NEW ORLEANS — Some call New Orleans “The Big Easy,” but it has been anything but for Georgia football the past two seasons.
There were and are a lot of takeaways from Georgia’s 39-34 loss to Ole Miss (13-1) in the Sugar Bowl on Thursday night in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal, some more obvious than others.
But perhaps the biggest reality is the Rebels simply were superior on the field — and in the seats, for that matter, with the domed stadium packed in powder blue.
Ole Miss coach Pete Golding said it looked like a home game. Georgia coach Kirby Smart said it felt like a road game for the Bulldogs, and credited the Rebels’ fans for helping their team generate momentum.
Certainly, the Ole Miss fans weren’t going to boo Golding, who in his second game as a head coach showed questionable clock management at the end of the first half, costing his team a field goal as they went to the locker room down 21-12.
But the Rebels fans were cheering when Smart gambled in the final minute of the game by having Gunner Stockton pass the ball on third down rather than run.
Smart said he was trying to win the game, but in passing instead of running, the UGA brain trust passed up a “win or overtime” scenario.
Instead, Stockton threw incomplete, and after Peyton Woodring’s field goal tied the score at 34, Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss had 56 seconds to put his team in position for the game-winning field goal.
Oh yes, the Rebels had the better placekicker in the game, too, as Lucas Carneiro was 3-for-3 with field goals of 55 yards, 56 and ultimately, the game-winning kick from 47.
UGA’s Peyton Woodring, who has been clutch throughout his career, was 2-for-3 with field goals of 37 and 24 yards and a miss from 55 yards that could have extended the lead to 24-12 and given the Bulldogs’ second-half momentum.
But the most notable matchup was at quarterback, where Chambliss outplayed Stockton, taking advantage of his team having a more talented and explosive receiving corps than the Georgia quarterback.
Both Stockton and Chambliss made tremendous plays and showed incredible poise.
But Chambliss was better on this night, passing for 362 yards and two touchdowns while avoiding sacks or turnovers.
Stockton had 203 yards passing and a touchdown and took two sacks — including a fourth-down sack in the fourth quarter at his own 23-yard line to set up a Rebels touchdown.
Ole Miss tailback Kewan Lacy, a 1,000-yard rusher during the season, overcame the second-quarter fumble that Daylen Everette scooped and returned for a score.
Lacy, a 1,000-yard rusher during the season, was the most talented running back in the game, finishing with 98 yards rushing and 12 yards receiving — against the fourth-best run defense in the nation.
UGA’s run game, led by Nate Frazier’s 86 yards on 15 carries, was inconsistent.
Frazier ran hard and with authority, and in hindsight, probably didn’t get as many carries as he should have.
Stockton, with sack yardage removed, was the Bulldogs’ second-leading rusher with 11 carries for 34 yards — 12 coming on the first of his two rushing scores.
Despite Ole Miss’ Harrison Wallace lll having 156 yards and a TD on nine catches, Georgia’s Zachariah Branch was a standout with 67 yards and a TD on eight catches.
Indeed, the Bulldogs’ most dangerous play of the night, and of the season, was to throw the ball short to Branch and watch him make yards after the catch.
What the Rebels had that UGA did not was explosive depth at the receiver position.
Ole Miss had four plays of 35 yards or more in the pass game, three of them with the ball traveling at least 25 yards downfield before being caught.
Georgia had two pass plays that went for more than 25 yards: a 31-yard play to receiver Colbie Young on a ball thrown 12 yards from the line of scrimmage, and a 26-yarder to running back Cash Jones, on a short 4-yard pass that Jones took 21 yards to the Ole Miss 1.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Rebels won at the line of scrimmage.
Ole Miss recorded nine tackles for loss while the Bulldogs’ front seven managed only three, and the Rebels offensive line did enough that Chambliss was not sacked, while Stockton was sacked twice.
Ole Miss averaged 4.1 yards per rushing play, too, while Georgia averaged 3.4.
Georgia’s Brett Thorson, the Ray Guy Award winner as the best punter in the nation, won his battle.
But even that was close, as Thorson averaged 48.5 yards per punt to Ole Miss’ 48.0.
The Rebels beat the Bulldogs because they had better players at key positions and won almost all facets of the game.
Georgia has a great deal of young talent that Smart chose to invest in rather than hit the transfer portal more heavily, and those young players can and likely will grow into the best at their respective positions.
The Bulldogs grew up fast enough and were coached well enough to get a satisfying 28-7 SEC championship game win over Alabama, but they didn’t have enough for an inspired and talented Ole Miss team.
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