Anatomy of failure: Georgia’s final scoring drive vs. Texas

After the offense continually put the defense in bad spots, the only sustained scoring drive by the Bulldogs put the game out of reach for the Longhorns.

AUSTIN, Texas — With 2:15 remaining in the third quarter of Saturday’s 30-15 win by the Georgia Bulldogs over the Texas Longhorns in Austin, head coach Steve Sarkisian’s team had finally generated some momentum after officials reversed the pass-interference penalty against Longhorns super senior cornerback Jahdae Barron, allowing his 36-yard interception return to stand.

In what amounted to typical fashion for Texas in the game, redshirt junior quarterback Quinn Ewers took an eight-yard sack on first down, increasing the degree of difficulty for the offensive drive that started at the Georgia 9-yard line, the best starting field position of the game for the Horns by 33 yards.

But on the second drive, Ewers hit junior running back Jaydon Blue on a Texas route for a 17-yard touchdown.

The score cut the Georgia lead to 23-15 after Texas put up 15 unanswered points in the third quarter.

Suddenly, a win probability for the Bulldogs that reached 95 percent after the field goal late in the second quarter that made the deficit 23-0 was down to 78.3 percent.

“Like I told the team, I was really proud of their ability to come back into the locker room at halftime to regroup and compete in the second half and fight,” Sarkisian said after the game. “It showed, in my opinion, the heart of a champion to really battle themselves back into the game at 23-15.”

The overall game context

Turnovers by the offense and an overall inability to win the field-position battle put the Texas defense in a multitude of bad positions. Other than a nine-play, 62-yard drive that ended with an interception in the red zone, the Bulldogs had not gained more than 34 yards on their first 11 possessions. Of the five scoring drives, only one started in Georgia territory — at the 45-yard line following a 36-yard punt by Texas when the offense went three and out and lost two yards on its drive. The Bulldogs gained 25 yards to kick a 48-yard field goal.

By the end of the third quarter, however, the Longhorns defense was starting to generate some momentum, holding the Bulldogs to a six-play, 10-yard drive before Barron’s third-down interception on the ensuing offensive possession.

The drive

After Georgia took the record crowd at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium largely out of the game, it came to live when the Bulldogs tried to return the kickoff from the goal line and Longhorns senior linebacker Mo Blackwell made the tackle at the 11-yard line, the worst starting field position of the game for the visitors.

Energized by the game flow, Texas redshirt senior defensive tackle Vernon Broughton and super senior linebacker David Gbenda combined to stop Georgia running back Trevor Etienne for no gain on first down.

On second down, a blitz by senior safety Andrew Mukuba pressured Bulldogs quarterback Carson Beck into an incompletion, setting up 3rd and 10 and a chance for the Longhorns defense to get off the field and allow the offense a chance to tie the game.

With Georgia’s win probability down to 70.8 percent, the opportunity for Texas was massive.

Like much of the game, the home team couldn’t come through.

Lined up in 11 personnel with the running back and H-back to the field, Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo dialed up a play design that worked perfectly against the Texas defense.

In a change from the typical two-deep shell used by Longhorns defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, Mukuba crashed towards the line of scrimmage to defend the possibility of a swing pass to the running back with the H-back serving as a lead blocker, leaving redshirt junior safety Michael Taaffe rotating into the single-high safety in a middle-field closed concept.

Georgia was able to occupy Taaffe by running a go route from the slot, exactly the type of route that the coverage is designed to take away.

As a result, Texas sophomore cornerback Manny Muhammad was one-on-one with Georgia wide receiver Arian Smith on the outside. With Muhammad playing bail technique facing the sideline, Smith hit him with an outside move and then broke his route inside, beating Muhammad with no chance of help from Taaffe, who was bracketing the go route.

The gain went for 21 yards, ultimately tied for the second-longest passing play of the game for the Dawgs after the ensuing play.

Burnt Orange Nation asked Barron if Muhammad used poor technique on the play or if he expected help inside and Barron replied, “I’m not sure. I mean, the kid probably just ran a good route.”

Indeed, it was a good route by Smith, the team’s leader in receiving yards.

With better play-calling instincts than Bobo is generally credited for, the Georgia coordinator dialed up a trick play to follow up the 21-yard completion to Smith — a reverse flea flicker similar to the one that Texas called earlier in the game. Taaffe and senior cornerback Gavin Holmes covered the deep target well, but someone busted the coverage on tight end Oscar Delp, who did a good job of selling his block climbing to the second level against Texas junior nickel back Jaylon Guilbeau.

Asked about the play, Barron took responsibility for busting the coverage as he and Guilbeau both bit on the reverse, allowing Delp to run free into the secondary and gain 43 yards on the play.

The two consecutive plays for the Dawgs totaled 64 yards, 22.6 of the entire offensive output for Georgia in the game, and represented two of the three plays that went for more than 18 yards, the longest run for Etienne and fourth-longest play overall.

After Texas defended a Counter play well in limiting Etienne to two yards, Mukuba was injured on a hitch route by Dillon Bell that gained nine yards to start the fourth quarter.

On another throw to Bell, this time a slip screen, Texas senior Jack end Barryn Sorrell read it and closed quickly, but inadvertently got his hand stuck in Bell’s face mask on the tackle, a penalty that afforded Georgia half the distance to the goal line.

Because Beck isn’t a running quarterback, Texas junior edge Trey Moore bit on the zone read, allowing Beck the edge and a gain of five critical yards. According to Pro Football Focus, it’s only the second zone run by Beck this season, as Bobo takes an approach similar to Sarkisian in only using those read options near the goal line.

With the ball at the 1-yard line, a strange sequence ensued that included two reviews on the next three plays before the Bulldogs scored on a one-yard run by Etienne on fourth down even though it appeared that the Georgia running back broke the plane on his second-down carry.

Conclusion

By itself, the third-down completion to Smith increased Georgia’s win probability by nearly 10 percent. After the trick play to Delp, the win probability jumped by another 7.1 percent, creating a 17-percent swing on just two plays.

The entire drive functionally buried any chance of Texas pulling off a remarkable comeback and marked arguably the worst string of plays by the Longhorns defense in the entire game, swinging it decisively in favor of the Dawgs. The plays were the most run by Georgia on a drive by two plays and the longest in yardage by 27 yards.

Going down by 15 points early in the fourth quarter significantly impacted how Sarkisian called the rest of the game, calling for it on three fourth downs that ultimately failed and moving even further away from the running game, losing any semblance of balance.

In the 20-15 loss, the offense deserves most of the blame, including for its failure to convert the first two interceptions into point, so there’s a certain cruelty that the decisive moments came when the Texas defense was on the field.