After a thorough dismantling like the one Notre Dame inflicted upon Georgia on Thursday night, it’s easy to want to blow it up.
And with the way Georgia was out-played and out-coached in its 23-10 Sugar Bowl loss to the Fighting Irish, clearly something has to change.
But it doesn’t necessarily have to be at the quarterback position.
A lot will be made about Georgia losing without star quarterback Carson Beck, who suffered a season-ending elbow injury in the SEC Championship, but the Bulldogs did not lose in New Orleans because of Beck’s replacement, Gunner Stockton.
Stockton, who had limited experience before replacing Beck in the second-half against Texas, wasn’t perfect against Notre Dame and a first-half fumble was costly, but he didn’t look overwhelmed by the moment of his first career start. He’s a tough kid who showed he could take a hit, deliver a good deep ball as he did on the 67-yard pass to Arian Smith and did plenty to give Georgia a chance to advance to the Orange Bowl against Penn State. Against one of the nation’s best defenses, he finished a very respectable 20 for 32 for 234 yards and one touchdown.
Georgia has sniffed around adding a transfer quarterback this transfer portal cycle after already adding Arizona State transfer quarterback Jaden Rashada last spring. Stockton felt like an afterthought at times in Athens particularly when five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola was committed to the Bulldogs more than a year ago and looked like the future answer at QB before flipping to Nebraska.
If there was obvious upgrade at the position available, Georgia should aggressively pursue. However, Stockton showed in the Sugar Bowl and the second-half of the SEC Championship that he can be good enough for the Bulldogs to win. There’s reason for optimism that the redshirt sophomore will only get better with more experience and a better supporting cast.
Instead of spending millions on a new quarterback — with the asking price for veteran QBs skyrocketing these days — Georgia will be better served investing elsewhere.
Here are three things for Georgia to consider that don’t include changing quarterbacks:
- Move Mike Bobo to off-field role
Bobo, Georgia’s offensive coordinator, is one of Georgia coach Kirby Smart’s closest friends and long the source of fan criticism. The former Georgia quarterback, who served as Mark Richt’s OC from 2007-14, returned to Athens as an offensive analyst on Smart’s 2022 staff before getting the promotion to OC when Todd Monken left to run the Baltimore Ravens’ offense.
Bobo isn’t quite as bad as the most vitriolic fan takes would suggest but he doesn’t possess anywhere near the creativity or play-calling ability as his predecessor. With recent rule changes allowing off-field coaches to still coach, Smart would be well-served to move Bobo to a less prominent role and bring in a more inventive play-caller at the offensive coordinator spot.
With Georgia’s talent advantage slipping, as was very evident against Notre Dame, coaching will be even more paramount and Bobo seems incapable of evolving out of a caretaker role into the innovator the program now needs. Bobo deserves criticism for the offense line’s struggles Thursday, too, which felt like coaching and developmental issues.
2. Go out and get some offensive weapons
Watching Georgia’s offense against a banged up Notre Dame defense exposed issues that have been hiding in plain sight all season with this team. The Bulldogs, simply put, just don’t have nearly enough playmakers on offense.
Trevor Etienne, the running back Georgia swiped from Florida, struggled with injuries and never lived up to the hype this season. Georgia’s run game was pathetic against the Fighting Irish, finishing with only 63 rushing yards, doing little to give Stockton any help in keeping the offense moving.
The receivers have struggled with drops all season and that issue again cropped up in New Orleans. Georgia is in the mix for USC transfer receiver Zachariah Branch and while it has all the makings of a bidding war with Miami, Tennessee and Texas also involved, the Bulldogs need to crack the piggy bank to get difference-makers when they become available in the portal. Tennessee receiver and former five-star Mike Matthews, who happens to be a Georgia native, would be a nice addition, too, after he entered the portal last week.
The Bulldogs were excited about their 2023 and 2024 wide receiver gets in the transfer portal — Dom Lovett, RaRa Thomas, Colbie Young and London Humphreys — but Thomas and Young were sidelined by legal issues while Lovett never recaptured his form that made him a star at Missouri. Humphreys will be a junior in 2025 and has plenty of athleticism, but does not profile as a No. 1 or No. 2 wideout (and frankly, Branch is a slot guy as well).
And here’s the whammy of a stat, courtesy of 247Sports’ Chris Hummer, that underlines all of this: There have been 78 receivers who ranked in the top 100 of their respective classes since 2021. Georgia, which had a top-five class in all five of those cycles, has signed ONE of them! That one player is recent signee Talyn Taylor. Can he contribute as a true freshman?
3. Fortify an underwhelming defense
Five-star freshman KJ Bolden has got next as the face of the defense, but Georgia is going to need a new of defenders to come along. There’s no reason to think that can’t happen with the way the Bulldogs recruit and develop, but usually that next wave is further along than it is (consider when we knew Malaki Starks and Mykel Williams as near-household names on the 2022 national championship team). An upperclassmen-heavy starting 11 on defense, plus lost depth to the transfer portal, has made it more difficult to find defensive headliners than usual when projecting out to the next season.
Consider this statistic: Before the Sugar Bowl, Georgia’s defense ranked No. 36 nationally in yards per play, tied for the worst defense of Smart’s tenure which came during his first year in 2016. Making matters worse, THAT defense is going to lose Starks, Williams, Jalon Walker and Smael Mondon.
With Smart at the helm, you’re never going to worry about Georgia’s defense but it lived on reputation more than reality in 2024 and looks worse on paper next season. The parity sweeping through college football has attacked Georgia’s defensive depth just like it did to Alabama and other programs that made a killing on stockpiling talent. Just like on offense, Georgia needs an instant contributor or two out of the transfer portal on defense.
