By no means has Georgia been having a bad football season. There’s more than enough pointing to the fact that Kirby Smart and his coaching staff and team are doing a pretty good job at being a pretty good football team, but the fact of the matter is that this success– though great– has still been hindered by injuries. That is until yesterday when the Ole Miss Rebels were the unlucky bunch to feel the wrath of an actually healthy Georgia Bulldog team.
Ladd McConkey. Amarius Mims. Brock Bowers. Know these names. These three players have each had their own healthy stints with the team, but finally in Week 10 of the regular season, we got to see all of them in action together working as one to lay a healthy beating on the No. 9 ranked Rebels.
It was a big day for McConkey as he caught four passes for eighty-one yards and a touchdown on what was his twenty-second birthday– he led the team in receiving yards. Bowers, just twenty-six after his surgery, was back in action to the fullest effect, also catching the ball three times for thirty-four yards and a touchdown. His first day back had him picking up like he never left. And to add to all of that. These plays were made possible by an offensive line with a potential first round prospect back in the rotation in Amarius Mims.
On the topic of healthy comebacks, Kendall Milton, who started the season injured and endured what appeared to be a slight re-injury during Georgia’s Vanderbilt match seemed to be back in peak physical form running for 127 yards and scoring twice off of just nine attempts!
Georgia beat Ole Miss at its own game. Offensively, the Dawgs just couldn’t stop scoring, mounting up double digit points in each quarter of the game adding up to what eventually wound up being a 51 to 17 final score in favor of the Red and Black. Defensively, Georgia neutralized Ole Miss’ run game in spite of having star linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson. That on top of the score forced the Rebels into more obvious passing situations, and the Dawgs took advantage of it getting two sacks on the night.
What we saw yesterday was a sliver of what this 2023 Georgia team can be: a team that’s dominant on both ends of the ball– a team that can win on command. Dominance was the name of the game here against Ole Miss, and the Dawgs showed a lot of it. And it’s in good timing because they’ll need the energy to flow over for the next week as they take on the Tennessee Volunteers in Neyland stadium.