College GameDay considers whether Ole Miss can upset Georgia
Georgia hasn’t been on the losing end of a game in its past 26 contests, but Ole Miss will aim to change that on Saturday. Whether the Rebels have what it takes pull off what would be one of the biggest upsets of the season, though, is up for debate.
Rece Davis and Ryan McGee tackled the subject on the College GameDay podcast on Tuesday. McGee began by saying that he believes it’s a possibility, but he wouldn’t predict the Bulldogs to lose in Athens.
“I think they can,” he said. “I don’t know if they will. The reason I believe they can is what I saw on Saturday. Texas A&M’s more talented than they are. They’re deeper than they are. The difference is Georgia knows what to do with those guys. Georgia’s the deepest roster in the nation as far as I’m concerned.”
Since suffering a loss to Alabama in the SEC opener, Ole Miss has gone on to win five straight games itself. However, it’s had several close calls in that span, including narrowly escaping Texas A&M this past week by blocking the potential game-tying field goal to win 38-35.
The Rebels showed they could move the ball on the ground against one of the top defensive lines in the SEC as Quinshon Judkins finished with 102 yards rushing and three touchdowns. Now they face the task of doing the same against an arguably even better unit, as Georgia is tied with the Aggies for second in the SEC in run defense.
Davis wasn’t as kind to Ole Miss as McGee, giving them no chance at all to beat Georgia. However, he did mention he wouldn’t be surprised if the Rebels come out strong early before ultimately falling behind.
“I don’t think they can beat ’em,” he said. “I think it’ll probably get out of hand at the end, but it won’t surprise me if Ole Miss jumps on ’em. This is gonna be one of those games where Lane is gonna wanna show off a little bit. He’s a wizard and brilliant at using what you do against you. Whatever they decipher against Georgia they’ll use it against them early until Georgia adjusts and reacts.
“It won’t surprise me if Ole Miss hits a couple of big plays on ’em early. But as far as actually finishing the game and winning the game, I don’t see it. I think Ole Miss is really good and I think Georgia’s kind of coming into its own. Georgia will have to help them if Ole Miss is gonna win the game.”
If Ole Miss does lose to Georgia, its only two conference losses would come against the two teams likely to face each other in the SEC title game. That would a hard pill to swallow knowing that it was that close to getting there itself, and McGee believes the Rebels have to wonder how things could have gone against Alabama if they were playing the way they are now.
“I know that Ole Miss wishes that they could have that Alabama game back,” he said. “If the team I had seen on Saturday had shown up for that Alabama game, I’m not saying they would’ve won, but I’m saying they would’ve at least had a chance. So that’s the do-over they wish they could have. Even Lane when he talked about A&M would say, ‘this is the most talented roster we’ve faced until next week. This is the greatest defensive line we’ll face all year until next week.’ So even he acknowledged multiple times what’s around the corner.
“I give them credit for being able to focus on A&M. It would’ve been super, super easy to treat that like a lookahead game and they didn’t. They tried to give it away. The first quarter of that game felt like the Tennessee-Alabama game a couple of weeks ago. Ole Miss had chances to put that thing away and they let A&M hang around. If you do that in Athens, they won’t just hang around. They’ll stomp on you and get on with something else.”
Kickoff between the Rebels and Bulldogs is set for 7 p.m. ET on Saturday in Athens.