Despite playing in high temperatures the past two weeks, No. 2 Georgia hasn’t had to sweat much this season.
Coach Kirby Smart knows that a new season starts this week. The Bulldogs have throttled Tennessee State and Western Kentucky by a combined score of 133-23, but as Southeastern Conference play begins for Georgia (2-0) on Saturday afternoon against Arkansas (1-1) in Fayetteville, Smart is preparing his team for the first real resistance of the year.
“Playing on the road in the SEC, humility is always a week away,” Smart said. “It’s a tough environment regardless of where you play in the SEC. There are no bad environments; there are only raucous environments.”
Smart is 10-0 at Georgia in SEC road openers, and the Bulldogs are a heavy favorite against what might be one of the conference’s few weak links in the Razorbacks.
That information doesn’t give the veteran head coach any solace.
Against a pair of outmatched opponents, Georgia has unloaded its bench for virtually the entire second half in both games, leaving plenty still to be proved by the Bulldogs.
“I’m just happy we’ve played hard and coached hard,” Smart said. “I don’t know that there’s a measuring stick of on-field performance. You can’t really measure that with the number of snaps they’ve had. I look at it as day-to-day interaction, work ethic and buy-in.”
Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton has appeared in 11 drives through two games and has led the offense to touchdowns on each of them. The senior is 28-for-32 for 436 passing yards and eight touchdowns, and junior running back Nate Frazier has four rushing touchdowns on 10 carries for 127 yards.
Arkansas enters its conference opener on the heels of the SEC’s worst loss of the young season, as first-year coach Ryan Silverfield’s team was dismantled 43-10 at then-No. 20 Utah on Saturday.
The Razorbacks have plenty to correct ahead of Saturday’s game against Georgia.
“There should be hurt, there should be frustration, but the ability and the approach and the attitude we need is to get it fixed and get it fixed right now,” Silverfield said. “Now it’s putting the blinders on and putting 100% of our focus on Georgia. We’re not going to walk around with a loser mentality with our heads draped down.”
Quarterback KJ Jackson started Arkansas’ season finale a year ago before impressing the new coaching staff to win the job over the summer as a junior. In his third career start last week, Jackson completed just 14 of 34 passes for 139 yards and was picked off for the second time this season.
While Silverfield knew there would be a learning curve for the first-year full-time starter, shortcomings will have to be fixed on the fly.
“I don’t know why it’s not translating. I’ve had to sit down with KJ and talk through it,” Silverfield said of Jackson’s rough play. “What you hope is every opportunity, every experience he gets on the field, he’s going to continue to improve. The good news is that he’s a smart, hard-working young man. I think we’re going to see strides in the right direction.’
Arkansas, which has dropped 11 straight conference games, hasn’t beaten Georgia since September 2010. The teams have met just three times since that Razorbacks’ victory with the most recent contest being a 37-0 Georgia home win in 2021.
