ATHENS — Georgia should be getting ready to play Oklahoma in Norman on Saturday. Instead, the No. 1-ranked Bulldogs are preparing for Ball State in a second consecutive home game.
In some ways, that might be a good thing.
When it comes to improvements that coach Kirby Smart believes need to be made, the list is too long to enumerate.
“There are so many things we can get better at,” Smart at his weekly press briefing Monday. “Every coach in the country is saying that you get better from Game 1 to Game 2; (that) is the biggest jump you make. Well, if that’s the case, then there is a lot of areas to improve in.”
Asked for a few, Smart cited: “Turnovers on defense, pursuit angles; we got cut back on several times. Offensively, ability to be explosive in the run game. Convert on third downs. There is a lot of things. … We didn’t dominate the game in any way on special teams like we’re capable of. I can’t pinpoint one area.”
The Bulldogs (1-0) extended their win streak to a school-record 18 games with a 48-7 win over Tennessee-Martin, an FCS opponent, on Saturday. But anybody who watched that game knows Georgia wasn’t as dominant as the final score might indicate. The Bulldogs led 17-0 at halftime and scored 10 points in the game’s final two minutes.
Ball State (0-1), a member of the Mid-American Conference (MAC), is a Group of 5 team that figures to put up even more of a fight. The Cardinals led Kentucky 7-3 in the second quarter in Lexington on Saturday before the Wildcats (1-0) rallied for a 44-14 victory.
Final scores and predictions notwithstanding, Georgia aims to play more sharply this week.
“We played decent, but there’s always stuff to improve on,” said sophomore defensive end Mykel Williams, who had the Bulldogs’ only sack. “We gave up a couple of explosives that shouldn’t have happened. There’s always stuff to go back to the drawing board on.”
The Skyhawks (0-1) finished with 260 total yards and scored a touchdown against Georgia reserves with 6:39 to play. The Bulldogs gave up 132 yards rushing, nearly twice what they allowed on average last season (77.1 ypg).
Similarly, Georgia was less dominant than usual in the run game. It averaged only 5.3 yards per carry with just two runs of 20 or more yards.
An area in which Smart seemed largely unconcerned was quarterback play. He laughed at a reporter who asked if he thought nerves were a problem for first-time starter Carson Beck.
“I don’t understand you guys sometimes, I really don’t,” Smart said with a chuckle. “I thought Carson played really well. I thought he played composed. I’m trying to think of any throws that were awful or erratic, and I didn’t see any. Maybe the one third down.”
Beck threw behind slot receiver Dominick Lovett on a third-and-short slant play late in the first quarter that forced the Bulldogs to punt. But Smart said that was a miscommunication in which Beck was expecting Lovett to “sit down” in the zone as opposed to continuing his route across the middle of the defense.
“There’s going to be incompletions in games; there’s going to be looks that they fool you with or maybe you didn’t see. But his run-check game, his carrying out of fakes, his decision-making in the pocket and throwing the ball away, I mean, I thought he did great for a first start,” Smart said.
Beck, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound junior, finished with 294 yards on 21-of-31 passing, threw a 54-yard touchdown to Mekhi Mews and scored on a 4-yard run.
The battle to establish a clear No. 2 quarterback continues in practice this week between sophomore Brock Vandagriff and redshirt freshman Gunner Stockton. They played seven and nine snaps, respectively, against the Skyhawks. Vandagriff completed a 56-yard pass to Rara Thomas and threw a 21-yard touchdown to tight end Oscar Delp.
Georgia is hoping to get some offensive players back in the fold this week who sat out Saturday’s game. Those include running back Daijun Edwards (knee), flanker Ladd McConkey (back) and split ends De’Nylon Morrissette (hamstring), Jackson Meeks (foot) and Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint. Rosemy-Jacksaint missed the game because of a disciplinary suspension for multiple speeding citations this summer.
On defense, linebacker Smael Mondon (foot) is expected to play more than six snaps, and the Bulldogs are hoping for a return from E.J. Lightsey, who missed Saturday’s game with an unknown injury.
“We have a lot of things we need to get better with,” cornerback Kamari Lassiter said. “As a whole, we just need to keep building off of each other, getting our communication better, things of that nature.”
Georgia and Ball State entered into an agreement to play Saturday’s game only 14 months ago. The SEC forced the Bulldogs to cancel a long-scheduled game against Oklahoma in Norman. The mandate came in the months after the Sooners joined the SEC along with fellow Big 12-member Texas. The cancellation was necessary because Oklahoma would not be able to return the game as a nonconference opponent. That game originally was scheduled for 2031 in Athens.
UGA has guaranteed Ball State $1.6 million to play Saturday. The Cardinals got $1.65 million from Kentucky on Saturday and $1.5 million from Tennessee last year. Ball State defeated Virginia 49-27 in Charlottesville in 2013.
SATURDAY’S GAME
Ball State at Georgia, noon, SEC, 750, 95.5, 1380
