Georgia ran the table during the 2021 regular season, finishing with an unblemished 12-0 record.
The term ‘trap game’ was used frequently last year during Georgia’s run. It seemed like almost every week college football analysts were hyping up Georgia’s next matchup as a potential upset, yet every week they were proven incorrect. Not only were they wrong in their predictions, but Georgia made them look like fools, beating every team on its schedule, sans Clemson, by 17+ points.
Looking ahead at the upcoming season, Brad Crawford of 247Sports took a look at every SEC team’s biggest trap game for the 2022 season. For Georgia, Crawford identified its November 12 visit to Starkville to take on Mississippi State as UGA’s potential trap game.
Georgia will have just had back-to-back games against Florida and Tennessee before it plays Mississippi State. Assuming it wins both of those, there’s certainly potential that Georgia takes its foot off the gas the following week in Starkville. But let’s be real, nobody – likely including Crawford – actually sees Georgia losing this game.
The game that received the most hype last season as a potential trap for Georgia was its road matchup against Tennessee. Tennessee fans read about their chances of winning so much that they actually convinced themselves they would beat us. What happened? Georgia stomped the Vols and left Knoxville with a 41-17 victory.
Last year, Georgia beat Arkansas and Auburn before having to play Kentucky, a rather similar situation to the 2022 Mississippi State game. People considered that game a ‘trap game’ for UGA as well. Georgia beat Kentucky 30-17. Two weeks later following a bye, we beat Florida 34-7 in another ‘trap game.’ Two weeks after that, following a win over Missouri, the Dawgs beat Tennessee 41-17 and silenced everybody.
Crawford is right, though. This is the obvious selection for Georgia’s trap game. And remember, he’s writing about every SEC team’s potential trap game, so of course he has to include the Bulldogs and this would be the one I’d select as well.
Via Crawford:
When you’re as talented as the defending national champions and every game is likely a double-digit spread this season, every game could be dripping with trap notations. However, the trip to Starkville in November coming after emotional matchups with Florida and Tennessee is the obvious pick for the Bulldogs and Kirby Smart knows it. Every now and then, strange things happen for ranked teams going into cow bell-central and there’s a good chance Mississippi State will be coming off a momentum-building home win over Auburn the previous week. Be careful, Bulldogs.
