UGA Football: Patience And Aggression Power Bulldogs In Shutout

In its second Top-10 match of the season, the No. 2-ranked Georgia football team played perhaps its most complete game Saturday in a 37-0 thrashing of No. 8 Arkansas at Sanford Stadium.

The Georgia defense was once again largely impenetrable, stuffing one Razorback drive after another. The Bulldogs held the Hogs without a first down in seven of the Razorbacks’ 10 drives. Three times Arkansas drove into Georgia territory, and one of those only to the Bulldog 44-yard line. The other two drives ended in a missed 73-yard field goal, late in the first quarter with Georgia up 14-0, and then on the final drive of the game as time expired.

“Every time we get on the field, we are pushing for a three-and-out. That is just the standard,” said linebacker Nakobe Dean, who had 1.5 sacks against the Razorbacks. “If they do not score, they cannot win. We just try to do our job and get them off the field and get the offense the ball.

For the fourth time in five games this season, Georgia’s defense held the other team scoreless in the first half. And Saturday’s shutout was the second in a row for the Bulldogs, who won 62-0 at Vanderbilt last week.

With the defense being its stifling best — the back-to-back shutouts of SEC opponents hadn’t been done since the 1980 national championship season — Georgia’s offense didn’t need to do much. But it still did plenty.

For most of this season, it has been the Bulldog passing game leading the attack, but not Saturday. With Stetson Bennett starting in place of the injured JT Daniels for the second time this season, Georgia’s ground game broke through in a big way.

Bennett actually set the tone on the game’s first play from scrimmage, a 9-yard keeper. Zamir White and James Cook did much of the work on the 75-yard drive that ended with a 3-yard touchdown run by White. It was a big afternoon for White, who went on to score another rushing touchdown and also scored when he recovered a blocked punt in the end zone.

Kendall Milton scored the second touchdown of the game for Georgia, which finished the day with 273 rushing yards out of 345 yards of total offense. The first six plays of the drive were all runs, utilizing four different Bulldog backs, and when Georgia faced a third-and-goal on the Razorback 1-yard like, the jumbo unit was sent onto Dooley Field.

With defensive linemen Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter in as blockers — Davis is listed at 6-foot-6 and 340 pounds and Carter is 6-3 and 310 — Milton ran to the left behind Carter, his lead blocker on the play, for the score.

“I would hate to be the person to have to take on that block,” Milton said of Carter. “He more than did his job.”

Bulldogs were doing their jobs all over the field. Bennett and the passing game weren’t called on to do too much, not with Arkansas often lining up with eight men in coverage, but they were effective when they needed to be. As every college and NFL team knows, having an experienced backup quarterback is priceless. On Saturday, Bennett ran the offense very effectively and completed 7 of 11 passes for 72 yards. Ladd McConkey was the leading receiver with three catches for 27 yards.

“We just go out there, do our job and if we do it really well and execute, we’re pretty good,” said Bennett, who put on a much bigger aerial show in his start against UAB, tying a school record with five touchdown passes.

As Bennett put it later in his postgame interview, when you’ve got a defense like Georgia’s and the ability to run the ball like the Bulldogs did Saturday, “it makes it easy.”

Four Georgia running backs had at least 10 carries. James Cook ran 12 times for 87 yards; White had 68 yards and two scores on 16 attempts; Kenny McIntosh added 57 yards on 10 carries; Milton finished with 13 carries for 48 yards and a score.

Smart said Georgia wanted to be patient on offense while also being aggressive.

“I would have definitely thought there might have been 53 runs in this game, 57 runs, whatever there were because that was the kind of game plan that we needed to approach it with,” Smart said. “And you know that it might be different next week.

“The best teams I’ve ever been around can take on the personality of what they need to take on. I’m really proud of the offensive line. I’m proud of the offensive coaching staff. We did an incredible job game‐planning against what is a very good defense, in my opinion, a very good defense.”

“We knew — the offensive line knew, the running backs knew, the wide receivers knew, the tight ends knew — that their job this week was to run the ball,” Bennett said, “and that is what we did.”

Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said the Razorbacks wanted to come in and get something going early, to “start fast, take their crowd out of the game, and the opposite happened.” Instead, Georgia’s ground game got rolling from the outset while the Bulldog defense continues to be one of the very best units in college football.

“Guys, I don’t want to simplify this,” Pitman added, “but they just whipped us physically.”

From beginning to end, with the added bonus of Dan Jackson’s punt block near the goal line that White recovered for a score and a 21-0 lead late in the first quarter, it was a physical and dominant performance by the Bulldogs.

Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He’s also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.