No. 5 Georgia 35, No. 10 Texas 10: Three things we learned

At one point, it looked like the Texas Longhorns were going to make this yet another exciting finish.

Anthony Hill intercepted Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton, which Texas turned into a scoring drive and closed the game to four points. The Bulldogs responded with a long touchdown drive, aided by Texas miscues, and then stole a possession and put the game out of reach. It was embarrassing and ugly for the Longhorns.

Kirby Smart has Steve Sarkisian’s number

For the third time in three games, the group in red outcoached the group in Burnt Orange. The Texas offense was cooking and keeping them in the game, playing complementary football, closing the gap to 14-10. Two fourth-down conversions turned into a Georgia touchdown, and then Kirby Smart dialed up the first onside kick of his tenure in Athens to steal a possession and put the game away. Texas moved the ball well on a few drives, but penalties and mistakes led to Texas going six consecutive drives without scoring a point.

It wasn’t just the Georgia defense that got the best of Texas; from the opening whistle, Georgia’s offensive game plan took advantage of Texas’s lack of defensive aggression. Once Texas adjusted and started to pressure Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton, they used motion and misdirection to confuse the Texas secondary, resulting in two easy touchdowns for the Bulldogs.

Arch Manning needs help

If you’re watching the box score, Arch Manning turned in a relatively pedestrian game, but the box score doesn’t tell the whole story. Manning operated the offense well for the majority of the game, while his receivers did him little favors.

Ryan Wingo, who seems to be WR1 on the team, had a back-breaking first-half drop that would have extended a drive, the only drop he was credited with. That drop ended the streak of four consecutive completions that Manning started the game with. Wingo also missed on a diving catch in the second half that would have put Texas deep in Georgia territory. Instead, DeAndre Moore and Jordan Washington followed his diving catch with a pair of drops that ended a once-promising drive.

The Texas ground attack did little to help its quarterback, both by lack of production and lack of opportunity to do so. Texas ran its backs just 10 times in the game for 40 total yards and finished the game with 23 total rushing yards. That’s the lowest total since the 24-7 loss to TCU in 2017, Tom Herman’s first season on the Forty Acres.

The defense needs answers

Pete Kwiatkowski’s unit struggled to get stops early, and when they adjusted, so did Georgia.

Texas played soft and allowed Georgia to take advantage of space underneath both in the pass and the running game. When the defense adjusted and put its secondary on more of an island, miscommunications and blown assignments let the Georgia offense spark big plays and put Texas away. Both young contributors and senior leaders struggled with communication and even simple fundamentals to put Texas on its heels and put the game away. The Longhorns need to find some answers as they close out the last two weeks of the season, hoping to salvage what they can of the rest of this season.

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