Georgia’s matchup with Kent State didn’t go as planned; however, the No. 1 Bulldogs still defeated the Golden Flashes 39-22 Saturday at Sanford Stadium.
Kent State (1-3) played well and kept Georgia (4-0, 1-0 SEC) off balance in all facets of the game.
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs were sloppy against the Golden Flashes, turning the ball over a season-high three times. Regardless, they needed a wake-up call after dismantling SEC East opponent South Carolina 48-7 on the road in Columbia during Week 3.
“Turnovers. Three of them, maybe four total when you count the fake punt, that was like a turnover. They got an extra possession,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said. “It makes it hard. When you come out ahead as we did, sometimes you take wins like that for granted.”
All three of the Bulldogs’ turnovers came in the first half. Senior quarterback Stetson Bennett tossed an interception, while redshirt sophomore wideout Ladd McConkey had two fumbles. Still, those two veterans made some big-time plays when it mattered.
McConkey’s mistakes cost Georgia some points, but he returned strong in the second half. He ended up tying Kenny McIntosh for most receptions with six. McConkey also had a team-high 65 receiving yards. He hauled in three catches for 44 yards in the second half.
“There’s nobody that feels worse than Ladd, right?” Smart asked. “We need him if we want to go where we want to go. Ladd’s a big part of our offense, he’s a big weapon for us.”
Nevertheless, it wasn’t all bad for the Bulldogs’ offense.
“You can’t turn the ball over three times. We didn’t punt, not once. We had over 500 yards of offense; scored 39 points,” Bennett said. “We had a good day. We just had three turnovers almost consecutively— boom, boom, boom—all in the first half. You can’t have that, but we still scored [26] in the first half. And they’re a good team. Like I said earlier, I don’t know what you guys said about how good they were or what, but they’re good.”
Georgia racked up 529 yards of total offense, averaging 6.9 yards per play. The Bulldogs also converted 59 percent (7-of-12) of their third-down conversions. They also racked up a season-high 257 rushing yards on a combined 41 attempts against Kent State.
Brock Bowers was unstoppable in the first half.
He had a 75-yard rushing TD on the second play from scrimmage.
Bowers also had another rushing score in the middle of the second quarter. He ended up leading Georgia in rushing with 77 total yards on two attempts, while also hauling in five receptions for 60 yards.
“It’s always fun to get the ball wherever you get it,” Bowers said postgame about his TD run. “I think just coming out of the backfield, you can just see more stuff.”
The Golden Flashes played tough but were held to just 281 yards of total offense. KSU quarterback Collin Schlee was sacked three times by Georgia’s defense. He also threw an INT.
Schlee finished the contest by completing 14-of-21 passes for 174 yards with a TD and an INT. Devontez Walker was his favorite target, racking up 106 yards on seven catches and a score. Marquez Cooper led the Golden Flashes in rushing with 90 yards, 21 carries and a TD.
“First of all, they’re (Kent State) physical. They have an athletic quarterback,” Smart said. “There are times in games you play, where you say, ‘Oh, we got a good call on that,’ and everywhere where we had a pretty good call, they had a run/pass option where they could bang it in there. When they bang a 7-yard slant instead of handing it off, I’m saying I would have rather them hand it off and try to stop them up there. They did a nice job. They had some explosive plays, and we didn’t stop them on those explosive plays. If you take the explosive plays out, we played pretty good defense.”
Regardless, Smart and his players know that Georgia’s ‘standard’ wasn’t upheld on Saturday.
“We talked all week and told our team that we thought this was going to be the best team we had played. It came out to be that way,” Smart said. “They played tough. They have a really good quarterback, a good system, and they are tenacious on defense. I thought we did really well on offense and had a great game plan. The kids practiced hard. We didn’t cash in the chips in the red area, a couple of really costly penalties killed drives.”