The No. 15 Georgia Bulldogs bring the heat to defeat the No. 24 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 20-19 on Saturday night. Here are three takeaways from the game.
For two teams that hadn’t met on the gridiron since 1980, Saturday night’s contest between the No. 15 Georgia Bulldogs and the No. 24 Notre Dame Fighting Irish absolutely lived up to the hype. Though they will meet again in two years in Athens, this one up in South Bend was tremendous.
It was a battle between two excellent defenses. However, the Georgia pass rush proved to be too formidable for the Notre Dame offensive line. Once linebacker Davin Bellamy came around the edge, that was it for Notre Dame’s chances. Georgia ekes out the Fighting Irish 20-19 in South Bend.
Here are the three takeaways from Georgia’s thrilling road victory over Notre Dame on Saturday night.
Takeaways
Georgia’s front-seven looks to be fantastic one. Even under former head coach Mark Richt, the Bulldogs have had more than their fair share of elite defensive front-seven personnel. While head coach Kirby Smart has his roots in coaching the defensive backs, he has to be proud of how his front-seven played tonight.
Georgia held Notre Dame to 1.5 yards per carry, completely neutralizing the versatile Notre Dame ground game. The Bulldogs were outstanding off the edge as Bellamy and outside linebacker Lorenzo Carter had a pair of strip sacks on Notre Dame quarterback Brandon Wimbush.
The secondary played well, too, but the Georgia front-seven was the star of this game. Georgia loved getting flagged in this game, drawing 12 penalties. Not to say this front-seven is on par with Alabama’s, but it could be in the conversation by year’s end.
Jake Fromm is still very much a true freshman. Though he has been victorious in his first two games of his college quarterbacking career, Jake Fromm is still 100 percent a true freshman. He did play with confidence, but has not shown he can carry the Georgia offense against a worthy adversary.
Fromm completed 16 of 29 passes for 141 yards, a touchdown, an interception and a fumble. His pass to wide receiver Terry Godwin was tremendous in the red zone. However, averaging 4.9 yards per attempt is not going to cut it against one of the better teams in the SEC on the road.
He didn’t make a ton of bad reads, but he would get a little squirmy behind a collapsing pocket. That being said, he did play with great resiliency and should feel very good heading into Georgia’s next game at home next week versus Samford.
Brandon Wimbush needs better protection up front. Notre Dame was said to have one of the better offensive lines in the Power 5. Well, Georgia absolutely took advantage of their two tackles all night coming off the edge.
The Fighting Irish’s inability to contain Bellamy and Carter off the edge was the difference in this game. Wimbush played very hard all night to have his team leading for most of it. He did so without much of a running game either.
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Though he’s not as talented as DeShone Kizer was last year, Wimbush didn’t deserve to be running for his life behind a collapsing pocket on seemingly every other play. He played okay, but that was a bad night for the Notre Dame offensive line for sure.
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