3 Up’s, 3 Down’s from Georgia’s 51-13 win over Kentucky

Up – Return to Dominance from the Defense

After the falters early (as previously mentioned), Georgia’s defense dominated. Kentucky scored 13 points, but only had 183 yards of offense. Again, Kentucky put up 115 yards of offense (and one of their TD’s) within their first three drives of offense. After those first three drives, the Bulldogs held Kentucky to just 68 yards of offense across their final 8 drives (an average of 8.5 yards per drive).

Included in those drives were 6 punts and two drives that went for negative yardage. The Bulldogs also held one of the best rushing attacks in the SEC in check. Ray Davis, coming off the heels of a 280 yard performance against Florida, was held to just 59 yards on 15 carries against Georgia (3.9 yards per carry). As a whole, Kentucky ran for just 55 yards on 24 carries (2.3 yards per carry). Even when you take the sacks out, Georgia still kept Kentucky bottled up in the run game. Kentucky’s longest run of the game was just 11 yards (a far cry from the Auburn game last week).

Georgia also had a lot of success against a talented QB in Devin Leary. Georgia’s defense held Leary to a 38.5% completion percentage and just 128 passing yards. Simply put, it wasn’t perfect, but this is the Georgia defense we’ve grown used to seeing over the last couple of years.

Down – Penalties

Yes, we’re nit-picking here. The Bulldogs didn’t have any major or crucial penalties or even an insane amount. However, the penalty numbers were slightly elevated. Georgia ended up with 6 penalties for 59 yards, both season-highs for the Dawgs (Georgia’s previous penalty numbers on the year were 5-42, 3-40, 6-45, 5-40, 3-30). Again, Georgia’s penalty numbers against Kentucky aren’t crazy, but they are both slightly above where Georgia has been on the year.

Looking forward, the Bulldogs will hope to keep things going this week as they travel to take on Vanderbilt in Nashville at Noon Eastern on Saturday.