ATHENS, Ga. — The blame could be laid at the feet of so many players Saturday, but it was tailback Washaun Ealey who seemed the most defeated.
He sat in a chair in the locker room after Georgia’s 34-27 loss to Kentucky with his head buried in his hands. He was shaken.
Ealey is part of the future for Georgia, a talented tailback who helped set the tone in a dominant first half for the Bulldogs. But it was his bobbled catch on a toss-sweep at the Kentucky 1-yard line that haunted him. His future remains bright, but all he cared about whas the dismal present for the seniors who walked off the field at Sanford Stadium for the final time, defeated in the most heart-wrenching of ways.
“I just put the ball on the ground. It hit my hands, I should have caught it,” Ealey said. “I was just trying to get in the end zone fast. Joe didn’t know I was that close to him when he pitched. I’m just trying to keep my head up.”
Ealey took the blame, but the series of disasters leading up to his botched catch served as ample prelude, and Cox’s final pick provided a dismal coda.
If it had been a problem for Georgia at any point this season, it happened in the second half Saturday.
In a game Georgia dominated for the first 30 minutes, nothing went right for the Bulldogs in the latter 30 minutes. Special teams problems, turnovers but the offense, shoddy tackling on defense, costly penalties – it was a menagerie of miscues all over the board, culminating with one of the most disastrous plays of the season.
Just one yard away from tying the game, Joe Cox’s pitch to Ealey missed its mark, bounced on the turf and was recovered by Kentucky linebacker Danny Trevathan, halting what would have been a game-tying score.
“I couldn’t tell if he thought it wasn’t a pitch play, but he said he did,” Cox said. “He was real tight and it just got on him quick. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t think he knew what happened either. I think he might have had his eyes up, looking at the hole. To get down that close and have that happen – it’s not good. We had our opportunities and we blew it.”
Cox turned the ball over three times in the second half, including another interception with 1:45 left to play securing a somber sendoff in their last game at Sanford Stadium for Georgia’s seniors.
He finished the game – his last in Sanford Stadium – 12-of-30 passing for 291 yards and three touchdowns, but it was his two interceptions that will be remembered.
And it’s the memories that will linger long after this season ends, after the fans’ outrage is overcome by hope for the future, and after the seniors have moved on with their lives.
So many chance were missed. So many lessons the Bulldogs believed they had learned were forgotten. So much of what they had worked for – for some, four and five years worth of work – evaporated in a setting so surreal, it was difficult for many of the players to capture once it was over.
E-Mail
Print
@Nyx.CommentBody@