South Carolina loss boosts Georgia’s chances in East
Georgia’s hopes of reaching the SEC Championship game despite its ugly loss at South Carolina got a boost Saturday night when the Gamecocks followed their domination of the Bulldogs with a loss at LSU.
South Carolina’s 23-21 loss, one week after its 35-7 rout of Georgia, means UGA will represent the Eastern Division in the SEC title game if:
- South Carolina loses at least one of its three remaining SEC games, the most difficult of which is this week at Florida.
Those are big ifs, of course.
“Right now, I think the best thing for Georgia is to focus on getting better, focus on (this week’s opponent) Kentucky,” UGA coach Mark Richt said Sunday. “It’s kind of a boring answer, as always, but it’s really what we’ve got to do.
“We’ve got some things we’ve got to clean up. We’ve been giving up too many big plays. We’ve got to make sure we get back to running the ball like we (were) early in the year. … We need to get more turnovers. We need to protect the ball a little better. We’ve still got things to clean up in some of our special-teams areas.
“We want to finish strong, and if we can keep improving as we go, we’ve got a chance to have some fun in the end here. But we’ve got a ways to go.”
This past weekend’s results — South Carolina’s loss, Florida’s victory at Vanderbilt and Georgia’s bye — left the Gators (6-0, 5-0 SEC) alone in first place in the SEC East. South Carolina (6-1, 4-1) and Georgia (5-1, 3-1) are even in the loss column. All other East teams have at least three league losses.
Because of its loss to South Carolina, Georgia would lose a tiebreaker with the Gamecocks; that’s why Georgia needs them to lose again. If Florida beats South Carolina on Saturday in Gainesville but loses to Georgia on Oct. 27 in Jacksonville, that would leave the Gators and Bulldogs with one SEC loss each (provided UGA beats Kentucky) and the Dogs with the tiebreaker advantage over Florida.
Etc.
Richt took advantage of Georgia’s open date to watch his son play quarterback for Mars Hill (N.C.) College. Jon Richt set school single-game records for passing attempts (52), completions (33) and passing yards (370) as Mars Hill defeated Catawba 35-28. “I guess I can be a dad who can brag a little bit, but Jon played well,” Richt said. “It was the last time I’ll probably ever get to see him play college ball in person, so it was a treat for me and the family.” … Georgia’s 7 p.m. Saturday game at Kentucky (1-6, 0-4) will be televised on FSN, it was announced Sunday. … Georgia inched up one spot to No. 13 in this week’s Associated Press media poll and remained No. 12 in the USA Today coaches’ poll.
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769 comments Add your comment
dawg52
October 16th, 2012
12:46 am
not to be pessimistic, but I’m pullin for the Cocks to win out…..thus solidifying their spoils of playing bama in the dome come December. Folks, do we really want another butt-draggin’ in the Ga. Dome? Unless some things REALLY CHANGE, thats what we’d be in for…….not a pretty site….
Dogs>FL
October 16th, 2012
1:39 am
florida is overrated—they had trouble beating vanderbilt—Ga blew them out! Mark this down–Ga beats fla and wins the SEC east and upsets alabama for the title. The dogs will be on fire against fla!!! Ga 30 fl 20!
drbasic1
October 16th, 2012
2:20 am
@topDawg
Sir, you made a “terroristic” threat on this blog, by threatning an individual with a weapon.
You will be reported to the AJC along with your post and IP address.
Joey
October 16th, 2012
6:22 am
Dogs>FL,
SC beat Vandy by 4. How did that affect our SC game?
One more thing to consider. Remember last season when UGA almost never stopped the Boise St offense? Well, UF has the OC from that team now.
TY
October 16th, 2012
6:25 am
An interesting observation, All the coaches mentioned here that someone wants to be the GA coach have one thing in common NONE have won a National Championship or an SEC championship as a head coach. Saban, Miles, Spurrier surely will not come to GA.
Win. P.
October 16th, 2012
6:56 am
I’ve read this “book” before and know how it ends.
RunninWithTheDawgs
October 16th, 2012
7:27 am
The Dawgs won’t lose another regular season game this year. Kty. will be a close game because the Dawgs will be looking ahead to the Fla. game. The Dawgs will steamroll Fla.
