STARKVILLE, Miss. — It’s getting real now.
With its 45-19 win over Mississippi State at Davis Wade Stadium Saturday night, the No. 1-ranked and defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs (10-0, 7-0 SEC) officially punched their ticket to the Dec. 3 SEC Championship game Dec. 3 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It is fifth time in the last six years that the Bulldogs have claimed the Eastern Division title under seventh-year coach Kirby Smart.
And Georgia knows its opponent will be LSU. The Tigers (8-2, 6-1 SEC) eked out a hard-fought 13-10 win over Arkansas on Saturday in Fayetteville. With the victory — combined with Alabama’s 30-24 win over Ole Miss down the road in Oxford — the Tigers’ clinched the berth from the West.
Meanwhile, what at the start of the season was expected to be a meaningful matchup against Kentucky on Saturday in Lexington was reduced to a formality. The Wildcats (6-4, 3-4) lost at home to Vanderbilt on Saturday.
Now only Kentucky and Georgia Tech stand in the way of the Bulldogs completing a second consecutive undefeated regular season.
As for Saturday, if there was any celebration of winning the East, it was muted at best. Not only has this become somewhat old hat for the Bulldogs, they remain stoically on a mission. Part of that is to become college football’s first repeat national champion since Alabama in 2011-12, certainly. But also motivating for Georgia is the opportunity to be SEC champion for the first time in five years. Somewhat forgotten in the Bulldogs’ incredible run to national championship last season was their inability to secure the conference crown.
Georgia, which at 33% now gets ESPN’s best odds for winning the national championship, believes the best way to give itself that opportunity is by giving each game its full and undivided attention. That was the tact taken for Saturday’s tilt at Mississippi State, the Bulldogs’ first at the remote SEC outpost since 2010.
Facing a team of maroon-clad Bulldogs (6-4, 3-4) that hadn’t previously lost on their home field (5-0), Georgia had a few hiccups along the way, but otherwise thoroughly dominated another SEC opponent.
Quarterback Stetson Bennett threw for 282 yards and three touchdowns and the Bulldogs piled up 468 yards offense against what Smart said is the best defense Georgia has faced all season. Ladd McConkey led the Bulldogs with 141 total yards and scored touchdowns on a 70-yard run and 17-yard reception in the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, UGA’s defense proved again it’s better than any other in the SEC. It limited MSU’s “Air Raid” attack to 310 yards — quite a few of them coming late with the game well in Georgia’s hands — and forced the Maroons into three turnovers on downs. The Bulldogs again were led by defensive tackle Jalen Carter, who had seven tackles, a sack and 1.5 tackles for loss. Linebacker Smael Mondon and safety Malaki Starks had eight tackles each.
But there were several anxious moments for the road team and its fans, which again made a strong showing in an opposing team’s stadium.
Smart made one of his first egregious coaching mistakes in a while when he chose not to have his offense kill the clock on its last possession of the first half. Leading 17-6 with 44 seconds remaining in the second quarter and starting at the 20 after a poor kickoff return, the Bulldogs managed only six yards on three consecutive passes. That left time on the clock for the home team to get the ball back.
Turns out State didn’t need it. Zavion Thomas fielded Brett Thorson’s low-arcing, 36-yard punt, shook one tackler and then ran untouched down the right sideline behind a wall of blockers for a 63-yard touchdown. Coach Mike Leach called his last timeout of the half to set up a two-point conversion attempt. But Rogers’s pass for Lideatrick Griffin on a slant to the left was incomplete. That left Georgia with a skinny 17-12 lead at halftime.
The Bulldogs quickly rendered the clock mismanagement moot in the second half. On the second play of the third quarter, McConkey took a reverse toss sweep left 70 yards for a touchdown. That made the score 24-12 only 47 seconds into the second half.
Georgia’s offense kept up the pressure on its next possession the second of the third quarter and eighth of the game. Bennett hit Kearis Jackson for a 30-yard gain on third-and-8 to get the Bulldogs to State 35. They got another third-down conversion on an interference call against linebacker Nathaniel Watson that brought a long and sustained rain of boos from the home crowd. Two plays later, Bennett threw a strike to McConkey over the middle for a 17-yard touchdown and a 31-12 Georgia lead with 9:19 remaining in the third quarter.
With that, any notion of an upset bid seemed to shrivel up in the cold, windy night. State’s last real threat came with 9:54 remaining in the game when Kamari Lassiter stopped Ja’Quavious Marks short on fourth-and-1 at the Georgia 8.
