Big plays in the passing game came in all kinds of ways Saturday afternoon at Sanford Stadium. Some were throws deep downfield, others were simple screen passes that were all about the yards after the catch.
By the time top-ranked Georgia walked off Dooley Field, which was well after a lot of the Bulldogs’ starters had been pulled from the game, Georgia had cruised to a 43-6 win over Missouri. It was a win that featured receptions by 11 different players, nine of them with a catch that gained at least 11 yards.
Missouri came in with a struggling run defense that was giving up more than 280 yards a game on the ground. So Georgia would feast on the ground, right? It didn’t work out that way.
The Tigers went all-in on packing the line of scrimmage and not letting the ground game get going, which was effective for a while. But that approach also meant that Georgia had receivers in one-on-one situations all over the place.
Stetson Bennett, making his sixth start of the season and fifth in a row, only played a little more than a half but still finished with 255 yards passing and two touchdowns. He completed 13 of 19 attempts and his deep attempts proved very productive.
“I think Missouri came into this game and their game plan was to not let us run the ball. They were popping (linebackers) and had low safeties and were trying to stop our run game,” Bennett said. “And when they do that, we’ve got to be explosive to make them back up. If they don’t, (throwing deep is) how we score points.”
Wideouts Jermaine Burton and Arian Smith, tight end Brock Bowers and running backs Kenny McIntosh and Daijun Edwards all had receptions of more than 20 yards. Burton, Mitchell and Ladd McConkey led the Bulldogs with three catches each — Burton with a team-high 76 yards receiving — and Burton and McConkey both got into the end zone.
Georgia found itself trailing 3-0 late in the first quarter — just the second time it has trailed all season — but soon started firing in the passing game. Bennett hit Mitchell for 15 yards on third-and-10, later hit Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint for 11 and a first down, but soon after it found itself facing a fourth-and-6 at the Mizzou 35-yard line.
Rather than trying a long field goal, Georgia quickly snapped the ball and Bennett lofted a deep ball into the end zone, where Smith pulled it in for a 35-yard score and a 7-3 lead.
“Arian might be the fastest dude in the country playing football,” Bennett said. “I think they went zero (coverage) there, and it was definitely man‐to‐man. We full‐slid the protection and I just trusted him to get to a spot, and he got there and finished the play off.”
According to the SEC Network, Bennett is the only quarterback in the conference with five or more touchdown passes that traveled at least 35 yards in the air.
Georgia’s next drive, which came after a blocked punt by linebacker Nolan Smith led to a safety and a 9-3 lead, nearly ended with a 47-yard touchdown pass from Bennett to Burton. But after a review, it was ruled that Burton’s knee was down at the 1-yard line, so it was only a 46-yard catch that was soon followed by a 1-yard Zamir White touchdown run.
When the other team packs the defense in to stop the run, Bennett relishes the change to take advantage of those one-on-one coverage situations.
“It fires me up and it fires me up that we have guys on the outside, like that ball I threw to Jermaine, the big one where I underthrew it and he just went up and made a catch,” Bennett said. “It’s exciting to see, and with the protection that the O-line gives me, I have time to read it out.”
Georgia’s third touchdown drive of the game featured runs of 15 and 17 yards by James Cook, as the ground game started to get going. Later in the drive, Bennett hit tight end Brock Bowers for 16 yards, followed by an incompletion. Then came a 14-yard to Mitchell followed by a 17-yarder to Burton, who was tackled at the 1. Cook took a direct snap on the next play and scored easily, making it 26-3 at the half.
“Offensively, it took us a while to get going, but once we did we really did some nice things,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said.
Georgia got the ball to start the third quarter and after two White runs were stuffed, Bennett hit tight end Darnell Washington for 11 yards and a first down. Then wideout Kearis Jackson ran a reverse for 37 yards to the Missouri 12. After being stopped just shy of the goal line on his two other catches, Burton caught a screen pass and ran the ball in for a 12-yard touchdown and a 33-3 lead.
Bennett was done for the day after that and JT Daniels took over in his first action due to injury since the Vanderbilt game on Sept. 25. Daniels completed a fourth-and-3 pass for 7 yards to tight end John FitzPatrick to keep Georgia’s next drive going and then hit Ladd McConkey for a 7-yard touchdown. Daniels 7-for-11 for 82 yards with a touchdown and an interception off a tipped pass.
Midway through the fourth quarter, by which point most starters were out of the game, Georgia was averaging 18.4 yards per completion for the game. The Bulldogs ended the game with 337 yards passing and 168 on the ground, outgaining the Tigers 505-273.
“With our offense, you hope to be as good running the ball as throwing the ball, and they’ve got to pick their poison,” Bennett said. “If they go all-out to stop one, the other one’s going to bite ’em.”
And the passing game had some serious bite to it on Saturday.
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.
