No. 1 Texas continues its quest to return to the national championship picture when No. 5 Georgia makes its second-ever trip to Austin, Texas, on Saturday for a Southeastern Conference blockbuster.
SEC newcomer Texas (6-0, 2-0) hosts its first ranked opponent while Georgia faces the top-ranked team in the regular season for the first time since losing to No. 1 Florida in 2009 (41-17). With both teams ranked in the top 5, there is an historic backdrop in play for a game that could help determine the postseason pecking order of the loaded SEC.
Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian believes Saturday’s game can serve as a statement of Texas’ arrival in the SEC, while Georgia has won 44 of its last 45 regular-season games and has been ranked in the top 10 for 57 consecutive weeks.
“The appeal of a game like this is you love those games that — if you want to call them the measuring stick or kind of a barometer for where you are at in a juncture of the season,” Sarkisian said. “This is against a really good team and one that has been in national championship games and conference championship games that has won at a really high level, and a head coach who has done it at a high level. That’s the fun part. It’s like, ‘OK, let’s see if what we do on a regular basis is good enough. … That’s what we can find out.”
More than good enough last week in a 34-3 dismantling of then-No.18 Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry, Texas (6-0, 2-0) sprinted to its best start since 2009, when it won its first 13 games of the season before falling to Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game.
The return of quarterback Quinn Ewers was a welcome sight for the Longhorns last week. The junior played in his first game since Sept. 14, when he suffered an oblique strain. Ewers threw for 199 yards, a touchdown and an interception, also adding a score on the ground.
Georgia (5-1, 3-1) knows winning. Its current senior class is 47-3. But the Bulldogs are a rare underdog Saturday. Following a 41-34 loss at Alabama, the Bulldogs have won two SEC games in succession, topping Auburn 31-13 and Mississippi State 41-31.
The Bulldogs jumped out to a commanding 17-point halftime lead Saturday, but allowed three second-half touchdowns against the one-win Mississippi State team. The Georgia defense, ranked fifth or better in each of the last three seasons in terms of points allowed per game, ranks 21st nationally this year, surrendering 17.2 points per contest.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart knows his team has to improve ahead of Saturday’s game, one that has major College Football Playoff implications.
“I want them to play their best game against Texas,” Smart said. “Simply stated, we have not played our best game, we have not put a complete game together and that’s what every coach’s goal is, which is to play your best game moving forward. That’s what’s going to be needed to go on the road at Texas and play. We have to play better and that’s the only goal I’m thinking about right now is how we play this week.”
Quarterback Carson Beck has shouldered the offensive load in recent weeks. Beck threw for 459 yards, the third-highest single-game total in Georgia history, last week. His 1,818 passing yards are good for ninth in the nation.
In a matchup between a pair of experienced quarterbacks, Smart sees similarities between Beck and Ewers.
“I think the comparisons between him and Carson (Beck) are so similar in terms of the kind of quarterbacks they are,” Smart said of Ewers. “They’re both better athletes than people think, they both have awareness of coverage and they’re really good in the pocket.”
Saturday’s showdown marks the sixth meeting all-time between the programs. Most recently, Texas beat Georgia, 28-21 in the 2019 Sugar Bowl. The only other time in five previous games that Georgia came to Austin, Bulldogs backup quarterback Fran Tarkenton led a 95-yard, go-ahead drive before Bobby Gurwitz scored a 1-yard TD to give Texas a 13-8 win.
