Georgia Bulldogs: We’re About To Find Out How Physical They Are
By W. M. Lawson
The Georgia Bulldogs (3-0) are set to host the “other” Bulldogs of Mississippi State on Saturday. We’re about to find out how physical a Kirby Smart team will be.
There is a cautious optimism and ebullience floating around Dawg Nation these days. A perfect three wins out of three to start the season will do that. A dominating defense will do that. A back-up True Freshman QB playing well will do that. But we are about to find out how physical these Kirby Smart led Georgia Bulldogs truly are in his 2nd year as Head Coach.
Without going into it, the cautious part of that optimism is how UGA has won. We were told Appalachian State is no joke and shouldn’t be slept on. The Georgia Bulldogs won that game 31-10 after their 5* Starting QB went down in the first quarter. We’ll know more about how good Appy St. really is after their tilt with Wake Forest this Saturday.
Then they go to Notre Dame. I wrote about that game extensively. Won’t go into it here. No one knows if that team is good. But we do know that game was nationally televised and it is no place for a True Freshman QB to go get road wet, if you will. Dawgs won.
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Last Saturday, the UGA Dawgs beat the Bulldogs of Samford 42-14. This is of note because there were no season ending injuries, and in year 2 of the CKS regime, UGA seems to be winning against inferior teams like “they are supposed to”. See: 2016 Nicholls State game. That’s a year over year improvement.
So, now we have the Mississippi State Bulldogs coming to Athens. They saunter over Saturday on the heels of a very impressive win over LSU. Now, LSU might not be any good. They don’t look like it, thus far. But that is a big win, nonetheless.
The point here, though, is that while the other games certainly mattered, the way the first couple of dates matter when one is interested in another person, this game Saturday is like that date when they meet your friends for the first time. Can he/she hang? Are they funny, smart, laid back enough to fit in? Or were the first few times seeing each other an illusion?
Georgia Bulldog fans are about to find out how physical a Kirby Smart team might begin to look like. Especially, on Defense. MSU has talent and are coached well. Even when they are bad record-wise, they play a brand of football that isn’t exactly tummy sticks or tiddly-winks. Even when that team is a bad football team, they are physical and disciplined.
Coach Kirby Smart and company have had approximately 20 months to coach these dudes and instill a culture. They coached most of these kids in 16 games, thus far. That should be long enough to start seeing a physical identity emerge that the coaches, themselves, claim is their identity.
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The Georgia Bulldogs can win Saturday night. They are favored to win. But they won’t do it unless they are more physical than Mississippi State. We’ll find out in a few short days.