I thought the safest bet in the Peach Bowl was that Kirby Smart wouldn’t allow his team to have consecutive bad defensive games.

Kirby Smart talked about the adjustments that needed to be made after allowing 2 LSU quarterbacks to throw for 506 yards in the SEC Championship. Before that, the Dawgs hadn’t allowed anybody to throw for 300 yards all year and they had only allowed 5 quarterbacks to accomplish that feat since the start of 2017. The last time Georgia allowed 25 points in consecutive games was the 2018 SEC Championship and Sugar Bowl, where UGA surrendered 28 points to Texas in a non-Playoff bowl game (make of that what you will).

History suggested Ohio State would struggle to sustain scoring drives in the Peach Bowl. I mean, Smart had Georgia going back to “camp-style practices” and they emphasized conditioning following the SEC Championship. Smart was determined not to let the semifinal be shades of the SEC Championship.

Then a depleted Ohio State offense threw for 348 yards and averaged 10.2 yards per pass attempt in a 41-point effort that nearly sent the Dawgs packing. But a bend-but-don’t-break Georgia stand forced a 50-yard field goal attempt that ultimately never had a shot.

Is Georgia’s defense doomed against the high-octane TCU offense? No, but it’s absolutely fair to have some concern.

If you listened to Smart’s postgame press conference, you saw that he was at a bit of a loss for his team’s defensive game plan.

“A lot of credit goes to them. We tried man. We tried zone. We mixed it up,” Smart said after the Peach Bowl. “The most disappointing was the series before the half.”

The series before the half that Smart was referring to was when Ohio State went 4 plays for 75 yards in just 55 seconds to take a 28-24 lead going into the break. It was exactly the type of drive that UGA avoided throughout really the past 2 years. Georgia couldn’t get pressure on Stroud with a 4-man rush, and ultimately, he had enough time to drop a perfectly thrown ball into the arms of Xavier Johnson, who made a spin move to scamper in for the 37-yard touchdown:

Until Marvin Harrison Jr. went down after he took that hit in the end zone, it felt like Georgia was somewhat helpless defending the Ohio State passing attack. Stroud was either well protected and able to step into throws like we saw on the Johnson touchdown, or he was elusive and he bought time to find open Ohio State receivers.

Smart said afterward that they missed 4 sacks in the first half alone, and that was against Stroud, who isn’t know for his escapability by any means. Max Duggan, on the other hand, has shown that a bit more consistently. Not only does Duggan have the 461 rushing yards and 8 scores with his legs, but he’s only taken 2 total sacks in his past 4 games. Even though he wasn’t at his best against Michigan or against Kansas State, he kept the offense moving with his mobility.

Georgia’s relatively low sack numbers weren’t necessarily seen as a knock heading into the Ohio State game because the Dawgs showed they could generate pressure with 4 and the pass defense still only allowed just 11 passing touchdowns and 6 yards per attempt in the first 13 games. But more than half (8) of UGA’s 15 passing touchdowns allowed have come in the past 2 games. Those also are the only instances of allowing 300 passing yards all year. Receivers Malik Nabers, Kayshon Boutte, Harrison and Emeka Egbuka all passed the century mark against the Dawgs.

Is that a sign that offenses have figured Georgia out? Or was that just the byproduct of 2 elite group of pass-catchers playing at an extremely high level?

It might be a bit of both. Smart said that they mixed up coverages, but you know when you line up against Georgia that they’re going to play a whole lot of press-man coverage. Will they do that against the extremely talented Quentin Johnston?

Of those 4 receivers who torched Georgia the past 2 games, he shares the most similarities with the aforementioned Harrison. They both had exactly 20 catches of 20 yards apiece, though Johnston actually has more catches of 30 yards (13) than Harrison. If you look at where they typically line up, you see even more similarities between the 6-4 wideouts:

2022
Harrison Jr.
Johnston
Wide snaps
646 (85.7%)
551 (84.9%)
Slot snaps
105 (13.9%)
89 (13.7%)
Inline snaps
3 (0.3%)
9 (1.3%)

Both Harrison and Johnston could be the first receivers taken off the board in their respective draft classes (Harrison isn’t draft-eligible until 2024) because of how smooth they are in and out of their breaks.

Harrison could’ve had an even bigger day against Georgia but he suffered his second drop of the season on a pass over the middle that could’ve easily gone for 20 yards on a second quarter drive that halted Ohio State’s momentum. Who knows how Harrison would’ve impacted that game had he not been forced to the sideline late in the 3rd quarter. He certainly showed enough to suggest it could be a struggle to contain Johnston.

If Georgia’s adjustment is playing a bit more zone, the risk is that Johnston can make a play like this, wherein he gets a bit more room to operate underneath and make defenders miss in space:

And if the argument is “well, Georgia won’t allow that to happen because it’s much more disciplined making open-field tackles,” I’d suggest rewatching the past 2 games. It was by no means a “clean” game from a coverage or tackling standpoint, which was why Georgia allowed a combined 7 passing plays of 30 yards against LSU and Ohio State (5 went for touchdowns). In the 12 previous games, Georgia allowed just 16 such plays, or 1.33 per contest.

I say that because it wasn’t long ago that Georgia, on the heels of the Tennessee showing, looked somewhat immortal defensively. On that day, the nation’s top scoring offense was held without either a passing touchdown or a gain of 20 yards for the first 55 minutes. We wondered if Georgia’s style with limited blitzing and mostly press coverage would work against an elite passing attack. On that day, it did. In the 2 most recent instances, it didn’t.

This is no longer about whether Georgia can have a defensive individual like Jalen Carter or Kelee Ringo take over. UGA’s defensive performance against TCU won’t be determined by whether Malaki Starks makes a couple of freshman mistakes like he did against LSU.

Against Tennessee, it was a total group effort at each level. Against LSU and Ohio State, each level of Georgia’s defense played a part in surrendering big offensive days. Of course, in all 3 of those games, UGA got the defensive stops it needed to pull out a win.

Maybe this is just what we should expect in a championship game. Both semifinal games were shootouts and if you look at the national championship winners in the Playoff era, 7 of the 8 hit at least 33 points and the losing team averaged 25 points.

Georgia has now allowed 30 or more points in consecutive games. This is the first time since Georgia’s rise under Smart that the Dawgs suffered consecutive defensive letdowns in games with national title hopes on the line. Perhaps the buck stops with TCU. Or maybe we’ll get another reminder that last year’s defense was clearly on a different level than this year’s.

Whatever the case, there’s only 1 goal that matters now for Georgia’s defense.

Don’t make it 3 in a row.