The second and last off week for Georgia football means the only opponents to worry about are undeveloped frontal lobes with disposable income, and of course the ACCPD traffic enforcement. In lieu of those sources of ruination, let’s instead turn our focus on what worries us about the state of the 2025 Bulldogs.
There are some easy targets. Slow starts (seemingly remedied on offense of late), a defense that only plays a few minutes each game, or a run game that only shows up every other week. There are still a few folks out there who worry Kirby hasn’t fired Mike Bobo yet. Fine and good, but Georgia is the #5 team in the country, with a manageable path to the SEC Championship Game and the College Football Playoff. These are just some things that are niggling, but frustrating for me as a fan.
1. Pass Interference. It’s one thing for Ellis Robinson to get flagged one time, it’s a second thing to get flagged for the same thing a second time. That kept the Ole Miss 2nd drive alive, allowing them to stay in the game and regain the lead. And how about Noah Thomas on the push-off? Offensive Pass Interference is a drive-killer, and it prevented an opening touchdown. There’s an art to getting separation from a DB, and another art to face-guarding and keeping a receiver from separating. I’m not sure we’re that great in either. Which is another reason not to cut funding for the arts.
I can’t easily find stats on OPI and DPI calls, but it seems these are much more frequent in 2025. For the most part, Georgia is playing discliplined football with very few holding calls, false starts, or other minor infractions. The PI calls are 15 yards – which is a chunk play in the wrong direction. I don’t know who on our schedule is able to use this against us, but there might be a Conor Stalion out there submitting a manifesto on how to beat Georgia and this is probably at the front of the binder.
2. Georgia is tied for 3rd worst in defensive sacks in the nation. We’re only 1 better than our November opponent Charlotte. Funny enough, 3 teams from the State of Georgia are in the bottom 10 nationally: UGA, Georgia State, and Georgia Southern. We’re tied with North Carolina with 8 sacks, which has played 1 less game. Georgia has 4 players with a recorded sack through 7 games. For reference we had 18 last year at the same point. And 14 through 7 games in 2023. Washington State sacked Ole Miss 3 times on 32 attempts… zero for UGA on 36 attempts.
Let me put it this way. I had become so accustomed to great defensive line and edge rushing play that I could identify the player getting the sack without even seeing his jersey number. The same for those corner and safety blitzes. Now? If you told me a name I don’t know that I could correctly distinguish if it was a Georgia Bulldog defenseman or a Tik Tok food critic.
3. Anyone else notice Kirby Smart is letting quarters run out? I’m not talking about halftime and end of game (of which we’ve been okay), but between the 1st and 2nd, and then again between the 3rd and 4th. These are times when we have possession and usually in the middle of a drive. Now it may be the logical play to slow down and get the TV break, but I want to let these boys cook. Letting 15-20 seconds run out when we’re already up to the line and could easily run a play just frustrates me.
It is probably a recognition that the 2025 Bulldogs are not especially explosive on offense, and not particularly stout on defense, and he is burning clock to manage the amount of possessions. And as we’ve seen, Georgia typically doesn’t get as many offensive possessions as we used to. If we can’t stop teams on 3rd down, they keep the ball away from us. If we can’t get turnovers, they keep the ball away from us. If the only time we get the ball is after a score, I guess I understand Coach Smart’s particular brand of clock management. But it worries me this is going to bite us at some point.
No matter how well a team is playing, we as fans can always find something we don’t like or something that worries us. This is your spot to put it out into the Dawg Sports universe. Bothersome, worrisome, annoying, concerning, whatever it is let us hear about it in the comments. Because we will soon have to start worrying about Gators and that is a full-time job.
As always…
GO ‘DAWGS!!!