Dawgs — 42 Gators — 24 GO UGA BULLDOGS !
How delusional is it?
October 16th, 2012
7:28 am
No… South Carolina losing doesn’t make Georgia “look good”. It makes South Carolina “look bad”.
Tennessee will be back on track eventually. Perhaps Florida already is? I hope so. I’m tired of watching the mid-tier teams in the Eastern Division fight over that stupid turnip. For the past few years the SECCG has been reduced to an afterthought. It will eventually tarnish the reputation of the SEC if the traditional powers in the East don’t recover and reclaim their rightful place as the leaders of that division. The second-rounders simply can’t cut the mustard.
UGA looks really bad
October 16th, 2012
8:35 am
LSU beating USC makes UGA look even worse.
It just shows how far UGA players are full of themselves…. they thought they were world beaters and then get totally beat down by USC.
Only to find out that USC isn’t as good as the 2nd best team in the West. This makes UGA look really bad…. not good.
Now it does help our chances but that is only because we don’t have to play LSU like both UF and USC do…. again this year.
The SEC teams we beat are a combined 1-10 in the SEC. The other 2 teams are 2-10 combined.
We can say we have the best athletes and pad stats all day against creampuffs, but when it comes down to it, we are overated at best.
kingdaddy
October 16th, 2012
9:56 am
Topmouth
Take your medicine and we’ll see you…oh that’s right, we won’t be seeing you again, lol…You finally let that top-mouth overload that bottom of yours. What were you thinking? Threating a fellow fan with a gun at the Kentucky game. Tsk,tsk, tsk. Peer pressure is a turrible thing. Maybe you should take some time off from blogging and try to work out your anger issues. Bet you got a lot of time-outs in the schoolyard. I would also bet you got beatup a lot and that’s why you feel the need to be such a bully on the blog. Well, you know what they say, “Bad things happen to bad people, lol…
kingdaddy
October 16th, 2012
10:20 am
drbasic1
I know you don’t spend much time with us and here lately, it’s probably a good thing. There are several youths on these blogs who have no civility or manners. Topper claims to be a Dogfan, but it’s just a ruse he uses to bash UGA and not have to account for his own schools Ws & Ls. There are many fans of other schools who are using the UGA loss to SC, as an excuse to bash us. Don’t get me wrong, many Doggies are upset as they should be over the ineffective game-planning and meltdown of our team. UGA fans know the difference between “constructive critisism” and trolling…
old dog
October 16th, 2012
10:33 am
I am a fan and have been for many years…..but if we do not try to address our o-line (or lack there-of) we will never be at the top level. WE HAVE NOT BEATEN ANYBODY! Our skill players can carry us through the easy teams, but we cannot beat a good team because we refuse to address the big issue—o-line! Instead of arguing for or against, pro or anti-CMR, good QB-badQB….can someone PLEASE tell me why we have not addressed THE ONLY THING HOLDING US BACK??????? We have gotten out-recruited so badly up front…….and when we play a good team they treat our o-line like rag-dolls! This is our biggest problem, and we have taken ZERO steps to do better!
ODog
October 16th, 2012
11:04 am
the big loss to usc was a fluke–ga just showed up flat and overconfident. in the rest of the games, the dogs will be more motivated and win out. Ga will beat fla again like last year—they are overrated. With another blowout win over ga tech, the dogs finish 11-1—sc will lose another game and Ga wins the SEC east!
Michael Dyer
October 16th, 2012
11:20 am
old dog
October 16th, 2012
10:33 am
“This is our biggest problem, and we have taken ZERO steps to do better!”
Maybe you guys should hire someone to deal with your “one big problem”? It won’t go away by itself now, will it?
HoneyBooBooDawg
October 16th, 2012
1:51 pm
remember 1980? go DWAGS!!!!
wreckmanic
October 16th, 2012
8:49 pm
Does Richt wear the Tech game smirk when UGA plays KY ?
OL,OL,OL,OL
October 16th, 2012
9:23 pm
Receivers, check. Running backs, check. Every year our OL is ‘thin’, a ‘problem spot’, etc…
You win games in the trenches, look at ‘05, ‘02. That’s how it works.
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