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This looked like the game we’d get when the schedules were handed down and the season was set. In the preseason media poll, Georgia and Texas were picked to finish first and second, respectively. This was the matchup I (like so many others) predicted prior to the start of the season, and I picked Georgia then to win it.
Things aren’t quite as clear now. Georgia didn’t look like itself for much of the regular season, going 10-2 with losses to Alabama and Ole Miss. But the Bulldogs sure looked like a classic Kirby Smart-coached team on Oct. 19 when they went to Austin and handed the Longhorns their only loss of the regular season.
Georgia took the first meeting 30-15. It had a 23-0 lead at halftime and cruised to a win (though there were some theatrics in the third quarter).
Saturday’s rematch takes place inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. ET on ABC. While it won’t have the stakes that SEC title games of the past have had — both teams will be in the College Football Playoff regardless — this is still the SEC Championship Game.
Texas is a 2.5-point favorite at ESPN Bet. The total for the game is set at 49.5. Here are some things to know before betting on the game.
Kelvin Banks’ ankle
Kelvin Banks Jr. is going to be a first-round draft pick in the NFL. So, when he went down early in College Station, Texas had reason to be concerned. The star left tackle protects Quinn Ewers’s blind side, and with Ewers hobbled recently by an ankle injury, protection becomes even more paramount. Banks left the Texas A&M game with an ankle injury and did not return. On Thursday’s availability report, he was officially listed as questionable.
Coach Steve Sarkisian told reporters on Thursday that Banks has practiced with the team this week.
If he’s unavailable, redshirt freshman Trevor Goosby looks like the next man up. He replaced Banks in the A&M game and played 74 snaps. According to Pro Football Focus, Goosby was the highest-graded offensive lineman in pass-pro (87.1). He did not allow a single quarterback pressure in 30 pass-blocking snaps.
Texas offensive linemen were debited with allowing 12 quarterback pressures in the loss to Georgia earlier this season. (Gunnar Helm was credited with 1 allowed pressure as well.) Georgia attacked right tackle Cameron Williams to great success. Williams gave up 5 pressures and had his worst game of the season. Williams didn’t grade well against Michigan or Texas A&M either, which points to a potential weak link up front.
If Banks is unavailable, there’s no reason for Georgia to sit back. Ewers has not been good when pressured this season. Compared to when he’s kept clean, Ewers’s completion rate drops 17.6 percentage points when pressured, his per-play clip drops 1.8 yards, and his turnover-worthy throw rate almost doubles.
The last time these 2 teams met on a football field, Georgia had the Texas pass game so frazzled that Sarkisian had to insert his backup quarterback to try and relieve some of the pressure. Texas didn’t score a point in that first half and averaged 1.1 yards per play. Since that game, and the close-call against Vanderbilt a week later, Texas has been more run-oriented.
Per DraftKings, the first-half spread in the rematch favors Texas by 2.5 points, with -108 odds on the Dawgs to cover that number.
In need of some juice
If the offensive line is missing anyone, or if Georgia is just looking to press the same buttons it pressed last time, Texas will be under some fire from the very first snap. From a mental standpoint, the Longhorns need a hot start in this game. They were handled at home and they’ve been questioned ever since. Another slow start could tilt the field.
Sarkisian is widely regarded as one of the game’s best script-writers, but Texas has actually been awful on opening drives this season.
The Longhorns have punted on their opening drive in 4 games, missed a field goal on an opening drive twice, and turned the football over on their opening drive in 3 games. They’ve scored points on only 3 of 12 opening possessions this season.
Carson Beck’s run
On the heels of a dazzling debut season, Beck has struggled to consistently lead the Bulldogs this year. He opened the season on fire, throwing for 278 yards and 2 touchdowns in a rout of Clemson and then popping a 5-touchdown game against Tennessee Tech a week later.
