It was another college football weekend with surprises and impactful results on the playoff picture. Matt Hayes weighs in with his First-and-10 column looking at the key topic across the country ahead of Week 8
1. Georgia: Now or never
There’s no avoiding this reality. When Georgia travels to Texas Saturday, it will be the program’s biggest game under coach Kirby Smart.
Bigger than the first national title in more than 40 years, bigger than another national championship a year later.
Because this is about the here and now. More specifically, it’s about staying power — and potential change at the top of the best conference in college football.
Is Georgia, already with an operationally odd and un-Georgia type of loss to Alabama this season, still what it once was?
Or has the inevitable decline that reaches all dynastic programs already begun?
“I want to see them play their best game against Texas,” Smart said during his Monday press conference. “I mean, simply stated, we have not played our best game.”
The question is, why?
Why has one of the two or three most talented teams in the nation, the team that once squeezed the life out of big games like few could, not reached expectations?
From injuries on the offensive line and at wide receiver, to a diminished pass rush, to a secondary that doesn’t consistently win in man coverage like it used to, this isn’t the same Georgia team that over the last three years ruled college football with an iron fist.
It has all added up to a Georgia team that — in the easiest and simplistic explanation of all — doesn’t look and play like Georgia. Translation: I don’t know what it is, but I know what it should look like.
And this isn’t it.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart talks with the referees during the fourth quarter against Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
2. The decline of…
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