Georgia football got the season started right on Saturday night with a 30-6 win over Vanderbilt. Sure, it was just Vanderbilt, but a conference win is always great, especially when it’s on the road.
Saturday night featured a lot of good, but some bad as well. Let’s start with the good.
The Good (Players)
D’Andre Swift
Swift looked like he’s going to be a handful for defenses this year, even more so than last year. His vision was great last night, hitting the hole hard and eventually dragging defenders with him. His season’s off to a great start after his 146 yard performance.
Jake Fromm
His stats might not show it, but Fromm had a solid and efficient night passing the ball. 15-of-23 for 156 yards and one touchdown was good enough to do what was asked of him. There were some penalties that negated some long plays as well. Overall, Fromm performed well, kept the ball in Georgia’s hands and got everybody involved nicely.
James Cook
The former 5-star running back Cook had a nice showing last night, displaying his top level speed and evasiveness en route to an 18 yard touchdown run. He also looked good on kick returns, taking two back for a total of 41 yards. Georgia should have incorporated him more into the offense.
Brian Herrien
I looked and could not find it, but if somebody knows how many yards after contact Herrien had last night, please share. He was running angry, and it was clear that it’s going to take two people to take him down this season. Herrien had 12 carries for 65 yards and a touchdown. He just gets the job done.
Demetris Robertson
What a showing for the speedster out of Savannah last night. It was his first game where he was really playing a pivotal role in the offense, and new coordinator James Coley made sure to get him involved. DRob had three catches for 23 yards – including his first catch ever as a Bulldog – and a touchdown, along with 2 rushes for 29 more yards. Additionally, he had a 53 yard catch called back for holding.
Rodrigo Blankenship
Hot Rod had another great night kicking for Georgia. He is so consistently good that I nearly forgot to put him on this list. He drilled field goals of 50, 37 and 31.
Justin Young, Jordan Davis, Tyler Clarke, Devonte Wyatt, David Marshall
The defensive line showed out last night. They held Vanderbilt to 116 rushing yards all game, got pressure on the quarterback, broke up a pass and made life difficult for Vanderbilt all night.
Monty Rice and Azeez Ojulari
Linebackers Monty Rice and Azeez Ojulari both had strong showing last night. Rice posted 7 tackles, while Ojulari had 6. The two of them were flying around the field yesterday with a nose for the football. Ojulari burst through the line for Georgia’s only sack of the game but seemed to be in the backfield a good bit.
Mark Webb, Eric Stokes, J.R. Reed
Defensive backs Mark Webb, Eric Stokes and J.R. Reed all had solid outings last night for the Dawgs. The three of them were main contributors in holding Vanderbilt to 109 passing yards and no touchdowns. This includes completely shutting down star receiver Kalija Lipscomb.
The good (team)
Team performance:
The run game looked to be clicking as it tends to do, rushing for 323 yards.
The run defense was superb, holding Ke’Shawn Vaughn, one of the SEC’s best tailbacks, to 74 yards on 15 carries (4.9 yards).
The defense held star receiver Kalija Lipscomb to three catches for eight yards.
The linebackers were making tackles all game, thanks in large part to the great defensive line play.
We also saw a lot of nice performances from freshmen and transfer players.
Georgia put up 479 yards of total offense and held Vanderbilt to 109 yards.
Shoutout to DawgNation for taking over Vanderbilt Stadium.
The bad….
The bad:
There was also some bad, starting with the ten penalties for 115 yards. A lot of silly penalties like facemasks, late hits, etc. really hurt Georgia and allowed Vanderbilt to march down the field on a few occasions. I would hate to be a Georgia player in practice following that game. Something tells me it’s going to look a lot like a track practice.
The offense was unable to do much scoring wise after a nice first quarter.
Short yardage issues in the run game created a some frustration among coaches and fans.
Fumbles by Zamir White (went out of bounds) and Kearis Jackson (recovered by Vandy) were not what we wanted to see out of the Dawgs.
Inconsistency from the offensive line was a bit surprising. They had a fine night, but Vanderbilt was still able to hit Fromm hard twice. Also, holding calls on Solomon Kindley and Isaiah Wilson negated some plays.
Georgia’s play calling got rather conservative in the second half of the game, and we only outscored Vandy 9-6 for the final 38 minutes of the game.
