The Georgia football Bulldogs (5-2) are back on the road this weekend as they travel to Columbia to take on the South Carolina Gamecocks (2-6). Here are the three keys to a Georgia victory.
By Steve Wright
Ride the quarterback
Georgia went from the quarterback position being a liability to it being a potential strength overnight after the performance of USC transfer JT Daniels against Mississippi State. Daniels – inserted into the lineup after recovering from a knee injury ahead of the steady (but overmatched) Stetson Bennett – had himself a debut to remember. Daniels was 28-of-38 for 401 yards with four touchdown passes and no interceptions against the Bulldogs. He has the arm of the 5-star recruit he was and his ability to sling the ball downfield suddenly makes Georgia a very, very dangerous team. Look for his continued development here.
Find a running game
When Daniels is passing for over four bills it doesn’t matter, but the running game was tragic against Mississippi State. Georgia is a school that churns out 200-yard games on the ground for fun, but they managed just eight yards on 23 carries against a good, but not great, Mississippi State front. You can’t let a team have 11 tackles for a loss – and three sacks – and expect to be able to do anything on the ground. The level of penetration into the backfield that the Bulldogs enjoyed cannot be repeated here.
Control tempo
South Carolina wants to make this one a low scoring, grind it out slugfest. The Gamecocks know that if Daniels gets hot and torches then for three or four scores than this won’t be close. This is a team that scored 10 points last week against Mizzou and just three a few weeks ago against Texas A&M. The Bulldogs don’t have to go for the kill on every play and suddenly become a tempo driven squad, but this win comes about easily if they are the team that dictates at what pace this game is played as opposed to letting South Carolina muddy things up.
Saturday‘s game kicks off at 6:30 PM CT (7:30 PM ET). You can watch this Georgia football game on the SEC Network.
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