Georgia football's season has come to a crashing end after losing to Notre Dame 23-10 in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals. There was a lot of hope entering this game that Georgia would still be able to win even though they were without starting QB Carson Beck, but unfortunately that was not the case.
There are infinite takeaways from this game and things that stood out, but here are the five things that stood out the most from Georgia's season ending loss to Notre Dame.
1. Georgia's offensive line struggled
Football is won in the trenches, and unfortunately for Georgia they lost that battle against Notre Dame. Georgia's defensive front played just fine againt the Irish, in fact they actually played pretty well. But it was Georgia's offensive line that had issues all night.
Their offensive line was not good in run blocking and that is one of the biggest reasons why UGA only recorded 62 rushing yards as a team. They were also continuously beat in pass protection as well and gave Gunner Stockton no time to settle down and get comfortable in the pocket.
There are a lot of reasons why Notre Dame beat Georgia on Thursday, but getting destroyed in the trenches on offense is arguably the biggest reason why.
2. Careless mistakes cost Georgia
Georiga also had many uncharacteristic mistakes throughout the game as well. No one expected UGA to be perfect, but there were far too many silly mistakes and things that could have been avoided that really hurt Georgia.
One of the biggest plays of the game was when walk on Parker Jones ruined a huge gain from Georgia by getting in the officials way which potentially took a touchdown off the board. But UGA had many other mistakes as well including some bad penalties, turnovers and a few key drops from their wide receivers.
Everyone knew Georgia and Notre Dame were going to be evenly matched and that the winner of this game would be the teams who avoided the silly mistakes the most. Usually it's Kirby Smart's team that comes out on top in games like that, but that was not the case against the Irish as they did the little things that helped them win this game.
3. Gunner Stockton played better than expected
One of the bright spots for Georgia in the Sugar Bowl was Stockton, who actually played very well. He finished the game completing 20 of 32 passes for 234 yards and one touchdown. He also did not throw an interception and only lost one fumble, which really wasn't his fault.
Stockton wasn't as effective on the ground as he was against Texas in the SEC Championship game, but he was able to earn some big yards with his legs when needed.
Coming into this game, no one really knew if Stockton was going to be able to play well enough to win this game. People questioned his ability as a thrower and used that as the reason why he wasn't going to be good enough. But Stockton proved everyone wrong and actually played really well in his first career start.
It will be interesting to see how the QB competition goes this offseason, but if Stockton is the guy that wins the starting job then Georgia fans should have a lot of confidence in him heading into next season.
4. Georgia overall played well enough to win
One of the earlier points made in this post was that Georgia made a lot of silly mistakes that cost them this game. But other than those mistakes which were mostly correctable, it's hard to shake off this feeling that the Bulldogs still played well enough to win this game.
Looking at the boxscore and team stats for this game, you can easily see how well Georgia did against Notre Dame. Georgia outgained the Irish by nearly 60 yards and only gave up 240 yards on defense which is extremely good. The Bulldogs also had more first downs, half the number of penalties and the time of possession was relatively even.
So those stats tell us that Georgia in fact played well enough to beat Notre Dame. However, there are the obvious things that stand out as to why Georgia did not win. The careless mistakes mentioned are a big reason why as are the two turnovers for Georgia compared to zero for Notre Dame. The Irish were also much better on special teams, and even scored a touchdown on the opening kickoff in the second half.
But still, even after all those things Georgia didn't do well, it's hard to stop thinking about how they in fact played well enough to win this game.
5. Kirby Smart gamble did not pay off
Smart from time to time is known for taking big gambles, and usually it pays off for him and Georgia. However, the decision he made at the end of the first half did not pay off for the Bulldogs.
With under a minute to play in the half and Georgia trailing 6-3, Smart decided to get aggressive and try to get some more points on the board instead of being conservative and taking their three point deficit to the halftime locker room. This did not seem like the best idea considering the offenses struggles up to that point, and those feelings became reality when Stockton was hit from behind and fumbled the ball. Notre Dame then went on to score a touchdown on the very next play to take a 10 point lead into halftime.
It's hard to say whether this was the right decision by Smart or not. Obviously it's easy to say it was the wrong choice after the fumble and touchdown by Notre Dame, but even before that happened it still felt like the wrong choice. Georgia's offense had not shown that they could consistently move the ball down the field fast enough where scoring in under a minute was realistic. So that fact alone makes this decision very questionable from Smart.
Who knows if Georgia would have won this game had they only trailed by three at halftime, but regardless this gamble from Smart did not pay off and is a big reason why Georgia lost this game.