UGA Football: We Wanted to Play Our Best Game

By John Frierson
Staff Writer

The offense was rolling. The trick play worked to perfection. The defense was dominant in stretches and difficult to handle throughout.

Playing like the aggressive and assertive bunch of Bulldogs that it has been for most of this stellar season, No. 3 Georgia jumped on No. 2 Michigan early and never let the Wolverines get their teeth into the game Friday night at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla.

The final score of the Capital One Orange Bowl was 34-11, and that margin might not truly reflect the one-sided nature of this College Football Playoff semifinal game. Georgia (13-1) scored the first five times the offense had the ball — three touchdowns and two field goals — while the defense controlled the line of scrimmage throughout, produced three turnovers, and didn’t surrender a touchdown until the game’s closing minutes.

“We came in here and we wanted to play our game,” said nose tackle Jordan Davis, who had one of the defense’s seven tackles for loss.

“We just kind of wanted to bounce back and show the world what we could do,” left tackle Jamaree Salyer said.

Coming after Georgia’s 41-24 loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship game earlier this month, this might seem to some like a bounce-back performance. And maybe it was. Given that this might have been the Bulldogs’ best and most complete performance of the season to this point, you could also see it as the squad springing forward toward the best version of itself at the most critical point of the season.

The Bulldogs and No. 1 Alabama will meet again on Jan. 10, in the National Championship Game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Davis said that while there was plenty of excitement in the locker room after Friday’s win, he was more “even-keeled” and “definitely ready to get back into the film room and continue to work. The national championship’s quickly approaching and we just have to get back and play our game and show our people what we can do.”

Georgia showed Michigan what it could do, in every phase of the game. Quarterback Stetson Bennett IV was 21 of 31 passing for 310 yards and three touchdowns, earning Offensive MVP honors. Cornerback Derion Kendrick, a Clemson transfer who played in multiple playoff games with the Tigers, intercepted passes on back-to-back possessions, and made five stops, including one for loss, to earn Defensive MVP honors.

“He’s been here before so he knows how this thing goes,” Davis said of Kendrick.

Georgia got the ball to start the game and Zamir White ran for 9 yards on the first play from scrimmage. Then Bennett hit Adonai Mitchell for 16 yards, followed by a 35-yard completion to tight end Brock Bowers. The Bulldogs and offensive coordinator Todd Monken were rolling right away.

That first drive ended with a screen pass to Bowers that the big freshman turned into a 9-yard touchdown and 7-0 lead.

The second drive ended with a bit of whimsy, a rare Georgia trick play. On first down at the Michigan 18-yard line, Bennett handed the ball off to running back Kenny McIntosh. He ran to his right and then lofted a pass into the end zone where Mitchell had gotten free and was able to make an uncontested catch for the score and a 14-0 lead with 4:41 left in the first quarter.

That trick play hadn’t always gone so well in practice, Salyer said.

“We ran it a good bit in practice. It’s just one of those plays where you’re like, we’ll see, they might not call that,” Salyer said with a laugh. “We got the play and we all looked at each other like, let’s make it work. You know, initially (Mitchell) was covered, so I’m like, ‘Oh, man.’ But then he broke out of there, and I’m like, ‘Whoa, we’ve got a shot here.’

“It was one of those plays that worked sometimes in practice and didn’t work in practice sometimes. Hey, it worked in the right moment so we’ll take it.”

It was 27-3 at the half, with the Bulldogs outgunning Michigan 330-101. Georgia was averaging 9.2 yards per play to the Wolverines’ 4.0. The game wasn’t over at that point, but it was getting there.

“We just wanted to go out and battle. We wanted to play our best game,” Salyer said.

The Joe Moore Award is handed out at the end of each regular season to the nation’s best offensive line. This season, the award went to Michigan. Yes, Georgia’s defensive line was aware of that.

“We didn’t really use it as motivation,” Davis said. “We knew they won the Joe Moore Award and were totally deserving of that. They have a great offensive line. But we just wanted to make sure that we were dominant and physical up front.

“We wanted to make sure we tested them and gave them a challenge, and that was our game plan going in, being a physical, dominant front.”

Consider the game plan very well executed. Michigan averaged just 3.3 yards on its 27 rushing attempts. Georgia got seven tackles for loss, including four sacks, and routinely won the battle up front.

The work of Georgia’s men up front allowed linebackers like Nakobe Dean and Nolan Smith to rush in for sacks and pressures. The Bulldogs were disruptive throughout, never allowing the Wolverine offense to find its rhythm.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s offense was in rhythm from the start, running the ball effectively and producing big plays in the passing game. Running back James Cook, a Miami native, did both. He averaged 5.3 yards on his six carries and caught three passes for 99 yards, with a 53-yard reception up the right side and later a 37-yard touchdown up the left.

“It’s like Coach (Kirby) Smart said all week: you kind of want to be the guy that holds the bottom of the ladder so that other guys can elevate,” Salyer said. “We did our jobs so that James could elevate tonight.”

A lot of Bulldogs held the ladder and a lot of Bulldogs elevated, and now Georgia has another game in 10 days. If the Bulldogs play like they did Friday, they might just be holding up a national championship trophy on Jan. 10.

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.