Georgia football fans not satisfied with win over Gamecocks may have a point

Georgia football fans are an understandably jaded bunch, and the idea that some may be dissatisfied with the No. 2 Bulldogs beating SEC rival South Carolina 40-13 may seem ridiculous.

Until you examine their thinking.

Make no mistake, this is a good Georgia football team. A very good team. Undoubtedly the most talented team Kirby Smart has ever had, and possibly the team with the most overall talent in Georgia history.

Not one bit of the above paragraph matters unless that very good team wins a national championship. Another SEC championship would be nice, but validation will only come through breaking a 41-year old streak of futility.

So back to the win against the Gamecocks.

Georgia football fans going glass half-full or half-empty?

Protagonists will point out that it was an SEC win, and that Georgia controlled the game from start to finish, and that any sloppiness seen from the Dawgs happened in the fourth quarter when the reserves were in the game.

All true, and, good reason to hold a positive thought and be a happy fan.

(Here comes the but)

But…

The fans who are dissatisfied and complaining, the ones who are taking it on the chin from the “real” fans, the ones who are finding flaw and not falling in line with the “great win” narrative?

They have a point.

Yes, this was an SEC win for Georgia, but being completely transparent, South Carolina is not a very good team. In fact, they’re a pretty bad team. They have a new head coach, new systems being installed on both sides of the ball, and they simply don’t have anywhere near the talent to match up with a team like Georgia.

The Gamecocks struggled to get past East Carolina last week, which was a prelude to what would be seen on Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium this week.

A win over this year’s South Carolina team shouldn’t carry more weight than the win over UAB.

If you’re a Georgia fan, you can’t cheer in a vacuum, you have to examine each win and take it for what it is, and then, you have to do the unthinkable. You have to ask yourself one simple question.

Was that good enough to beat Alabama?

Georgia football must use Alabama as their true measuring stick

When it comes to the Bulldogs decided victory over South Carolina, that answer has to be a resounding no. That effort and those mistakes would have never led to a win against the Crimson Tide.

First, Georgia’s secondary was somewhat exposed for what it is – a group of young players still learning and finding their weaknesses.

In the first two games of the season, that group was masked by Georgia’s front seven who never gave opposing quarterbacks a chance to push the ball downfield. Both D.J. Uiagalelei and Tyler Johnston saw more of the Georgia defensive line than they did their own receivers.

Against Clemson, Georgia totaled seven sacks and eight tackles-for-loss. Uiagalelei was running for his life most of the night and Clemson only completed one pass over 25 yards, a 44-yard completion coming late in the 4th quarter.

But against South Carolina? Gamecock quarterbacks logged completions of 61, 31, 36 yards, and a 36-yard touchdown pass (the first TD Georgia’s defense had given up all season).

Few of the other big plays led to Gamecock points because they kept shooting themselves in the foot, but if you give up that many chunk plays against Alabama, you’re going to find yourself in a hole rather quickly.

And it’s safe to say that Alabama’s quarterback and receivers are a far cry better than South Carolina’s.

Another reason fans have a right to critique the win against South Carolina is mental mistakes, both on the field and from the sideline.

The 61-yard completion by South Carolina quarterback Zeb Noland came when Georgia was too busy high-fiving each other on the field to notice that Carolina was lining up for a quick snap. The defense was nowhere near set and receiver Josh Vann had an easy catch.

That simply can’t happen against good teams.

The Bulldogs also had seven penalties for 52 yards, and most of them were unforced errors, including a face mask penalty that negated what would have been a sack for inside linebacker Quay Walker.

Perhaps the most perplexing mental mistake of all came from head coach Kirby Smart. The Bulldogs were in complete control of the game for the majority of the 1st quarter, and then it was almost as if Smart said “This is too easy, we need to make it a challenge” substituting Stetson Bennett in for JT Daniels – who had been cruising and shredding the South Carolina defense to that point.

Bennett’s first pass of the night was intercepted, leading to three more points for the Gamecocks. That was one of three unnecessary turnovers for the Dawgs.

So was it really a great win, or…just a win? More importantly, is it a win that makes the Bulldogs feel confident they could beat Alabama?

Yes, the Bulldogs won convincingly against a team they should have convincingly beaten, but looking deeper does show that it wasn’t a win to celebrate quite as much as some may want. There’s still a lot of work to be done for this Georgia football team.