No reason for panic surrounding Georgia Bulldogs

The Georgia Bulldogs are still a major player on the national scene.

I repeat.

The Georgia Bulldogs are still a major player on the national scene.

Saturday’s performance during a 38-35 defeat at South Carolina was less than spectacular for Mark Richt’s club, but in the grand scheme of things, it could emerge as simply a blip on the radar. For reference, this was a road loss by three points against a ranked opponent, and more importantly, it came at a very good time during week three (or week two for UGA) of the college football season.

The AP and USA Today polls, which actually mean “nothing” in the grand scheme, lend a sense of credence to the “please don’t panic” movement, as the Bulldogs still land in the top-15 in both sets of rankings. More than that, however, Georgia has an extremely manageable schedule the rest of the way, and with 11 straight victories (i.e. the rest of the season) and a claim on the SEC Championship, a birth in the inaugural College Football Playoff would almost certainly be in the offing.

Quite obviously, 11 consecutive victories is not something that can be “penciled in” for any team in college football, but with the schedule on tap, it is also a reasonable projection for Georgia. The toughest road game on the schedule comes on October 11 against Missouri, who lost virtually their entire roster from the 2013 team that made the SEC Championship Game, and aside from that, the toughest game comes when Auburn visits Athens on November 15.

Translation? This season has a great deal of life to it, and one loss, especially in the manner in which it arrived, does not derail any of the long-term plans for the Dawgs. Jeremy Pruitt has a great deal of work ahead of him to sure up what was a disastrous performance by a loaded defense, but his expertise is the reason he was given the keys upon arrival from Florida State, and there is no reason (at least to this point) to suggest that he is incapable of shaping this defense to resemble an elite unit.

There is a long way to go in the 2014 college football season, and I’ll bet that the Georgia Bulldogs have a couple of vastly important moments on the horizon.