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NEW ORLEANS, La. — The signs were always there. The Alabama game.
The Ole Miss game. Even plenty of victories: Kentucky , Georgia Tech , the second Texas game. It all left everyone, including those within the Georgia football program, questioning whether this was a group that would keep the crazy ride going to another championship or was destined to fail.
Advertisement We got that answer on Thursday afternoon. It was definitive. This was not the best team in the country and deserved its fate.
Now it leads to the next mystery: Was this game, and this rocky (for Georgia) season, a kick in the butt to the program, a message that it’s not the program it was two years ago and needs to make moves to avoid slipping further? Or was it ultimately still the SEC champion, then lost in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals when it was down to its backup quarterback? Kirby Smart said a couple of curious things after the 23-10 loss to Notre Dame . More than a couple, actually. But let’s start with his post-mortem on the season, which he called “the toughest year of my tenure.
Easily the toughest of my tenure.” That may be a bit of recency bias. But Smart, in explaining what he told his team in the locker room, alluded to the injuries, the hard schedule and all the close games.
“And to win some of the comeback games they won,” Smart said, “and never quit, even in this game, never quit, that’s the attitude you’ve got to have to get better as a football program.” GO DEEPER Notre Dame ousts Georgia from Playoff as New Orleans tries to carry on Get better as a football program. Let that sit a second and realize it’s not a second-year coach trying to get his program to another level, but the ninth-year coach of a team that won two of the previous three national titles.
Maybe on some level that’s Smart, like his mentor Nick Saban, having the mentality of always trying to improve, even when on top. Or maybe it’s a reflection that this program isn’t on top right now. There’s no clear answer.
You can argue that transfer rules and paying players have changed the game. The Big Ten and Notre Dame having three of the four semifinalists feed into that narrative. But the 2022 season wasn’t that long ago, and it’s not like this was a crashing disappointment of a Georgia team: It was 4-0 against teams that made the Playoff.
Well, 4-1 now. There was just something missing, and Smart’s job is to figure out what, and to what extent to make changes. Advertisement The apparent good news: Gunner Stockton looked like a viable starter.
His pocket presence needs to improve but that should come with experience. The underrated gap between Carson Beck and Stockton, in a start of this magnitude, may have been game management and making checks at the line, which Stockton acknowledged. “I could’ve done better.
Just knowing where the play clock is, and managing it is a big part of it,” he said. But if it is Stockton, the coaches need to get help around him. They need receivers who won’t drop the ball, which they hope comes with the development of current players, an instant impact from five-star recruit Talyn Taylor or someone out of the portal.
Georgia was burned during this portal window by receivers unsure of the identity or throwing ability of Georgia’s quarterback next season. Maybe Stockton’s play helps. “We certainly have to play better and do better,” Smart said.
“A lot of it has to do with health and the schedule we play, and having some playmakers that can make some plays.” There is also risk in overstating what happened in this game. Georgia out-gained Notre Dame and averaged more yards.
It reached the red zone more often. It’s not like this was a domination, not belonging on the same field. Still, Georgia should be the more mature program in the building.
Instead, it committed the game’s only two turnovers, gave up a 99-yard kickoff return because it couldn’t tackle, and its coach made the risk that backfired. Why did Smart let Stockton, with 40 seconds left in the first half and the ball at his 25, drop back to pass? Smart pointed to being down at the time (6-3), having timeouts and wanting to be aggressive. “I don’t question that call because I really agree with the decision to be aggressive and try to go score,” he said.
Some things bordered on bad luck, or signs that it just wasn’t Georgia’s night. Notre Dame’s kicker, Mitch Jeter , had missed two of his last six field goals entering the game, but went 3-for-3. Then there was an inactive Georgia player getting too excited on Arian Smith ’s 63-yard catch and run and bumping into a side judge; Smart said normally that would result in a warning, but this Big 12 crew went for the 15-yard penalty.
Georgia still got a field goal but the penalty may have stifled momentum. Advertisement “I call those things undisciplined, self-imposed wounds that you lose momentum on,” Smart said. “So, it’s just something you can’t have happen.
” But much of Georgia’s problem was being outplayed, especially in the second half, when it seemed it could be on the cusp of another epic comeback. The defense made a big fourth-down stop, handing the offense the ball at midfield. A 10-point game, plenty of time left, momentum at Georgia’s back.
But the Bulldogs couldn’t capitalize, with go-nowhere plays on third-and-3 and fourth-and-2. That was yet another mystery about this team. Stockton, whose arm was the question coming in, passed for 234 yards and looked pretty good.
But Georgia couldn’t run the ball, despite Notre Dame being without its best defensive player, lineman Rylie Mills . It also didn’t protect well, yielding four sacks. GO DEEPER Mandel's Final Thoughts: Rust Belt schools get their CFP revenge in quarterfinals In the coming days, we will hear about players leaving the program for the NFL Draft.
The defense almost certainly loses safety Malaki Starks , edge Mykel Williams , linebacker Jalon Walker , perhaps cornerback Daylen Everette and several other starters. The offense loses guard Tate Ratledge and second-leading receiver Dominic Lovett and waits on decisions like tailback Trevor Etienne . The offense will remain the focus.
The defense can reload by retaining the talented youngsters who understudied this year. But it will still be young, and this year’s inconsistent play showed that Georgia doesn’t have a birthright to elite defense. Georgia isn’t automatically elite just because of those 2021 and 2022 rings, and as long as Smart is coach.
Although optimism still reigned in the losing locker room. “As much as you want to, you’re not going to win the national championship every single year,” senior linebacker Smael Mondon said. “Just to be in the picture, and be battling and be able to compete for one, the program is definitely where we’re supposed to be.
” Advertisement “The expectation doesn’t change next year. I know that,” said safety Dan Jackson , the last link to the great 2021 defense. “Because we always have guys come in that are going to uphold the standard and be great.
And we never really rebuild, we reload here.” Then there was Smith, the receiver whose play symbolized the team during the season: drops that helped put the team in a hole, the clutch plays to help pull out wins. This game neither happened.
Smith played well and didn’t have any drops, but the team couldn’t come through in the clutch. What did this loss mean for the program? Was it a hit to the ego? “It’s a hit to my heart,” Smith said. “Somebody’s going to be on this side of the game and somebody’s going to be on that side.
Winners and losers. We were losers. It sucks.
” (Photo: Sean Gardner / Getty Images).
