Why Georgia shouldn’t overthink possible Ole Miss rematch in Sugar Bowl

ATHENS — Georgia is likely going to face Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, and some suggest it’s hard to beat the same team twice in a season.

Benjamin Watson, who played for the Bulldogs before winning a Super Bowl with the Patriots during his 16-year NFL career, doesn’t subscribe to that theory.

“There’s this prevailing idea that it’s hard to beat a team twice,” Watson said during the “On the Beat” podcast on DawgNation. “Shoot, when I was in the league, we beat teams twice all the time. If we’re better than them, then we prepare better than them.”

Watson, now an SEC Network analyst, explained how and why teams can beat teams twice in one season, even with one team seemingly having a “revenge factor” working as an intangible.

“OK, why did we beat teams twice? It didn’t just happen,” Watson said. “But it was about the growth, and it was about being able to prepare for that team.”

The Rebels actually held a two-score lead over the Bulldogs entering the fourth quarter in the teams’ first meeting, up 35-26 entering the final stanza before UGA came roaring back for the 43-35 win.

“I thought Gunner (Stockton) did a great job keeping plays alive and made a lot of plays with his legs,” former Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said after the game.

“It really wasn’t one thing; they did everything there, and we did limit explosive plays — there weren’t a ton of explosive plays.”

Indeed, the Bulldogs only had three plays that went for more than 25 yards, but Mike Bobo’s offense had 34 first downs, including the most important one of all on a fourth-and-1 at the UGA 44 down two scores.

“We’ve got them stopped — what happens at that point? Now we’re ahead, now there’s some momentum, we finally stop them — but then (Josh McCray) goes through our tackles, and great job by him keeping his feet moving,” Kiffin said.

“I really felt that point was a really, almost a slow-motion moment of like, this is the moment here, we have him, we stop him here, this game is really headed in a good direction, and he makes a good play.”

McCray, a 235-pound transfer tailback from Illinois, has continue to emerge as the season has progressed, providing more depth in an improving backfield.

Ole Miss has won five games in a row since suffering its only loss of the season to Georgia, and it’s a 17 1/2-point favorite over Tulane in next Saturday’s CFP first-round game in Oxford to make it six wins in a row.

“I think playing Ole Miss again, it’ll be a nice test for this (Georgia) defense,” Watson said. “Over the last four games, (UGA) just really shut teams down.

“And how much better have they gotten? You know, it wasn’t that long ago, it seems like, that Ole Miss was in Sanford Stadium, you know, just I guess it would be a couple months apart.”

Kiffin has moved on from Ole Miss to LSU, but with defensive coordinator Pete Golding taking over as head coach, and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. calling plays, the Rebels figure to have plenty of continuity.

Georgia, however, has built momentum, to Watson’s point, particularly on defense.

Here’s where the Bulldogs rank in the SEC and nation in primary defensive statistical categories:

Total Defense: 4th SEC; 13th nation

Scoring Defense: 2nd SEC; 11th nation

Run Defense: 1st SEC; 4th nation

Pass Efficiency Defense: 7th SEC; 34th nation