Georgia slides in latest Coaches Poll

On3 imageby:Jake Rowe10/02/22

JakeMRowe

After a two-week run as the nation’s No. 1 team in the USA Today Coaches Poll, Georgia is out of the top spot. A closer-than-it-should-have-been win over Missouri on Saturday night caused the coaches to bump the Bulldogs down to the No. 2 spot.

Georgia opened the season at No. 3 in both major polls but rose to No. 2 after throttling Oregon in the season opener. The Bulldogs were elevated to No. 1 in the AP poll after week two when they beat Samford 33-0 and Alabama needed a late field goal to take down Texas. The Crimson Tide are now back on top, taking 34 first place votes to Georgia’s 23 and Ohio State’s seven.

The coaches poll elevated Georgia after its week three beatdown of South Carolina. The Bulldogs outscored opponents 130-10 through the first three weeks. That number is now 195 to 54 after five games.

Georgia is coming off its second uninspiring performance in as many weeks, needing fourth quarter surge to get past Missouri by a score of 26-22. The Bulldogs were favored by 30 points coming into the game.

Kirby Smart, while acknowledging that his team must continue to improve, doesn’t appear all that broken up over his team’s sloppy showing. His focus is on the big picture.

“Composure and resiliency, man,” Smart said of his team after the win over Missouri. “They believe in it. They believe in each other. They never doubted. But that doesn’t solve the problem that we’ve got to get better. I mean, you sit around a hotel all day and you wait to go to play a game, and everybody in the world thinks you’re going to go out there and blow some team out. I’ve been in this league too long, man. I know different. I know these environments you’re walking into, and you know what? It’s going to be really hard next week, too. And it’s going to be really hard the next week. And it’s going to be really hard two weeks after that. It just doesn’t change. You guys may think it’s going to be easy at some point, but I promise you, it’s going to be really hard in the SEC every week.”

Other SEC teams ranked include Tennessee (No. 8), Ole Miss (No. 9), Kentucky (No. 13), Mississippi State (No. 23) and Arkansas (No. 25). Georgia plays three of those teams later this season, and has already played Oregon, ranked No. 12 in Sunday’s poll.

Next up for Georgia is a matchup with Auburn inside Sanford Stadium. The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry will be the first leg of a CBS doubleheader with kickoff set for 3:30 p.m. ET. Alabama and Texas A&M will tee it up in the second half of that doubleheader.

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