Georgia vs South Carolina: Jake Fromm, Drew Butler on the Dawgs
It’s Georgia vs South Carolina week. The Dawgs’ schedule is about to heat up with SEC competition, and they’re on the road to boot.
Once again, DawgsHQ returns with another Wednesday conversation.
Last week, I spoke with SEC Network entertainers and geniuses Taylor Zarozur and Matt Stinchcomb.
I liked having a former Dawg’s perspective from Stinchcomb. I liked the media angle as well.
So let’s keep the Wednesday Conversations going, shall we?
This week’s convo also has former Dawgs. And they’re both in the media game now, too.
Drew Butler and Jake Fromm of ‘Punt and Pass’ had lots to talk about then it comes to this Georgia vs South Carolina Border War.
Drew Butler and Jake Fromm’s Georgia teams combined for a 4-4 record vs South Carolina
Counting Butler’s redshirt season in 2007, Georgia went 2-3 vs Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina teams.
Jake Fromm went 2-1 against Will Muschamp’s squads.
The thing about playing South Carolina, no matter how high the Gamecocks are ranked, or how bad they are, is that chaos lurks around every corner.
When you factor in a noon kickoff at that hornet’s nest of a home college football environment, all bets are off.
Butler’s teams went 1-1 in Columbia.
Fromm’s went 1-0. But the locale doesn’t matter. There’s just something about South Carolina teams that gives Georgia problems when the Dawgs least expect it.
“You know they’re going to be physical,” Fromm said.
“They’re a scrappy team. And if you let them hang around long enough, they’ll take you to the fourth quarter and stay with you there. So you gotta put them down early. And especially the fans when you’re playing in South Carolina. They can get up. They can get rowdy.”
Both Butler and Fromm saw South Carolina trip Georgia up during the regular season – with significant results
Look back at 2007, when Butler was a redshirt. That 16-12 loss to an unranked South Carolina team effectively kept Georgia out of the SEC Championship.
Fromm’s 2019 Dawgs lost in double-overtime to the Gamecocks.
Yes, LSU was a team of destiny that season. But Georgia likely makes the College Football Playoff that season if it avoids that upset to another unranked Carolina team.
I was in school for a fifth fall (victory lap) in 2012 when the top-5 Gamecocks shredded top-5 Georgia with turnovers and a punt return for a touchdown in Columbia.
Butler was in the NFL by then, but the reality remains the same, year in and year out in this rivalry:
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Do not give the Sandstorm-fueled crowd a reason to wave those white towels, unless it is in surrender mode.
“You could not beat yourself. If you went into Columbia, you knew you couldn’t turn the ball over early,” Butler said.
“You could not give that crowd an opportunity to get behind the Gamecocks early, because it just made everything very, very tough for the visiting team. That atmosphere is raucous.”
How do Fromm and Butler feel about this year’s game?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow their show, Punt & Pass, to get more of their full perspectives.
I’ll sum it up this way, though:
Both fellas shared their respect for Shane Beamer with me. But they also expect Kirby Smart to teach another former assistant a lesson in Big Boy SEC East football.
Fromm and Butler didn’t just talk this game with me.
I think you’ll appreciate Fromm’s insight into the differences between this Todd Monken offense and the ones he ran at Georgia – specifically in how Georgia treats the gameplan at the end of blowouts.
Fromm also takes us under the hood and inside the mind of Stetson Bennett, who’s shown a ton of improvement since the two shared practice reps at Georgia.
Plus, find out why Georgia punter Brett Thorson deserves the nickname, ‘The Milkman,’ according to Butler.
