College football is filled with intricacies, whether in its various systems, schematics or signaling.
Yet Georgia coach Kirby Smart bypassed anything technical when asked late Saturday night what led to his Bulldogs rushing for 33 first-half yards at Missouri.
“Getting your ass whipped up front,” Smart said.
Georgia trailed 16-6 at intermission at Faurot Field, and the deficit was still 10 with 14:09 remaining, when a 56-yard field goal by Harrison Mevis extended Mizzou’s advantage to 22-12. From that point on, however, the Bulldogs finally did the overpowering, amassing 185 yards while holding the Tigers to 25 and using 1-yard touchdown runs by Kendall Milton and Daijun Edwards to pull out a 26-22 triumph.
The Bulldogs slipped from No. 1 to No. 2 in Sunday’s Associated Press poll, getting supplanted by Alabama, but Smart was hardly subdued hours earlier by the close call.
“I couldn’t be prouder of our guys,” he said. “At halftime, nobody blinked and nobody questioned. It was the most together I’ve ever seen our team.
“This team bonded tonight, but we’ve got a long way to go. There are a ton of things to clean up.”
Perhaps we’ll look back at this as the first true foundation piece of another special Georgia season and that its scintillating September simply transpired too easily. After all, the 2017 Bulldogs certainly grew from their memorable escape at Notre Dame, as did last year’s team from a 10-3 topping of Clemson in an opener void of offensive touchdowns.
The hype for both quarterback Stetson Bennett and offensive coordinator Todd Monken has temporarily been tempered. The undefeated run for the Bulldogs has not due to an impressive closing surge.
“I hate that we had to do that,” Smart said, “because it begs the question of, ‘Why couldn’t we do that earlier?'”
Ole Miss has won nine consecutive regular-season games since last October’s 31-20 loss at Auburn, the longest such streak for the Rebels since the 1961-62 seasons.
Alabama was wobbling Saturday when a 28-0 lead at Arkansas became 28-23 and with star quarterback Bryce Young sidelined, but a 77-yard run by backup quarterback Jalen Milroe early in the fourth quarter followed by touchdown runs of 72 and 76 yards by running back Jahmyr Gibbs enabled the Crimson Tide to break free 49-26.
Gibbs, the former Dalton High and Georgia Tech standout, finished with 206 rushing yards.
“I thought the offense did a really good job of continuing to score points in a different way than when Bryce plays,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “I think you’ve got to have that kind of adversity on your team. You’ve got to be able to win in more than one way.”
Saban said Young suffered an AC sprain in his shoulder and is expected to update the status of the reigning Heisman Trophy winner during Monday’s weekly news conference.
If asked to name the top junior, sophomore and freshman players in the Southeastern Conference, one potential combo is Alabama outside linebacker Will Anderson, Georgia tight end Brock Bowers and Kentucky receiver Barion Brown.
Brown, a 6-foot-1, 166-pounder out of Pearl-Cohn High in Nashville, isn’t an emerging star. He’s a star.
In Saturday’s 22-19 loss at Ole Miss, the former top-100 national prospect had two receptions for 81 yards and three kickoff returns for 164 yards to compile 245 all-purpose yards. Brown averaged 40.5 yards a catch and 54.7 yards a return, a category he leads nationally with his 47.7-yard clip.
“He’s a very talented young man,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said Saturday, “and he also plays extremely tough.”
The health of LSU quarterback Jaden Daniels, the transfer from Arizona State, is sure to be monitored this week with the No. 25 Tigers preparing to host No. 8 Tennessee.
Daniels is dealing with bursitis in his knee and was pulled late in the third quarter of Saturday night’s 21-17 win at Auburn, a game LSU trailed 17-0 midway through the second quarter. Daniels threw for just 80 yards but rushed for 59 and a touchdown.
“There is no structural damage,” LSU coach Brian Kelly said. “He was in pain, but we’ll have him back. We’re not concerned with it. He was really sore and was limping around, and I didn’t like the way he was moving out there, so I made the decision to take him out.
“He didn’t come out on his own.”
The Volunteers opened Sunday as 3.5-point favorites.
Auburn has built double-digit leads in five straight SEC games dating to last season and only has the incredibly fortunate overtime escape of Missouri to show for it. In the last six occasions the Tigers have faced Power Five foes, they’ve been outscored 101-18 during the third and fourth quarters.
“The second half is an area we have to improve, and that showed up again,” Tigers coach Bryan Harsin said after having his second-year record squared again at 9-9.
Harsin was asked late Saturday night how confident he was that he would be allowed to coach out this entire season. Auburn’s next two contests are at No. 2 Georgia and No. 9 Ole Miss.
“My job every day is to show up and make sure that I’m prepared and that we get this football team prepared, and that doesn’t change whatsoever,” Harsin said. “It’s like life — you control what you can.”
Controlling turnovers would be a start, as Auburn’s minus-9 deficit through five games ranks 129th out of the 131 Football Bowl Subdivision teams.
Saturday’s 42-24 loss at Mississippi State completed Texas A&M’s seemingly annual plummet from the national rankings.
The Aggies, who began this season No. 6 in the AP poll, are 3-2 heading into Saturday’s venture to Tuscaloosa. In Texas A&M’s 11 years as an SEC member, which includes Kevin Sumlin’s six seasons and Jimbo Fisher nearing the midway mark of his fifth, the Aggies are 29-32 against Western Division opposition.
“We’ve got good players, and we’ll keep playing,” Fisher said. “We’ll keep sawing wood and do the things we’ve got to do to get there. We’re not where we want to be, no doubt.
“We’ve got to get better.”
When told he possesses a 9-4 career record against the Aggies and asked whether he had their number, Mississippi State coach Mike Leach said, “I don’t know. I hope so. I thought it was 10-3.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.