It appears No. 2 Georgia has found its footing ahead of Saturday afternoon’s rivalry game against Florida.
Following their Sept. 28 loss at then-No. 4 Alabama, the Bulldogs (6-1, 4-1 Southeastern Conference) have won three in row, including a 30-15 road win over then-No. 1 Texas on Oct. 19 in Georgia’s most recent game.
Now looking to bolster their chances of returning to the SEC Championship Game for the fourth consecutive year, Georgia will head to Jacksonville, Fla., where it will take on the Gators for the 103rd time.
Coming off a bye week, the Bulldogs had a chance to take a deep breath in the middle of their conference slate.
“I think we got a chance to look at ourselves,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “I think we got a lot of work for our younger players. We did a lot of targeted drill work, targeted things that we needed to work on specifically, offensively and defensively, situational football, that we really hadn’t gotten to do in the past couple weeks because it’s been so fast.”
Georgia still hasn’t seen the version of quarterback Carson Beck that was expected.
Although the senior has two of the program’s top-five all-time single-game passing records this year — 459 against Mississippi State and 439 against Alabama — Beck’s eight interceptions already have surpassed last year’s total of six.
Despite the up-and-down season, Smart’s faith in his quarterback hasn’t wavered.
“I don’t think anything’s wrong with him,” Smart said. “He hasn’t played perfect, but nobody does. I’m very comfortable with where Carson is in terms of his leadership, his practice habits, the things we’re asking him to do. I think he’s doing a good job of those.”
Smart maintains the Georgia-Florida rivalry is just as important as any other matchup.
“They’re all dead-even,” he said of where the rivalry ranks. “They’re all at the very top.”
After losing two of three to start the season, Florida (4-3, 2-2) has shown signs of improvement the past month. Sitting at 1-2 after a Sept. 14 setback to Texas A&M, coach Billy Napier’s seat was never hotter.
Since then, the Gators have won three of four, most recently drubbing Kentucky 48-20 on Oct. 19.
After splitting time with Graham Mertz for most of the season, freshman quarterback DJ Lagway has taken over the reins of the Florida offense following Mertz’s season-ending ACL tear against Tennessee on Oct. 12.
Lagway made his first career start in the win over Kentucky, completing 7 of 14 passes for 259 yards, while adding 46 yards on the ground.
“It’s all about reps (for DJ),” Napier said. “It’s experience. It’s not only experience in the game, but experience in practice. We did quite a bit of situational work last week, and then we had a pretty exhaustive remedial session on all the situational football, verbiage, all these things that come up.”
Lagway has passed for 1,024 yards and five touchdowns this season, with five interceptions.
The Georgia-Florida rivalry has been one-sided for the better part of a decade. Georgia has won six of its past seven games against the Gators, last losing in 2020.
