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Home > Jeff Schultz > Archives > 2008 > September > 27
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Reality hits Dogs like a truck
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Athens — At least everybody matched. Does that count for something?
Players in black. Coaches in black. Fans in black. The high ranking — yeah, that was pretty much charred to black. Do you get points for that?
It was an all-day drunkfest in Athens, an electric atmosphere in Sanford Stadium — and then somebody had to go and pull the plug.
You know what? How about if we just stop assuming anything about this team from this point, either in stature, personality or direction. Seldom can one early season loss obliterate all theories but we just witnessed it. Forget all of the arguments about strength of schedule and Georgia getting jobbed on the rankings, because the only thing the Bulldogs accomplished Saturday night was smother all debates.
After losing to Alabama 41-30, in a game not nearly that close, Athens-to-No. 1 just isn’t showing up on Mapquest. Not today. Not next week. Possibly not for the rest of the season — at least not without reconstructed egos; an implausible run through the nation’s toughest schedule and a whole bunch of dominoes falling around them.
USC lost on Thursday. Florida lost Saturday. Georgia was in great shape until kickoff. Funny. The jerseys look a lot better when you’re not being overwhelmed by the moment, which was certainly the way it looked. Everything the Bulldogs were physically at South Carolina, they weren’t against Alabama. Everything they were offensively and defensively at Arizona State, they weren’t against Alabama.
Alabama was tougher, and smarter, and better. At everything.
“I don’t think we were overwhelmed,” defensive tackle Geno Atkins said. “I felt we were ready. They just came out and smacked us in the face and jumped on us.”
Guess what? When a team gets jumped 31-0 on its home field, it is not ready. The torsos may be nicely adorned in black jerseys. But the heads are somewhere else.
The team is now 4-1. A “1” has never seemed so fat.
A team doesn’t get lose like this, so convincingly, at home, on national TV, with so much at stake, without a hangover. This will take more than a few ice bags during the bye week to get over. Extensive therapy, maybe. It was 10-0 after the first quarter. It was 31-0 at halftime. Check?
Atkins again: “It was sort of surreal how quickly they scored 31 points.”
Georgia fans came to watch the best team in the nation, and maybe they did. Just not the team they expected. Alabama is 5-0 and might not be tested until going to LSU on Nov. 8.
The Bulldogs? They seemed to pass every test at ASU, only to self-immolate at home. If they were consistent in one area, it was the wrong area. They entered as the nation’s most penalized team, and will exit as the same. They had six in the first half, 10 in the game covering 81 yards. They had two roughing-the-passer calls, one negating an Alabama fumble and both leading to a 10-0 lead.
The Tide scored on all five first-half possessions. A shanked punt (19 yards) led to one scoring drive. A mid-air bobble by flanker A.J. Green, which was picked off by Alabama’s Dont’a Hightower, led to another. Lazy coverage led Julio Jones to slip into the back of the end zone alone to cradle a 22-yard touchdown with 1:25 left in the half.
That made it 31-0, a deficit Georgia hadn’t seen since a home loss to Auburn nine years ago, two years before Mark Richt’s arrival.
The Bulldogs tried to come back. A field goal, a touchdown drive and a 92-yard punt return by Prince Miller in the second half closed the score to 31-17. But they had already been lapped. Bama was on autopilot.
The second-half comeback — sorry, only window dressing.
Great teams don’t lay an egg like this. Not at home. Not on this stage. Not with so much at stake.
Now comes the bye week. It’s a good time to heal the egos.
If nothing else, it will be quiet. Nobody will be arguing.
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