MAILBAG: Did Georgia show offensive warts vs. Kentucky, what to make of Louisville-Notre Dame, who might replace Mack Brown at UNC

The Week 4 mailbag rolls on, with reader questions about Georgia’s offense, the showdown in South Bend between No. 15 Louisville and No. 16 Notre Dame and who might replace Mack Brown at North Carolina?

As always, you can hit me up on X with a DM or tweet @JesseReSimonton or you can email me at [email protected] for all future questions.

Let’s roll.

Harold asks: What did Kentucky do to slow down Georgia’s offense, or was it just a bad day for the Bulldogs?

Harold is a Tennessee Vols fan fishing for some info on one of their hardest remaining games of the 2024 season, so I’ll bite. 

Georgia’s putrid offensive performance (just 262 total yards) against Kentucky was a culmination of a lot of things happening badly for the Bulldogs — all on the same day. 

In a 13-12 win, they came out flat, which was an issue against an angry Wildcats team looking for a four-quarter fist-fight after an embarrassing showing the week prior against South Carolina. 

Georgia punted on its first four series, gaining just four first downs total. Carson Beck was totally out of sync — both not reading the field well and missing multiple downfield shots that would’ve resulted in huge plays. 

Georgia’s offensive line was having issues blocking Deone Walker, one of the best interior linemen in the SEC, but mostly, they had far too many busts, mental mistakes and penalties. Kentucky has a veteran secondary and was changing a lot of its zone coverages, and Georgia’s wideouts were unable to take advantage of the space due to some of the OL issues. 

And yet, Georgia only had nine possessions in this game. The Bulldogs’  defense has yet to allow a touchdown this season, but Kentucky controlled the clock (over 35 minute T.O.P.) with its ability to convert short third downs. 

The Bulldogs also left plenty of points on the field that would’ve made the result look a tad less concerning had they connected on one of the open vertical shots or converted two chip-shot field goals into red zone touchdowns. They were down a couple of receivers, and electric freshman tailback Nate Frazier wasn’t involved in the game plan at all until the third quarter. 

We’ll know more this Saturday against Alabama if these are persistent issues for the Bulldogs, or if it was simply a clunker in Kroger Field, and they’ll look like the explosive, balanced offense they’ve been the last several seasons. 

From Richard: Can Louisville upset Notre Dame? The Cardinals have one of the best passing offenses with quarterback Tyler Shough and they have the coaching advantage with Jeff Brohm over Marcus Freeman.

Saturday’s game in South Bend is among the more interesting matchups in Week 5 — mainly because we know so little about this Louisville team right now. 

The Cards are 3-0, but they’ve played the nation’s 114th strength of schedule, per SP+. They got past Georgia Tech 31-19 last weekend, but they needed a blocked field goal for a touchdown to ice the game away and they got shredded through the air (312 passing yards allowed). 

But Tyler Shough has been really efficient in operating Jeff Brohm’s scheme. On the season, the Texas Tech transfer has eight touchdowns to zero interceptions and is averaging 11.2 yards per attempt. He’s completing 68% of his passes, too, and Louisville’s receiving corps could receive a big boost as soon as this weekend if top transfer Caullin Lacy is able to return to action against the Irish. 

This is a strength-on-strength matchup though, as Louisville must go up against one of the premier secondaries in college football. The Irish are allowing just 4.9 yards per pass (Top 10 nationally) and already have six interceptions. 

Conversely, Louisville’s biggest weakness (stopping the pass) shouldn’t be a problem against a Notre Dame offense allergic to throwing the ball more than five yards downfield (Riley Leonard has one pass over 20 yards all season). The Cards run defense (albeit against poor competition outside Ga. Tech) ranks No. 4 nationally in rushing success rate defensively. 

The opening line of this game shocked me (Notre Dame -10), but it was quickly bet down to -6 at most spots, which makes more sense. 

Louisville did wax Notre Dame last season (the 33-20 score wasn’t overly indicative of the true result as the Cards settled for four field goals and the Irish scored a garbage-time touchdown inside the last two minutes), so this is a revenge spot for Marcus Freeman’s team. 

Considering the rest of its nothing-burger schedule, Notre Dame can’t afford to lose Saturday if it wants to maintain its playoff hopes. 

Because we truly know so little about Louisville right now, no result (W, L, blowout, nail-biter, etc.) would surprise me.

From Scott: UNC looks to be in the market for a new head coach, so who should they hire to replace Mack Brown? Do they go G5 or do they finally get serious about football and hire a P5 coach?

It has been a very jarring and strange last several days around the North Carolina football program. The Tar Heels got smashed by a Founding Father, getting drubbed 70-50 by SMU.  After the “embarrassing, shocking day,” venerable head coach Mack Brown reportedly strongly hinted at retiring in an emotional message to his team, only to rebuke such reports hours later and insist he remains the man to “fix” UNC’s problems. 

On Monday, Brown took further ownership for his team’s woeful performance, but double-down on the notion he wasn’t — and has no plans — on retiring. 

“I’m disappointed in me,” he said. 

“I’m excited about the future and I love my job. Love these kids, and I love this place. That’s why I hate losing so much. For now on, I’ll keep my mouth shut after losses.”

Ok?

Also: UNC is a 3-point underdog to Duke this weekend in what I’ve dubbed the Tobacco Road Ice Bowl because of how much Mack Brown and Manny Diaz hate each other (Google it, kids). 

Overall, Mack Brown is 41-28 in his second stint as UNC’s head coach. He’s 73 years old and not getting any younger. And yet, the more pressing issues his defenses never get any better. He’s churned through coordinators, and his latest hire (Geoff Collins) wasn’t a coach with much of a demand this offseason. 

With the way UNC has performed lately, coupled with Brown’s age and retirement rumors, it seems very plausible that he will step down at season’s end. 

So who should North Carolina hire if Brown does indeed retire? 

Liberty’s Jamey Chadwell would be my first call. 

The East Tennessee native has spent the majority of his coaching career in the neighboring state, coaching at Charleston Southern and Coastal Carolina before leading Liberty to a 13-1 record in 2023. He’d be a hand-glove fit at UNC, and his spread-option offense would slay with blue-chip athletes from North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. 

The knock against Chadwell (and the reason why he wasn’t a real candidate for Tennessee or South Carolina in recent seasons) is that fact that he has zero experience on a P5 staff, and most all of his loyal assistants don’t either. At a spot like UNC, that shouldn’t be a major thorn in his candidacy. 

I believe Chadwell could be so successful at UNC that the Tar Heels may be the Core 4 team in danger of losing its head coach to the SEC or Big Ten — something that rarely happens much anymore with all the realignment. 

Other names to consider if UNC opens would be Jon Sumrall at Tulane, Alex Golesh at USF (maybe a stranger fit) and Georgia defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann. 

I don’t see any current Power Conference head coach leaving their position for North Carolina.