What we learned in Georgia’s dominant road win at Vanderbilt

The only disadvantage Georgia had waking up on Saturday was that it had a morning kickoff under the bright skies in Nashville, Tennessee. Everything else fell in its favor.

A sea of red took over Vanderbilt Stadium to create a home environment. The No. 2 Bulldogs were the far-better team than the rebuilding Commodores. The result became one that everyone expected — Georgia’s dominance.

Georgia (4-0, 2-0 SEC) walloped Vanderbilt 62-0 for the largest margin of victory in the Kirby Smart era. Most of the excitement occurred in the first quarter as the Bulldogs dropped 35 points in a matter of minutes. From then on, Georgia turned to its backups and the team’s depth showed for the third-consecutive week.

It marks the largest margin of victory in the series’ history.

Here’s what we learned from the victory. Saturday’s victory is the Bulldogs’ last “gimme” for quite some time as a tough stretch of SEC play begins next Saturday against No. 20 Arkansas (noon, ESPN) at Sanford Stadium.

The definition of a mismatch

A pair of 3-and-outs by Georgia’s defense to open the game begged a question: Would Vanderbilt gain a yard?

Of course the Commodores did, and the remark is a bit hyperbolic. But Vanderbilt didn’t gain many. It couldn’t move the chains with any consistency, a bunch of bad punts gave Georgia favorable field position and it resulted in easy punts for a Bulldog offense that still faced questions after humming over recent weeks.

Vanderbilt rotated quarterbacks. It tried to unveil a few wrinkles in the offense, but it didn’t matter. The Commodores recorded only three first downs until late in the fourth quarter. At one point in the final period, Vanderbilt had as many yards (62) as Georgia had points.

Vanderbilt’s lack of offensive production caused plenty of unraveling, especially in the first quarter. Daijun Edwards forced a fumble on a kickoff return, which resulted in Georgia scoring on a four-yard drive. On the following offensive play, Vanderbilt threw an interception and Georgia quickly found itself in the red zone.

Niftiness on offense

Each week, true freshman tight end Brock Bowers has erupted. It’s gotten to the point where some have called the California native “Bronk,” as a reference to future Hall of Fame tight end Rob Gronkowski.

Bowers not only followed it up with another big day, but arguably the best of his career. He finished with three total touchdowns and 81 yards on five touches. The excitement in his stat line, however, is how Bowers got one of his touches.

One of his three touchdowns came on an end-around rush play. Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken didn’t hold back in showing a bit of flash in his offense, albeit against a massively overmatched opponent where one might see plenty of “vanilla” playcalling.

Redshirt freshman Ladd McConkey also had a 24-yard touchdown on an end-around. At the time of the score, it marked Georgia’s longest rush play of the season.

One thing to be concerned about?

Much like this column said last week after the win over South Carolina, it’s a bit tough to nitpick after a big victory. In this case, when Georgia wins by almost 70 points, it’s even tougher.

But the disappointment on Smart’s face at halftime became evident. He told the SEC Network crew that his team had a “sloppy finish” to the first half, and he was probably referencing Vanderbilt’s goal-line stand.

Georgia had a chance to pile on more points, but it left a score on the board after the Bulldogs’ offensive line failed to get some push. An inability to open holes for Georgia’s stable of running backs has been an issue for the first three weeks, and it continued on the sequence in which it couldn’t convert on fourth down.

Georgia did find some space later on in the game, though, on its 45 rushing attempts. A total of 244 yards is the highest for the Bulldogs in 2021.

A bit of offensive line shuffling

Smart faced a problem, albeit a bit of a luxurious problem with his offensive line depth, when freshman guard Tate Ratledge went down with a season-ending foot injury in the Clemson game. Georgia would have a bit of reshuffling to do on the offensive line.

Since that game, Georgia has worked mostly with the pairing of Sedrick Van Pran-Granger at center and Warren Ericson at right guard. The only problem in that pairing is that Georgia would be without its backup center if one went down with injury, but Smart insisted on “playing the best five.”

In the blowout win over Vanderbilt, Georgia had more opportunities to experiment and see what his best combo might be.

The Bulldogs ran some series with Broderick Jones at left tackle and Jamaree Salyer at right guard. On another first-half drive, Georgia worked with Jones at left tackle, Salyer at left guard and stayed with usual starters at the other spots.

This story was originally published September 25, 2021 at 3:11 PM.