Desperate to mount some kind of scoring drive, Georgia went for it on 4th-and-9 from their own 21 . . . and didn’t make it. Four plays later, State’s Vick Ballard pounded it in from the 1, pushing the score to 24-6 and effectively driving Georgia to an 0-3 start in SEC play in 2010.
Had Georgia managed to pull out an ugly win in this game, there’d still be questions swirling around the program, but at least there’d be hope. After a loss like this, against one of the SEC’s perennial bottom-feeders, it’s hard to see much good coming out of this season — and much easier to see Mark Richt, Mike Bobo and the rest of the coaching staff facing some extremely difficult questions by season’s end. Back in August, the “Is Mark Richt on the hot seat?” question was met with exasperated eye-rolls from most Georgia fans; now, though, that question is going to be taken much more seriously.