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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > October > 24
Friday, October 24, 2008
UGA’s season-defining stretch has arrived
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When we talked about how arduous Georgia’s schedule would be, we didn’t mean the home games. We didn’t even mean consecutive road dates in Columbia and Tempe. We meant this:
Four games in four weeks, none in Athens. The first against the 2007 BCS winner, the second against the 2006 titlist. Plus two more road games after that.
And now the season-defining stretch has arrived. Georgia plays at LSU on Saturday, and if the game isn’t fully make-or-break - the Bulldogs could still win the SEC East if they lose in Baton Rouge - it’s the acid test for any national championship hopes. Beat the Tigers and Georgia is fully in the discussion. Lose and the Sugar Bowl surely becomes a best-case scenario.
As underwhelming as the first seven games have been, they have done the Bulldogs no lasting damage. At No. 7 in the BCS rankings, Georgia is positioned well enough. If it has seldom appeared the best team in the land, the preseason No. 1 still approaches Halloween with all goals intact. Not many expected a team facing this schedule to finish undefeated, and 12-1 with an SEC championship would hoist the Bulldogs near the top of every poll come Dec. 7.
“Yes, sir,” said linebacker Rennie Curran, impolite only on the field. “We’re right where we want to be.”
Think of this closing stretch as September in a pennant drive. If Georgia outruns everybody from here on, nobody will remember how halting its early steps seemed to be. “Hopefully we’ve got the players to do that,” said cornerback Asher Allen, and they do. For all the disarray along the offensive line, nobody in the nation has three better playmakers than Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno and A.J. Green.
The Florida game in Jacksonville next week stands to be a test of playmaking. The collision in Tiger Stadium should come down to brute force. When last the Bulldogs faced a team so blunt-edged, they trailed by 31 points after 30 minutes. We’re about to see if they learned from the Alabama indignity.
“I don’t think we’re lining up every down and just executing, just road-grading,” said Mark Richt, speaking of his cobbled-together offensive line after the Vanderbilt game. “I don’t think anybody’s thinking we’re in the groove.”
Grooves, however, are funny things. You can’t know when the groovy feeling is about to arrive. Off the dubious strength of a last-gasp escape from Nashville, did anyone expect the 2007 Bulldogs to embark on a closing burst that carried them to No. 2 in the final Associated Press poll?
Waiting in Baton Rouge is the only team that finished ahead of Georgia last January. Having shed so many players from that championship team, the Tigers weren’t expected to be vintage this time around. But this is a program that has grown skilled at finding ways to win.
When last the Bulldogs entered Tiger Stadium, LSU found a way that rankles Richt still. On Sept. 20, 2003, Georgia had scored the tying touchdown on a 93-yard screen pass to Tyson Browning with 4:25 to play, whereupon Devery Henderson returned the kickoff almost to midfield.
“We’ve got real good film on that,” Richt said. “They just grabbed us — two guys! They just tackled us to the ground.”
No penalty was called. Matt Mauck found Skyler Green for the winning touchdown with 1:22 to play, and LSU was en route to an SEC title and a national championship. Similar destinations could await Georgia if it wins today. The guess here is that it will.
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