A Beneficial Day for the Dogs as Gamecocks, Gators los
By Don Stone - Football Atlanta
Quite a turn of events in the SEC on Saturday. The
early noon start at Sanford Stadium sent the Bulldog nation home happy after
watching Georgia easily handle the conference's other bulldogs 24-10. Not a
pretty game, filled with interceptions and fumbles
Lots of positives were to be found as well. Isaiah Crowell
continued to impress with his third 100+ yard rushing day
(109 yards
on 22 carries). Aaron Murray threw
three touchdown passes
to Orson Charles
and Malcolm Mitchell going
13-of-25 and 160 yards. Carlton Thomas
rushed for another.
The Georgia
defense did it's job holding MSU to just three second half points. A
touchdown was scored on a 72 yard Darius Slay interception. It was the last
of three picks thrown by Murray.
The visiting Bulldogs could muster up just 115 yards of offense in
the first half, 213 for the game. UGA contributed to their frustration by
registering four sacks in the first half, two by on 33 plays, and for the
game, a total of 213 yards on 67 plays. Georgia has held opponents to a
combined 16 points in the first half, two by OLB Cornelius Washington
and one each for OLB Jarvis Jones and
N John Jenkins.
But, the real intrigue happened later in the day. First, 10th
ranked South Carolina struggled to put up any offense against visiting
Auburn watching star tunning back Marcus Lattimore
get just 66 yards on a season-low 17 rushes.
The Tigers kept it close all game, then pulled out a Barrett Trotter
9-yard touchdown pass to Phillip Lutzenkirchen
with 1:38 left to stun the Gamecock crowd 16-13.
SEC East Division rival South Carolina, of course, beat Georgia in Athens on
the second game of the season. So, now, they both have a loss in the
conference. The Gamecocks still hold the tiebreaker, though, due to head to
head competition. The Gamecocks (4-1 overall, 2-1 in the conference) still
have a home game against a resurging Clemson team that doesn't count in SEC
rankings. But, they also have tough road games at Tennessee and Arkansas and
a home game with Florida. Anything possible there.
Another domino fell in place Saturday night as 4-1
Florida fell to visiting Alabama 38-10. The surprising domination of the
Tide brings into question how good the then #12 ranked Gators actually are.
Florida is also now tied with Georgia with one conference loss. Their
schedule includes road games in the next two weeks at the #1 ranked LSU
Tigers and in Auburn. Of course, they face the Bulldogs head to head in
Jacksonville October 29 and have another big road game November 12 at South
Carolina.
So, it appears that the Bulldogs now have much more of their
destiny in hand than when the day started. South Carolina still has to lose
another conference game and Georgia has to pretty much win out with a tough
road game Saturday at Tennessee (3-1 overall, 1-1 SEC). Along with the Gator
game in Jax, their other two SEC games are at home in November with Auburn
and Kentucky.
A lot has to go right, but, it looks a lot more possible now
than before.
The Bulldogs take their three-game winning streak to Knoxville,
Tenn. The Tennessee Volunteers. Kickoff will be 8 p.m., and the game will be
televised on one of the ESPN networks.
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