If the Georgia Bulldogs’ intent was to prove they aren’t a one-man team, it failed. Saturday’s victory over Vanderbilt only underscored what we’ve suspected for a while — that the biggest man on any campus is a Georgia Bulldog.
The passing game underwhelmed. The defense didn’t exactly dominate the SEC’s worst offense. But Georgia beat Vanderbilt 44-17 because it had Todd Gurley, and Gurley is enough.
Wait. That’s wrong. Gurley is never just “enough.” On most days, he’s way too much.
Perhaps in the effort to render quarterback Hutson Mason more than just a game manager, the Bulldogs threw 17 first-half passes against 14 runs. The most spectacular pass was delivered by Gurley, who’d never thrown the ball in a collegiate game.
For the first time this season, he was deployed at quarterback in what Georgia calls its “Wild Dog” formation, and the first few times he’d run the ball. Late in the first half, on second-and-7 from the Bulldogs’ 23, Gurley took the direct snap and ducked toward the line. Then he stopped short and threw long. His left-handed delivery wobbled, but was gathered in by tight end Jed Blazewich 50 yards downfield.
And those 50 yards? They represented Georgia’s longest pass completion of the season, which is near its halfway point.
What was Gurley’s reaction to throwing the ball? “I thought, ‘Aw, finally,’” he said.
And coach Mark Richt’s view of the pass? “It looked a lot better than it had in practice.” So how, someone wondered, had it been in practice? “It didn’t look too sporty.”
By now, it’s apparent that Gurley can do pretty much as he pleases. (He rushed for 163 yards on 25 carries Saturday, scoring two touchdowns.) Still at issue is whether Georgia can succeed at doing anything that doesn’t involve the great tailback.
Mason completed 11 of 17 passes, which wasn’t bad, and threw for two touchdowns to Chris Conley, the longest a nicely delivered 44-yard touchdown. But the redshirt senior who’d waited four years watched as backup quarterback Brice Ramsey, a redshirt freshman, directed a first-quarter touchdown drive. It would be wrong to suggest that Georgia now has itself a Quarterback Controversy, but it’s hard to view Ramsey’s early appearance as a vote of confidence in the incumbent.
“I had to sit down and have a gut check this week,” said Mason, who threw for a meager 147 yards on 25 attempts in the narrow victory over Tennessee. Mason said he decided, “to not try to be something I’m not” and “to let it rip.”
The results, however, didn’t suggest a quarterback unchained. His 17 passes against Vandy netted only 121 yards, and he dealt another bad-looking interception. (He’d had two of those versus the Vols.)
Said Richt: “Overall Hutson played well. I know I didn’t like that pick.”
With five games gone, it’s clear that there are two Georgias — there’s the Georgia when Gurley has the ball in his hands, which is a majestic sight to behold, and there’s the Georgia when some other Bulldog has it or when the other side does. Then the effect is hugely diluted. The Bulldogs entered Saturday’s game ranked next-to-last among SEC teams in passing yards per game, and the defense is no colossus.
“We’re getting better,” Richt said. “We’ve still got a ways to go.”
If anything, the season’s first five games might have taught Georgia what not to do. The Bulldogs lost at South Carolina after Mason was called for intentional grounding on first-and-goal from the 4 with Gurley in the backfield. That probably won’t happen again.
Once Georgia would see the defense arrayed to stop Gurley and switch from a run to a pass. Now, Richt said, “There’s definitely a concentrated effort to not throw the ball every time they roll a safety into the box. We’re going to run it anyway.”
Even as we ask just how far a one-man team can go, we should applaud Georgia for finally grasping the obvious. “When you watch the guy,” Richt said, speaking of guess who, “you say, ‘That guy’s a little bit different than other guys.’”
He is. Todd Gurley is the best player in the land, and he alone makes Georgia a force.
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