ATHENS — Georgia didn’t play great Saturday. Some might say it didn’t play well at all. Yet, the Bulldogs moved back to No. 1 in the latest Associated Press poll that was released Sunday afternoon.
CBS Sports was among several media outlets that predicted the defending national champions would move up in the polls. The Bulldogs, who received three first-place votes last week, got a 33-0 win over FCS-member Samford on Saturday.
The Bulldogs, who started the season at No. 3 in the AP Top 25, took two weeks to get back to where they spent most of last year.
Georgia, which opened this season by beating Oregon 49-3, received 53 of 63 first-place votes from the media panel. No. 2 Alabama received nine first-place votes, and No. 3 Ohio State got one first-place vote.
The Bulldogs remained No. 2 in the coaches’ poll.
The previously No. 1-ranked Crimson Tide (2-0) did not look like the nation’s top-ranked team when they committed 15 penalties and needed to kick a field goal with 10 seconds remaining to defeat unranked Texas 20-19 in Austin early Saturday afternoon. The Longhorns lost starting quarterback Quinn Ewers to a shoulder injury in the first quarter.
But it’s not like the Bulldogs were beating their collective chests coming out of their home opener. After going 7-for-7 on touchdown-scoring opportunities in the red zone against then-No. 11 Oregon in the season opener on Sept. 3, Georgia was 3-of-8 getting in the end zone from the red area against Samford on Saturday at Sanford Stadium.
“We’re all upset we didn’t execute as well as we could have in the first half,” said quarterback Stetson Bennett, who passed for 300 yards and a touchdown in the game. “Too many field goals.”
Said Georgia coach Kirby Smart: “We took a huge step back and had to kick field goals. Good teams can’t do that.”
The Bulldogs will put their 2-0 record on the line Saturday when they travel to Columbia to take on South Carolina in Georgia’s SEC opener. The Gamecocks (1-1, 0-1) lost to Arkansas in Fayetteville on Saturday, 44-30.
Here are five things we learned from the Bulldogs’ work on Dooley Field on Saturday:
1. No rush
With heavy rains to the South and predicted to wash over Northeast Georgia on Saturday, Georgia went into the game with an old-school plan to run the football and pound the smaller Bulldogs from Birmingham between the tackles.
That wasn’t exactly what took place. Junior running back Kendall Milton led the Bulldogs with 85 yards rushing on 10 carries Saturday and Kenny McIntosh and Bennett each scored TDs on short runs, but the Bulldogs averaged a modest 4.0 yards per rush and finished with 132 yards on 32 attempts.
“We knew we were going to have to run the ball,” Milton said. “We actually were expecting it to be a rainy day, so we were kind of already expecting for it to be a big running day. Me and the running backs kind of embraced the role that was put upon us and went out there knowing we were going to have to fight for some yards. I thought we fought pretty good as a group.”
Said Smart: “It was a priority all offseason to be elite in the red zone, offensively and defense. We’ve got to watch the tape, but we’ve got to get better. You can’t win games kicking field goals.”
2. Another goose egg
There wasn’t much to complain about regarding Georgia’s defense. The Bulldogs recorded yet another shutout.
That represented the ninth shutout of the Smart era, the fourth since the beginning of last season and sixth game going back to last year in which Georgia did not allow a touchdown.
That’s good news for a defense that was thought to have lost all its real talent to the NFL after last season. Eight defensive players off the Bulldogs’ 2021 defense, which led the nation in points allowed per game (10.2), were selected in April’s draft.
Samford managed only 128 yards total offense, 19 yards rushing on 17 attempts and three first downs.
“It wasn’t perfect, but there’s a zero on the scoreboard and that’s the goal,” said sophomore linebacker Smael Mondon, who led the Bulldogs with four tackles.
Said senior outside linebacker Nolan Smith: “We’ve still got some work to do, we’ve still got some fixes to make, but we got off the field on third down this week and we’re moving in the right direction. But we’ve got to keep pushing forward. I still don’t feel like we’ve been tested, and we’re going to get that test on the road next week and I can’t wait.”
3. Busy day for J-Pod
Georgia place-kicker Jack Podlesny established a personal best with 15 points against Samford on Saturday. The senior from St. Simons Island scored on four field goals and three extra points.
Podlesny could have bettered Rodrigo Blankenship’s 17-point night against Missouri in 2017 but was well short on a 54-yard attempt on Georgia’s first possession of the third quarter.
“We probably shouldn’t have tried the field goal,” Smart said of the long attempt. “We just can’t take that sack. We’ve got to throw the ball away or just run.”
Georgia faced third-and-9 from the Samford 19 before Bennett got pulled down for a 17-yard sack.
Not that Podlesny is incapable of making such lengthy kicks. He was 3-for-3 for his career from 50 or more yards, with a long of 53. J-Pod’s field goals Saturday came from 25 (2), 26 and 27 yards.
4. Distributing the football
Not only are the Bulldogs passing a lot – they attempted 43 passes on 75 offensive plays – they’re spreading the ball around in the process.
On Saturday, Georgia quarterbacks targeted 17 different receivers, completing passes to 15 of them. Once again, McIntosh led Georgia in receptions with five for 61 yards (the senior now has 14 catches for 178 yards in two games). But three other players had three catches, four had two and seven players had a single catch each.
Similar to the opener against Oregon, most of the Bulldogs’ passes are intermediate to short and quickly released. Sophomore flanker Ladd McConkey had the game’s long reception of 37 yards.
5. Darnell Washington ascends
At nearly 6-foot-8, it’s easy to understand why basketball was always Darnell Washington’s first love. But the physical nature of football is what drew him to the sport. Now a junior with the Bulldogs, he’s really starting to flourish on the gridiron.
A week after hurdling a would-be Oregon tackler in the opener, the 6-7, 270-pound tight end caught two more passes Saturday against Samford and now has four receptions for 66 yards. Just as impressive, though, has been Washington’s perimeter blocking. His size gives the Bulldogs a sixth offensive lineman every time he’s on the field.
“Honestly, just being able to hit somebody, just physicality, strength,” Washington said when asked what he likes most about football. “Whether it’s a screen play where I’ve got to go hit a corner or a power play where I’ve got to fit up on a defensive end or an outside linebacker or even just getting tackled, I just like being hit or doing the hitting.”
Smart sometimes questioned Washington’s toughness when he first arrived at UGA from Las Vegas. But the coach has seen a difference in him this season.
“In camp, I saw an extremely physical blocker,” Smart said. “… He is a really physical, really big blocker and a really big target, and he’s practiced and played real well for us. He’s done a good job. I continue to say offensively we’ve got to be in great conditioning shape because we’ve got to play with tempo and do things like that. But Darnell has done everything we’ve asked him to do. He’s practiced really hard, played really hard, maintained his weight at the right level, and he’s being rewarded for it by getting some catches and some touches.”
Washington turned heads last week when he hurdled an Oregon defender after catching a pass, which he turned into a 25-yard gain. That was at least the second hurdled victim for Washington, who also cleared an attempted tackler last year before turning that into a long gain against Tennessee.
Interestingly, Washington said he did not run hurdles while running track in high school.
“Just high jump and triple jump,” he said of his days at Desert Pines High in Las Vegas.
