Georgia Football: 3 simple stats from 8th statement victory

2. Time of possession is why the Gators scored on Georgia football

When Florida scored in the fourth quarter, Georgia football had a defense that was likely tired. This Gators offense was no pushover, and they had already fought a majority of the game because the Dawgs offense wasn’t sustaining drives.

For the second straight game, the Dawgs lost the time of possession battle, and that isn’t always a must-win thing, but to keep a defense like Georgia’s on their A-game, they need to be fresh.

Georgia won two of the four quarters in terms of possession. The Dawgs held it 8:28 of the first quarter and 8:12 of the third quart.

Florida, though held it for 11:04 in the fourth quarter, and that is when they scored. On that drive, the Gators ran 10 plays in almost five minutes. The drive before that was 5:29, which the Dawgs forced Florida to turn it over on downs — thank you, Nakobe Dean.

Georgia’s defense needed a breather. They had already been on the field a ton, and once again, they got the stop when it mattered.

Well, instead of playing the normal, run the ball and run out the clock game, Todd Monken decided to go with this play sequence — rush up the middle, incomplete pass, rush up the middle, rush up the middle and then rush up the right side.

The Dawgs got two first downs out of those five plays. Still, instead of keeping the ball on the ground and avoiding another mistake, Georgia decided to air it out to AD Mitchell, a freshman against one of the Gators’ best defenders Rashad Torrance.

Mind you, that this was after Torrance already picked off Stetson Bennett once and recovered a fumble. This guy was responsible for all three turnovers, and they still threw it his way.

Georgia got a bit overconfident with that play call, and it resulted in the Gators getting the ball back after already driving down the field just minutes beforehand.

So the Dawgs had to send their defense back on the field, and it isn’t surprising that Florida scored.

Georgia’s offense has got to find ways to sustain drives and keep the defense fresh. It’s excellent that they scored 21 points in two minutes right before halftime, but that defense is why they were able to.

The Dawgs have to keep their best weapon ready to go, and if that means sustaining drives, then they should do it. Now it’s one thing to cough it up early because Georgia wanted points, but that late in the game, with it in the bag, there was no reason to air it out, and yet they did.

Yes, Georgia fans want to see this offense be explosive, but you can’t tell me that the 42-yard touchdown run Zamir White had on the next drive couldn’t have happened instead of an interception.

Georgia has to clean this up if they want to win it all because if that defense isn’t fresh, they won’t.