Monday Dawg Bites Knows It’s Time To Move On

Welcome back from the bye week, it’s Monday, and with the off week over it’s time to look ahead to Kentucky. That means Alabama is over. It’s time to move on, and so we look to Tom Petty for some inspiration.

There were plenty of good lessons to be learned from the game, and here’s hoping that the Bulldogs have taken them and are now focused on how to spend the next six weeks getting better.

Georgia has a ton to play for, including a rematch with Alabama, and Richard LeCounte offered some perspective on where the team is during a chat with the AJC recently

The upcoming stretch of games looks like the following- Kentucky, Florida, Missouri, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Vanderbilt.

That’s what folks in the business call manageable. Georgia has a great opportunity to get better, let tight position battles play out on the field, and find a groove on offense. If they can, they will be a major player for a College Football Playoff berth. 247 Sports recently wrote an interesting article on how Georgia can become a team that’s good enough to make it into the top four and win an SEC Championship.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, Georgia does have an SEC road game in Lexington this week. The guys in the desert have UGA as a 14.5 point favorite over Kentucky. The over/under is set at 45 points.

After watching Missouri and Kentucky play each other this past weekend, it’s hard to imagine a UK team that only managed to pass for 47 yards and run for 98 yards straining this Georgia defense. The Wildcats were so inept on offense Saturday that they only ran 36 plays.

Kentucky’s defense is much better than their offense, particularly when defending the pass. The Wildcats haven’t allowed a TD reception in their last three games and have pulled down nine interceptions in that time span. Expect a heavy dose of the running game on Saturday, but also expect Georgia to try and figure some things out through the air. They won’t be able to beat Florida in two weeks by being one-dimensional, and Monken will be eager to get Bennett feeling confident again before a game that will likely determine the division title.

Kirby Smart used the bye week to take a harder look at some young players who haven’t seen the field much, so it will be interesting to see if there are any changes to the depth chart or new faces in the rotation.

The coming weeks for Georgia should be fascinating. We will find out whether Georgia is a team that’s rounding into form after losing its presumptive starting QB three weeks prior to the season, or a team with a low ceiling because of its quarterback play. The pieces are in place, and now UGA needs Stetson Bennett, or whoever is playing the position, to take on a point-guard role and distribute productive plays amongst those pieces. Is JT Daniels healthy? I don’t know, but each passing week makes it more likely that he is. Is he a better option at quarterback than Bennett even if he is physically ready for game action? We won’t know until we know.

Georgia should win against Kentucky, but how they do it and what players contribute to that effor will say a lot about what the coaching staff’s ultimate plan for this team is. Or maybe they’re just saving the cards in their hand for the matchup against Florida.

As Tom put it above, What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing... The good news is that’s where the fun is.

No matter how it pans out, we’ll be along to watch, react and cover it for you. Y’all have a great week. As always...

GO DAWGS!