Guerry Clegg: No one is laughing at Georgia’s ‘comedy of errors’

There’s a culture change taking place, you know.

Let’s not forget, Kirby Smart’s mentor, Nick Saban, lost to Louisiana-Monroe in his first season at Alabama.

And Mark Richt left Smart with an undersized and underdeveloped offensive line.

Besides, give Vanderbilt credit. The Commodores have a great defense.

Let’s see, how many other excuses can be made for Georgia’s 17-16 loss to Vanderbilt?

On homecoming, no less.

How about the blunt truth? The Bulldogs aren’t a very good football team, and they aren’t very well-coached.

Well-coached teams don’t outgain their opponent 421-171 in total offense and lose.

Well-coached teams don’t let their competition dictate their interest in playing hard or smart.

Well-coached teams don’t repeatedly commit self-inflicted mistakes halfway through the season.

Not to anybody, let alone arguably the worst team in the SEC. Let’s not forget, this is a Vanderbilt team that has lost to South Carolina and Kentucky, two other contenders for the SEC doormat. It’s a team that got blown out by Georgia Tech 38-7 three weeks ago.

Even with the victory, Vanderbilt is still just 3-4 and still has to play Auburn, Missouri, Ole Miss and Tennessee. Another losing season is quite likely.

The last time Georgia lost to a team that finished with a losing record was 2010 at Colorado. Before that, it was 2006, to Vanderbilt here at Sanford Stadium.

This was not just a bad day at the office. This was the seventh game under Smart, and the Bulldogs have played decidedly uneven. They nearly lost to Nicholls. They had to score late to beat Missouri. There were embarrassed by Ole Miss.

“That all starts with me,” Smart said. “That responsibility falls on me, and I told the players that. We’ve got to improve as a team in order to beat teams like that. We’ve got to get better.”

And maybe things will get better before this season is over, or next year, or down the road. For now, the Dogs look like a team that has lost confidence in themselves. Smart called it “a comedy of errors,” but he wasn’t very amused.

“It’s embarrassing and I’m sick to my stomach,” Smart said. “We came out sloppy and I take full responsibility for it. Those guys played harder than us, and that’s disappointing.”

Georgia won the coin toss but deferred to the second half to show up. Vandy’s Darrius Sims nearly returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown but was tackled at the 4-yard line by Reggie Davis. The Dogs also were offsides on the kickoff, so that penalty put the ball at the 2. Then another penalty — this one for illegal substitution — put the ball at the 1. Ralph Webb scored two plays later, and the Dogs found themselves trailing by a touchdown just 22 seconds into the game.

“We didn’t come out with very good passion and energy,” Smart said. “Really disappointed with the start of the game.”

One might think that the opening possession would have been a wakeup call. But apparently they found the snooze button. They turned fielding a punt into a game of knife juggling. There was a penalty for a false start. There was a bad snap on third down when they were driving. The malaise carried over into the second half when Davis unwisely fielded the kickoff near the sidelines and stepped out of bounds at the 3.

“We’ve got to improve on special teams,” Smart said. “We’re not very good on special teams right now. I was pleased that Rodrigo (Blankenship) made the field goals, but it’s all the other things that are costing us. The field never got flipped in the first half. They controlled the field position the whole half. With shaky punting themselves, they still flipped the field on us.”

Blankenship was the lone bright spot on special teams. He has struggled this season but made three field goals Saturday.

“It’s difficult to be content when your team loses,” Blankenship said. “It’s about us. It’s not about me. I’m just trying to do my part to help the team.”

But it wasn’t all special teams that should shoulder the blame. There was a critical defensive breakdown that made it all possible. Georgia had kept Vandy’s offense in check for the most part. But on third-and-12 early in the fourth quarter, Kyle Shurmur tossed a screen pass to Webb, who took it 37 yards down to the Georgia 11. The Commodores then pounded it into the end zone on three straight running plays by Khari Blasingame for the tying touchdown and go-ahead extra point.

Yet the Dogs still had a chance to drive into field goal range. But on fourth-and-1 at the Vandy 41, they ran a toss sweep to the right. No problem with the play itself. Vanderbilt stacked its defense to stop the run up the middle.

But the curious decision was to employ Isaiah McKinzie — the diminutive receiver — rather than Nick Chubb, Sony Michel or even Brian Herrien. Maybe they thought they could fool the Commodores. But linebacker Zach Cummingham wasn’t fooled. He stopped McKenzie just inches short of the first down.

Smart defended the decision.

“We really thought we had the exact defense we wanted,” he said. “We were ready to call timeout if we didn’t. We felt really good about it. We had numbers. We had everything to get the first down. Guy came off his block.”

The fact is it should never have come down to that. Now the Dogs have two weeks off to get ready for Florida. If they don’t improve, they might struggle just to become bowl eligible. Oh for those days of mediocre 10-win seasons.

This story was originally published October 15, 2016 at 6:22 PM with the headline "Guerry Clegg: No one is laughing at Georgia’s ‘comedy of errors’."