Neither top-ranked Georgia nor coach Kirby Smart buy the notion that their toughest test is behind them as college football’s regular season enters its final weeks.
The challenges never really stop for Smart’s Bulldogs (9-0, 6-0 Southeastern Conference) because the target is always there as reigning national champions, and they’re also No. 1 in both the AP Top 25 and the College Football Playoff rankings.
So, Smart said, bring on the clanging cowbells and everything else they can expect Saturday night at Mississippi State (6-3, 3-3) in the battle of the SEC’s two sets of Bulldogs.
“If you have good DNA, it travels with you,” Smart said. “We don’t do all the exercises that you do to build composure to not use it. We anticipate it’s an opportunity to flex our composure muscle, our resiliency muscle, our connection muscle and our toughness muscle.
“We don’t do all that lifting and preparing to not use it.”
Georgia certainly used everything to slow previously unbeaten Tennessee’s high-powered offense while winning 27-13 last week in a showdown of SEC East Division rivals. That prepared the Georgia defense for the next challenge: containing the pass-happy Air Raid scheme of the SEC West’s Bulldogs.
Record-setting junior quarterback Will Rogers leads the conference’s No. 2 passing attack (325.6 yards per game) and No. 8 unit overall (406.20), one that has incorporated more running.
Georgia counters with the league’s No. 2 passer in Stetson Bennett — who threw for two of his three scores against the Volunteers — and a top-ranked defense that has allowed a league-low 256.6 yards per game.
Georgia is also pretty stout against the pass, having allowed 179.11 yards per game through the air. But it will face a scheme that likes to snap it quick like Tennessee and — for a change — keep defenses guessing whether they’ll come at them through the air or on the ground.
“Of course, they throw the ball well,” sophomore inside linebacker Smael Mondon Jr. said of Mississippi State. “A part that a lot of people look over is them running the ball. They have a pretty solid run game, and they have been trying to improve over the last couple of years. It is a balance between both of those.”
Mike Leach’s team is coming off a 39-33 overtime victory over Auburn that began with Mississippi State jumping to a 24-3 lead against an opponent playing for the first time since Bryan Harsin was fired during his second season as head coach.
Auburn, led by interim coach Carnell Williams, rallied to lead twice in the final five minutes before Mississippi State forced the extra period and won on Jo’Quavious Marks’ 6-yard run. Leach’s crew can’t afford to fall behind against Georgia, and as last week proved, has to stay on the gas even if ahead on the scoreboard.
“We’ve just got to come out of the locker room with more energy, more urgency,” Mississippi State safety Collin Duncan said. “We’re two teams that pride ourselves off being physical, playing hard-nosed defense. We’ve just got to go into our stadium, play hard and play for the whole 60 minutes.”
Duncan is part of a unit that has been somewhat overlooked, ranking sixth in the SEC at 360.8 yards allowed per game and leading the league with nine interception returns for 199 yards. Emmanuel Forbes leads the SEC with five picks, having returned two for touchdowns.
The group next faces an offense that can be balance both in terms of pass versus run and within the ground game.
Daijun Edwards leads four Georgia running backs with 240 or more rushing yards. Edwards, Kenny McIntosh and Kendall Milton have shared the lead role, but Smart said Tuesday that McIntosh is “limited some” by a deep thigh contusion after rushing for 52 yards last week. Edwards had 46 while Bennett had the team’s only rushing touchdown as Georgia topped the Vols in rushing yardage, 130-94.
Ahead of the Tennessee game, Georgia lost linebacker Nolan Smith — one of only three returning starters on defense — for the season with a torn pectoral muscle. His replacement, Robert Beal, left the game in the third quarter with a neck injury. Smart said Tuesday that Beal’s injury was a “stinger” and that he hoped for his return at Mississippi State; Chaz Chambliss took over for Beal against the Vols.
After having 10 sacks through eight games, the Georgia defense recorded six sacks in the win, with defensive back Javon Bullard posting the first two of his collegiate career.