Then Georgia went to Kentucky and the offense ground to a halt. From then on, something looked broken in the Georgia pass game. Yes, receivers dropped balls en masse and that didn’t help. Yes, Beck missed Brock Bowers. But he didn’t look like the future NFL quarterback he was pegged to be entering the year. Beck flat missed too often. From Sept. 14 through Nov. 9, Beck completed 64% of his throws for an average of 7.5 yards per pass with 10 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Per PFF, he had 16 turnover-worthy throws.
Georgia lost to Alabama by 7 as Beck threw 3 picks and took 3 sacks. Georgia lost to Ole Miss as Beck threw an interception and took 5 sacks.
The loss on Nov. 9 put the Bulldogs’ season on life support. Since, Beck has answered the call.
In his final 3 games of the regular season (all wins), Beck completed 64% of his passes with an average of 8.3 yards per pass with 11 touchdowns and 0 interceptions.
The last number is key. He has not turned the ball over since the Ole Miss loss. And PFF has charted just 1 turnover-worthy throw across the 3 games.
Texas picked him off 3 times and still never got control of the game. Can Beck’s recent run of form carry over?
Going for broke
In the Kirby Smart era, Georgia holds a 64% success rate on fourth downs. This year, the Bulldogs rank ninth nationally with an SEC-best 72.7% conversion rate on fourth downs.
Both Georgia and Texas have attempted to convert 22 fourth-down tries this season. Georgia has been successful on 16. Texas has been successful on 12, for a 54.6% rate that ranks 59th nationally. The Longhorns attempted to convert 5 different fourth downs against Georgia in the first meeting. They were successful on just 1 of those 5 tries.
Numbers to know
Since taking over the Georgia program, Kirby Smart is 63-58-1 against the spread in lined games, per BetIQ. From 2017-2022, Smart’s Georgia teams went 49-34 ATS. And the market hasn’t really figured out the post-Stetson Bennett Bulldogs yet. With Carson Beck as the starter, Georgia is 8-17-1 against the spread, including 3-9 this season.
The Death Star just hasn’t quite been the Death Star.
Still, since the start of the 2017 season, Georgia is 30-16 against the number in games against ranked opponents. Georgia is 34-12 straight up in those games. When he has needed to get his guys ready for a big game, Smart has proven capable of doing so time and time again.
He did it earlier this season against Texas, when Georgia closed as an underdog and won outright.
Now he’s an underdog again. Per BetIQ, Georgia has only been an underdog in a game 7 previous times since the start of the 2017 season and its .714 cover percentage is the best among all FBS programs.
Over that same time frame, Texas is 38-34-3 ATS as a favorite.
Texas is also 21-16-2 ATS against ranked opponents since the start of the 2017 season.
Steve Sarkisian took up residence in Austin prior to the 2021 season. Under his stewardship, Texas is 9-10-1 ATS in games against ranked opponents.
This will be just the second time in Sarkisian’s coaching career he will face 1 opponent twice in the same season. The only other instance happened in 2010, when Sarkisian was the head coach at Washington. His Huskies hosted then-No. 8 Nebraska for a Week 3 meeting and lost 56-21 as a 3-point underdog. Washington would go on to win its final 3 in the regular season to make a bowl and set up a rematch with Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. The Huskies entered the rematch as an 11.5-point underdog and won outright 19-7.
Washington gave up 383 rushing yards at 7.1 a carry in the first meeting. It held Nebraska to 91 rushing yards at 2.2 a carry in the second meeting.
This will be the second rematch spot for Smart as well. In 2021, Georgia faced Alabama in the SEC Championship and, despite entering as a 6.5-point favorite, lost the game outright by 17 points. When Georgia met up with Alabama again in the national championship, the ‘Dawgs won 33-18 and beat the spread by 12.5 points.
Saturday’s game will be the 12th in Mercedes-Benz Stadium for Smart as the Georgia head coach. He is 0-4 outright against Alabama in games played inside the Atlanta-based stadium. He is 6-1 against all other opponents in the stadium.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
