It’s always tough to lose your last game of the season. The way Georgia lost to Michigan State was especially tough. Bacarri Rambo intercepted Kirk Cousins in their first OT possession and seemed to give Georgia the win. Unfortunately, Mark Richt put his faith in his kicker and it backfired on Georgia. The loss hurt even though it came to a good Michigan State team. It’s nice to win your final game and head into the off-season on a positive note with momentum. That’s the general consensus, right? I think it might benefit Georgia that they lost this game instead of winning it.
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Instead of heading into the off-season with their heads in the clouds and dreaming of big things (like a certain team did in 2008 coming off of a destruction of Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl) now Georgia has to think about what went wrong and how to fix it. The fact is that Georgia lost to the four best teams that they played this season. It’s nothing to hold your head down in shame about because the four teams that Georgia lost to all finished in the AP Top 11. But what this tells us is that Georgia hasn’t taken the next step.
At the end of the 2010 season Georgia got embarrassed when they lost to UCF. Georgia dug down and rebounded by putting together a “Dream Team” recruiting class. They also improved from 6-7 to 10-4 and won their half of the SEC. Can this loss to the Spartans spur Georgia to another motivated off-season?
Had Georgia kicked that winning FG and beat the Spartans then maybe some of their short-comings get glossed over in the off-season. Maybe they don’t spend quite as much time working on Special Teams or quite as much time getting stronger in off-season workouts (Georgia looked worn-down late in the game against Michigan State). With that loss you have to believe that this group of guys knows that aren’t quite there yet but they also know (based on the way they played in the first halves of the LSU and Michigan State games) that they have the talent to win the biggest games.
I’ve seen Georgia in a lot of “really, really, really, really, way too early top 10’s”. If fact, our buddies over at Crystal Ball Run put the Dawgs at #6. Georgia definitely has the defensive talent to be in the Top 10. I really believe that they will have a lethal defense next season. The issues will come on the offensive side where they have to replace Cordy Glenn and Ben Jones on the line, Orson Charles at TE (although they have Arthur Lynch and Jay Rome waiting in the wings and Ty Smith coming in as a freshman), and they have the debacle that was their running game (help is on the way in the form of top recruits Keith Marshall and Todd Gurley). A lot of things fall into Georgia’s favor for this coming season and could get better if they close strong in recruiting like they did last year. Right now I’m seeing Georgia as an 11-15 team (in terms of Top 25) to start off 2012. If they let this loss stick in their craw, keep them up nights, consume them and make them work harder then they could easily be Top 5. Only time will tell what 2012 will hold for the Bulldogs. Maybe this loss will help them get over that hump and achieve great things in 2012.
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