Friday Dawg Bites Still Doesn’t Know Who’s Playing Quarterback

It’s Friday! As you read this you might be at work realizing all you’ve got to do is kneel out the clock for the next 8 hours and get out of the work week with a win. Execute your personal quarterback/center exchange and you’ll be on your couch watching college football before you know it. Some of you lucky Dawgs might be heading towards Athens this evening or tomorrow morning, and to you I say have no fear.

Yes, this is the same team that walked out of Sanford Stadium with a win and some pieces of the famous hedges the last time they came to town, but that ain’t happening on Saturday. Dawg_Stats and I got back into the stats, film and player grades last night. The UAB team that came to Sanford Stadium last weekend is probably better than the Gamecocks.

We’ll have a separate post for the show later today, but jump into this episode of Dawg Sports Live for more content to help you run out the clock on that work week. We got into lots of stats and analysis on not just UGA-USC, but the rest of Week 3 across college football. I’m 12-7-1 ATS so far this season, so fade the hell out of the picks I gave at the end of the show.

So we know that Georgia is winning on Saturday, but I want to hit on the fact that Beamer is a former Smart assistant who took a job in Georgia’s division. He came in hot talking about the 10 win a season glory days of the South Carolina program and has been recruiting some Georgia targets and commits aggressively since arriving. I think Kirby Smart would like to use Saturday to remind those recruits which of these programs is competing for national titles.

Speaking of recruiting, Georgia has a STOUT visitor list for Saturday’s game against the Gamecocks. The collection of players that will be in Athens tomorrow night is as star studded as any I can remember, and the biggest star on that list is a five-star quarterback from New Orleans by the name of Arch Manning. When you combine who will be there to watch the game with the fact that the loss to the Gamecocks is the biggest head-scratcher on Kirby Smart’s coaching resume, I expect the offense to stay wide open no matter what the score is in the second half on Saturday night.

Before we move on from recruiting, the Dawgs got a good one yesterday as class of 2022 linebacker Carlton Madden of Cedar Grove high-school committed to the G. Madden is a three-star according to the recruiting services, but his upside is unlimited and he is probably a bit underrated at this time. Madden is 6’3” 240 pounds and is explosive with a great jump and excellent lateral quickness. Madden is a few games into his first season of football since his freshman year of high-school. The last time the recruiting services saw him he was 65 pounds lighter. Georgia got him on campus as soon as the Covid induced dead period ended this summer, and his workout lead to an offer on the spot. Madden might be similar to AD Mitchell in the sense that he’s a lower rated guy who UGA’s staff identified, evaluated, and recruited. Don’t be surprised if he starts making noise early next year.

Last week in this space we gave you a primer on Carson Beck. Well, we saw Beck play some against UAB, but contrary to rumors and reports from other outlets, Stetson Bennett IV got the start over Beck. New week, same story. We don’t know who will start at quarterback against South Carolina, but whether it’s Daniels, Bennett, or Beck, we expect Todd Monken to keep his offense open like last week.

Before we go, a few other Bulldog related notes to get you ready for the weekend…

• Georgia’s efforts through two weeks are impressing the oddsmakers. One sportsbook now has the Dawgs as the favorite to win the national title. Georgia is listed at +200, a slight favorite over Alabama at +250.
• Reserve ILB Rian Davis underwent surgery recently, and is likely out for the season according to 247 Sports. According to the report, Davis suffered a “significant lower leg injury.” Davis is a redshirt freshman who carved out a nice role for himself on special teams last year, and was starting to flash in some recent game action. The injury is definitely a blow to Georgia’s depth.
• Before Saturday’s game, Georgia will honor the first five African-American football players to ever play for the university. Chuck Kinnebrew, Horace King, Clarence Pope, Richard Appleby and Larry West all joined Vince Dooley’s UGA football team as freshman in 1971, and the pregame ceremony will mark the 50th anniversary of them breaking the color barrier in the Georgia program. This piece from Bulldawg Illustrated has some interesting notes on the “First Five” from both then and now, and includes a link to a great video interview with the players on the bottom. For my season opening piece last year I wrote about those five brave men and some of the hostility they endured to become Bulldogs. Their story is as relevant today as ever. You can find that piece here.

If you’re still here, you get a bonus track. The first mornings of fall have swept across Southwest Colorado recently, and the chill in the air coupled with the start of conference play always makes me feel the sense of newness and excitement that most associate with the start of spring. That feeling always brings me back to this underrated Drive-By Tuckers classic.

“Please stand and bow your heads and pray you don’t get old...”

Go Dawgs, y’all.