Everyone concedes the 12th-ranked Bulldogs haven’t played up to expectations, a situation that boiled over this week when senior safety Shawn Williams called out his defensive teammates this week for “playing too soft.”
But Georgia (6-1, 4-1 SEC) still finds itself in an enviable position: Facing No. 3-ranked Florida (7-0, 6-0) on Saturday with a chance to gain the inside track to the league championship game.
“That’s the crazy thing about our league,” safety Sanders Commings said Tuesday.
“It doesn’t matter who you lose to. All that matters is how many losses you have.”
An extremely favorable schedule doesn’t hurt, either.
Before the SEC expanded to 14 teams, the Bulldogs were set to face defending national champion Alabama this season. But the league changed its scheduling formula, giving each team an additional division game, so Georgia dropped the Crimson Tide in favor of Missouri.
What a favorable trade that was.
The Bulldogs have faced only one team with a winning record — No. 17 South Carolina — and lost that game by four touchdowns. The six teams Georgia has beaten have a combined record of 7-31 against top-division opponents.
That’s not all. If the Bulldogs can knock off the Gators, it should be a cakewalk the rest of the way. The last four opponents are a cumulative 6-13 against Football Bowl Subdivision teams.
“Coming into the season, the main things that everybody saw were the talent we had coming back and the schedule we had,” linebacker Christian Robinson conceded. “It lined up really well.”
Even when matched against inferior teams, Georgia has rarely looked dominant.
There were troubling signs on defense, especially, when the Bulldogs surrendered 23 points to lowly Buffalo in the season opener. Since then, they have struggled to closer-than-expected wins against Tennessee (51-44) and last week’s nail-biter at Kentucky (29-24).
“We’ve been fortunate,” linebacker Amarlo Herrera said. “We’ve been playing bad ball at a good time.
“We’ve been playing people that couldn’t capitalize on us playing bad.”
The only time the Bulldogs were matched against one of the country’s better teams, they failed miserably. South Carolina romped to a 35-7 victory that was pretty much in the bag by the end of a 21-point first quarter.
Georgia was dominated in total yards, 392-224, and only a meaningless touchdown with less than 2 minutes remaining kept it from being a shutout.
But before the Bulldogs played another game, they had reclaimed control of their own destiny. While Georgia was licking its wounds during an off week, South Carolina lost a tough one at LSU, 23-21.
Then, finishing up a brutal three-game stretch, the Gamecocks were blown out 44-11 at Florida last Saturday afternoon before the Bulldogs even took the field at Kentucky.
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