Not many teams are able to get the best of Georgia, but they underestimated an opponent last year and it came back to bite them. Who could that team be this year?
Last season was going incredibly well for the Georgia Bulldogs until they ran into the South Carolina Gamecocks in mid-October. The Gamecocks took the Bulldogs to overtime and ended up winning it, handing Georgia their first loss of the season.
Even worse — that game came at home. It was this loss to the Gamecocks that cost Georgia a spot in the College Football Playoffs last season and it’s all because they didn’t take South Carolina as seriously as they should have.
While South Carolina is definitely still a trap game for Georgia in 2020, it’s hard to think the Bulldogs would count that team out in back-to-back years since they saw firsthand what happens when you discount the Gamecocks. They won’t make that same mistake again.
Georgia has to watch out for the Missouri Tigers.
In 2020, the biggest trap game on Georgia’s schedule is the Missouri Tigers, who they’ll face on Oct. 17 (assuming the season goes on as planned). Trap games are called that because no one will think a loss to that team is possible and that’s exactly what people will think when Georgia gets set to travel to Columbia to face the Tigers.
Missouri is in a rebuild of sorts. They fired Barry Odom and hired former Appalachian State head coach Eliah Drinkwitz to take over their team. If he pans out, he could be the head coach of the Tigers for a long time due to how young he is. He spent just one year at Appalachian State and had them ranked in the top 25 throughout the year.
Drinkwitz is going into his first year with the team, but they’ll still have some good talent taking the field in Columbia. Larry Rountree III is returning at the running back spot and while he hasn’t done a ton of damage against the Bulldogs in the past, a lot of that could be because the games have high scoring, so MU was forced to throw the ball more.
The game wasn’t even close between these two in Athens last year, but the season prior, when it was in Columbia, it took five Missouri turnovers to lose the game. The Tigers got in their own way and beat themselves that week. They weren’t scared going up against the highly ranked Bulldogs and that’ll be the same thing in 2020.
This game is sandwiched in between a home game against Auburn and then a road trip to Gainesville to battle Florida in the swamp. It’s very possible that Georgia is still reeling off their likely victory over Auburn and then looking ahead to the Gators instead of focusing on Missouri.
That could be all it takes for Mizzou to stun the Bulldogs and hand them a surprising loss in the 2020 season.
As mentioned above, South Carolina falls into the trap game category because of how last year went. The Gamecocks are a sneaky team that usually can force at least one upset every year. With their game against Georgia being in Columbia this time around, anything is possible.
Georgia also has a late-season away game in Lexington against Kentucky, which could be yet another trap game for them. It’s their second to last game of the season and the only remaining game after that is a home game against Georgia Tech.
If the Bulldogs have managed to go undefeated to this point or even just lost one game, they could be licking their chops at their impending College Football Playoff berth and overlook the Wildcats. Kentucky, like South Carolina, is a sneaky team in the SEC East and would love to play spoiler late in the year.
Georgia definitely should beat all three of these teams, but upsets happen all the time and trap games are called that because you’re not expecting it to be a loss. If the Bulldogs overlook any of these three opponents, it could cost them a spot in the College Football Playoffs this season.
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