Chris Cole shows he can do anything and everything for Georgia defense

ATHENS — Chris Cole’s standout athleticism is not lost on his teammates.

Especially after the junior linebacker’s performance against Oklahoma Saturday at Sanford Stadium, a 41-13 win for No. 2 Georgia (4-0, 2-0 SEC) thanks in part to costly mistakes by the Sooners.

One of those came in the second quarter, when Cole recovered a fumble by Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer and returned it 85 yards for a touchdown.

“I call him daddy long legs, like a spider ... You watch Chris run, Chris could really — say you’re running five yards,” said safety KJ Bolden, who had an interception later in the second quarter. “He could hit five yards in two steps. If you actually think about it, that’s crazy … The guy’s a freak of nature, man. He could do anything: cover, rush, play the run.”

That play by Cole, who also tallied a sack on Mateer earlier that same drive, served as a turning point in the game. The circumstances switched from Oklahoma moving the ball and potentially narrowing it to a one-score game to Georgia taking a decisive 21-0 lead.

“Something that I always dreamed of, something that I definitely wrote down in my book that I wanted to do, and it was such a blessing,” Cole said of his scoop-and-score.

Later in the second quarter, Cole recovered another fumble by Mateer (this one forced by fellow linebacker Raylen Wilson), setting up a Chauncey Bowens touchdown run two plays later to make it 28-0 before halftime. All in all, Georgia scored 17 points off four Oklahoma turnovers, with the Sooners scoring six off two Bulldogs turnovers.

Georgia tallied three sacks and five tackles for a loss.

Last season, Georgia’s defense tallied just 20 sacks, the fewest in the SEC and the fewest in the Smart era. Through the first four games of the season, the Bulldogs have 11 sacks already, more than half their 2025 total. Granted, the level of competition for Georgia to start the season was low, particularly in blowout wins against Tennessee State and Western Kentucky.

Oklahoma finished with 296 total yards to Georgia’s 307, with Mateer completing 25 of 34 passes for 231 yards and two touchdowns, with one interception. The Sooners rushed for 65 yards, with the dual-threat Mateer rushing for seven.

“Defensively, we’ve got to have more three-and-outs, more disruption,” Smart said postgame. “You know, we pressured today and didn’t finish. We affected the quarterback, but we didn’t really hit the quarterback.”

Smart later said of Mateer: “I don’t know if we took his legs away. I talked about how we affected him. So I don’t want to say that we took his legs away. He’s a good athlete. He still scrambled.

“We had a lot of missed tackles. We expected that coming in. But he’s a good player, and we’ve got to finish better on the quarterback when we have a chance.”

Wilson led the team with 11 tackles, a sack and 1.5 TFLs, plus a forced fumble. Cole added eight tackles and a sack.

Wilson joked of the 6-foot-3 Cole’s touchdown: “He wasn’t even moving full speed on that touchdown. Believe it or not, he was just taking long strides.”

Smart had a different assessment, but did give Cole credit for his return.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think Chris gets the credit for that, right?” Smart said. “He’s Johnny on the spot. The credit is the pressure, the calls, the effort of the other players. He certainly was in the right spot at the right time, and that’s not the guy you want to be chasing when he picks up a fumble. He’s hard to catch.”

The big play of the game, Smart said, was actually the punch-out by safety Rasean Dinkins in the third quarter.

The third quarter wasn’t pretty for Georgia, particularly on offense, but the defense still gave up just one score, after an interception by quarterback Gunner Stockton gave Oklahoma good field position at Georgia’s 35-yard line.

Still, after jumping offside on the Sooners’ first two-point conversion attempt, the defense stuffed a run up the middle on the second attempt.

On Oklahoma’s next possession, after a pass from Mateer to tight end Rocky Beers, Dinkins punched the ball out. Georgia couldn’t capitalize with a touchdown, but kicker Peyton Woodring made a 45-yard field goal to put the Bulldogs up 31-6.

“There’s forced fumbles and then there’s gifts,” Smart said. “We like to have a saying that the Dawgs don’t beat the Dawgs. You know, the Dawgs didn’t beat the Dawgs today, but the Sooners, in a lot of ways, beat the Sooners, and they gifted us multiple turnovers that could have been touchdowns, and the game would have been different. So, opportunistic, a little luck, but proud of Chris for running that back.”