Georgia fans have some serious reasons to have a blast this week. Their position in the College Football Playoff bracket jumped significantly after a breathtaking overtime win against Georgia Tech. Also, Kirby Smart got some favor from Miami and Ohio State’s respective losses. They are now gracing the latest CFP list as the new No. 5. However, it’s a tricky position. When you put on a subpar record, it’s straight and easy. Nobody counts you into the thick. But when you had three high-octane wins against top-25 teams like No. 2 Texas, No. 7 Tennessee, and No. 17 Clemson, fans are not naïve to see you wallow in some victory celebration with a national trophy in hand. But there comes the dicey point of the competition. The Dawgs have simply no clause to give it away in their SEC Championship game against Texas Longhorns. Ahead of the frantic fight, RJ Young put them on notice.

The Georgia Bulldogs kick-started the 2024 season as the No.1 team and one of the favorites to win this year’s championship. Moving deeper into the contention, like every other team, they had their lulls. The Dawgs had a nasty beatdown against Ole Miss that led their CFP prestige to No.12 with one shove. So, they had already exposed their vulnerabilities to the opponents. So, not catering to those becomes a high point for their future in the conference. As we bulk up for the SEC weekend featuring Longhorns vs the Bulldogs, you might want to know the ‘what if’ of Georgia’s potential Longhorns trounce! Providing you with a bitter reality, the NO.1 college football show host, RJ Young, noted, ‘‘If Georgia loses to Texas, does Georgia get in the college football playoff? I don’t think they should.”

Georgia had a narrow upper hand over the Kentucky Wildcats and a disappointing loss against the Rebels. But none of this is enough to judge their supremacy, as they were not the teams with a very rugged strength of schedule. Explaining the underlying dripping effect, the analyst added, ”A one-point win against Kentucky is telling us a lot cuz Kentucky went 4-8 they were not good to begin with, and they seemed to be good that one time they played Ole Miss, but Ole Miss turned out to be not that good. They lost to this Bama team, but Bama lost to Vanderbilt, and Bama also lost to Tennessee.” 

And that wasn’t it. Bama also lost terribly to an Oklahoma team that went 6-6 at the end of the regular season. “So maybe, Georgia goes down to that Bama spot, Bama gets kicked out, but you can’t have Bama and Georgia into this 12-team college football playoff. I don’t think it’s going to work if Georgia loses to Texas,” Young further said.

In DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium, Georgia simply has a lot to prove to the committee to get to the cream of the conference. A single slip can kick them out of the picture, leaving all the hype irrelevant.

However, Steve Sarkisian and his team are no longer an unfamiliar peril to the Dawgs. Georgia already confronted them in the mid-season and clinched an impressive victory. But that Carson Beck’s infamous interceptions marred the glory to some extent. Should we still bet a dime on Beck after all the controversies he had been through? Well, it’s a 50-50.

Can Carson Beck deliver against the Texas Longhorns, dodging the past humiliation?

It’s beyond debate that Beck has improved his plays a lot since a brutal Texas lesson. From social media to the commentary box, everywhere the QB got thwarted for how he single-handedly wasted opportunities and turned the game into a massive disappointment. However, he heard all of that and had a good bounce back in the second half of the season. You can take the Tennessee game for a reference. The Florida native had some deep self-actualization over what all went wrong.

From what he found, he sometimes unnecessarily forced the ball and tried to mount some big plays when it wasn’t the correct spot to go for that. Playing within the offense strictly without much experiment can be an answer to all the past woes. You can believe his words, backed by actions or not, but coach Smart kept on batting for his boy. He sees an incredible consistency in Beck’s thought process and decision-making.

But then, the turnover and interception issues are too sharp to be ignored. So you can’t blame CJ Young when he said, ”If Carson Beck is your best player, you’re going to lose this football game full stop. You need your best player to be on defense. You don’t need your best player to be Carson Beck. You need Carson Beck to operate the offense.”

Let’s hold off the rest of your curiosity until the SEC fight soars in.