Georgia Football: Dawgs beat South Carolina despite Eason

There are 29 days till college football season, and today we talk about one of the worst passing performances of the 2016 season.

Georgia football has been built around running the football for years. Some of the most talented running backs in SEC history have gone through Athens before making it to the NFL. But they’ve also had very strong quarterback play in recent history.

Since the turn of the century, Georgia has started four different freshmen quarterbacks, and the first three each had stellar careers in the red and black. David Greene and Aaron Murray both started at Georgia as redshirt freshman, whereas Matthew Stafford and Jacob Eason each started as true freshmen.

While each of those guys showed signs of things to come as freshmen, they also took their lumps and at times played like, well, freshmen. And that leads us to no. 29 on the Southbound and Down College Football Countdown.

Jacob Eason threw for 29 yards in win over South Carolina

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Jacob Eason’s 29 yards were not only the fewest yards by an SEC quarterback in a game last season, but they were also the fewest passing yards in a win as the Bulldogs beast the Gamecocks 28-14.

Stephen Johnson threw for 49 yards in Kentucky’s 20-13 win over Vanderbilt, while Joshua Dobbs threw for 91 yards in Tennessee’s 45-24 win over Virginia Tech.

Georgia Freshmen Quarterbacks

David Greene (2001): 2,789 yds. 59.3 pct. 17 TD. 9 INT.
Matthew Stafford (2006): 1,749 yds. 52.7 pct. 7 TD. 13 INT.
Aaron Murray (2010): 3,049 yds. 61.1 pct. 24 TD. 8 INT.
Jacob Eason (2016): 2,430 yds. 55.1 pct. 16 TD. 8 INT.

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Two things led to Eason’s pitiful passing performance. For one, the freshman was down right off the mark. He went 5-for-17 for 29 yards with a touchdown and an interception. And the other reason, was that Georgia was dominating on the ground.

Georgia nearly had three different guys run for 100 yards. Sony Michel had 21 carries for 133 yards, while Nick Chubb had 16 carries for 121 yards and 2 touchdowns, and Brian Herrien had 9 carries for 82 yards.

So while it was encouraging for the Georgia football program to win a game without their passing attack, if the Bulldogs are going to meet their expectations for 2017, they can’t afford for Eason to have any more performances like the one he did in Columbia, SC last season.

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