that got here 5 yards brief within the SEC championship.
Lots has modified since Bobo’s son, Drew, then 2 years outdated, was the ringbearer at Kirby and Mary Beth Good’s marriage ceremony in 2006. For one factor, Drew Bobo is now Georgia’s heart, making his beginning debut Saturday. The BCS championship is lengthy gone. The four-team Playoff is gone. It’s a distinct day, and prefer it or not, a two-loss and even three-loss workforce could make the CFP, and if it performs actually good ball, it will probably nonetheless win all of it. Good appears to grasp this and has been making ready his workforce for it, mentally as a lot as bodily.
“It’s a consistency of efficiency, and while you experience the wave of emotion, you get caught within the backside of the wave,” Good stated. “We’re simply making an attempt to do that. We’re simply making an attempt to get higher and hold getting higher.”
However let’s be clear: Georgia has to get loads higher.
The offense will get extra consideration as a result of that’s the unit answerable for scoring factors. To date this season, it has been on the maddening facet. On Saturday, it lastly began quick, scoring a landing on its first drive, one thing it had but to do within the first two drives in opposition to an FBS opponent. However after trying prefer it discovered one thing at Alabama in an aggressive, downfield passing assault, the offense used a extra environment friendly strategy, with extra methodical drives, in opposition to Auburn.
Boring, however efficient: Georgia had eight drives, with touchdowns on 4 of them and a discipline objective on one other, plus no turnovers.
“Everybody thinks assault, they assume deep pictures, deep balls,” quarterback Carson Beck stated. “However I feel our offense attacked right now, whether or not that was with the within zone, mid zone, energy or play-action go or brief sport or display screen. There’s so some ways you may assault a protection, and while you’re simply transferring the ball downfield, and also you begin changing on third down, you begin to put on a protection down, after which in the end subsequent factor , you’re in the long run zone, and it’s been 13 performs. The protection is defeated.”
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A type of methodical drives got here when Auburn climbed inside 14-10 within the third quarter. Georgia responded with a 12-play, 75-yard drive for a landing. The sport was by no means once more inside one possession.
“That was nearer to our offense that we had final 12 months, the place once we get punched on protection, they reply,” Good stated.
The issue is Georgia’s protection is being punched a bit extra. Alabama did it lots within the first half final week. Auburn didn’t do it as spectacularly however sufficient to arouse concern: operating the ball successfully at occasions, hitting on some explosive go performs and never turning it over after coming into the sport minus-11 in turnover margin.
The tackling points are uncharacteristic for a Good protection, though Good shrugged that off. After leaving Thursday’s follow pondering his workforce was unhealthy at tackling, he turned on the Atlanta Falcons-Tampa Bay Buccaneers sport and noticed unhealthy tackling.
“It’s indicative of the tradition of soccer that individuals don’t deal with, individuals don’t hit, individuals don’t follow like they used to, together with us,” he stated.
The larger subject was a scarcity of swarm to the ball. Lacking open-field tackles will occur, however the extra our bodies across the ball, the much less it issues, and on too many runs to the perimeters Saturday, and the week earlier than, Georgia didn’t have that swarm.
Or as Good put it: “You’ve gotta do what you name typically open a can of whoop ass. We didn’t try this.”
The morning after the loss to Alabama, Good despatched a textual content to Nick Saban. “The solar’s nonetheless developing,” Good wrote, an ode to what Saban at all times advised Good and his assistants earlier than video games.
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“You’ve received a fantastic workforce,” Saban wrote again, in response to Good. “They play actually onerous, and they need to be happy with the best way they performed. And hold getting higher.”
And getting higher is all it’s about. Get higher, win sufficient video games to make it to the Playoff and be the workforce that no one desires to play. Sure, getting a first-round bye could be excellent, and that’s not off the desk for Georgia, however with the journeys to Texas and Ole Miss and with Tennessee coming to Athens, it’s going to be onerous. The flip facet is that the schedule makes 10-2 and even 9-3 one thing that may very well be sufficient to do the job.
Etienne was requested if this creates an NFL-like mentality, the place the concept is to only win video games like Saturday, slightly than attempt to rack up model factors.
“Undoubtedly,” Etienne stated. “All people desires to go undefeated. Nevertheless it undoubtedly offers you some leeway. It wasn’t our objective to get a loss, however that loss doesn’t finish our season. We nonetheless have the targets in thoughts we had coming into the season.”
(Prime picture of Dillon Bell, left, and Carson Beck: Dale Zanine / Imagn Photographs)
