Georgia 37, Vanderbilt 20: Promising, maybe?

Tennessean: Vanderbilt football falls, 37-20, to Georgia, ends shutout streak

The Vanderbilt Hustler: Vanderbilt Commodores fall to No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs 37-20 on Family Weekend

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs pull away in win over pesky Vanderbilt

AP News: No. 1 Georgia loses Bowers early, scores 27 straight to beat Vandy 37-20

Dawg Sports: Georgia 37, Vandy 20: Bulldogs Beaten Up, But Avoid A Beating

The talent gap between Vanderbilt and Georgia was ultimately too much to overcome, and Vanderbilt didn’t exactly play mistake-free football. But if you’re in the “nO mOrAl ViCtOrIeS” crowd, realistically, what the hell are you expecting Vanderbilt to do against the #1 team in the country? If you’re Ke’Shawn Vaughn, obviously, you expect to win and block a Vanderbilt sports blog on Twitter for daring to suggest that Vanderbilt would probably lose to Georgia. But the 2019 team didn’t find the end zone and lost 30-6, starting a string of four games against Georgia in which Vanderbilt did not score a touchdown, including the last two games where Vanderbilt didn’t score at all and lost by scores of 62-0 and 55-0.

I mean, sure, this is really the classic Bobby Johnson game where they’re overmatched but make the score aesthetically closer than it probably should have been. It wasn’t truly close because (a) Georgia didn’t commit nearly enough mistakes and (b) Vanderbilt made some mistakes of its own, particularly in the sequence at the end of the first half. Ken Seals threw an interception with Vanderbilt driving, and Georgia needed 25 seconds to turn that into a touchdown, and suddenly what could have been a 17-14 deficit going into the half was 24-7.

On the other hand, Vanderbilt’s rushing success rate, well... the run game is a big issue. Vanderbilt ran the ball 13 times (note that I don’t count sacks or kneeldowns as “runs” because they’re not) and two of those were successful plays — and one of the successes was Sedrick Alexander punching it in on 1st and goal from the Georgia 1 after a C.J. Taylor interception. That needs to get fixed in the offseason — and really, from what I’ve seen, the running backs aren’t the issue there.

Individual Stats

I haven’t given much thought to the quarterback situation lately, but Saturday was Ken Seals’ third consecutive start, and... let’s just say this was the situation I really didn’t want to happen. Seals has done fine — more than fine, really — and assuming AJ Swann is healthy coming off the bye week (and, really, it’s odd that Clark Lea hasn’t really talked much about his health lately), Seals’ performance has been good enough that I think he probably gives Vanderbilt its best chance to win unless Swann really cuts back on the mistakes. Like, here’s commenter alathIN in this morning’s Anchor Drop:

There are probably 3 or 4 times in a game where Swann can complete a pass that Seals can’t. There are another 3 or 4 times a game Seals will take a sack or throw away a ball that Swann should but doesn’t.

Yeah. Pretty much. I really couldn’t have said that better myself.

Anyway. Moving on...

On a podcast a little while ago, I remember there being some talk about how little Jayden McGowan was being targeted. That wasn’t the case yesterday, but Will Sheppard only had one catch on four targets. It’s pretty obvious by now that Sheppard and McGowan are being utilized less because of the emergence of London Humphreys and Junior Sherrill.

Defense

Yeah, Vanderbilt sacked Georgia’s Carson Beck twice, or one more time than Georgia got to Ken Seals. The sacks came from Aeneas DiCosmo and Nate Clifton, with Clifton. C.J. Taylor, and Myles Capers credited with hurries — and there was the big play in the form of Taylor’s interception followed by a big return. Jaylen Mahoney had 16 tackles to lead the team, and we also heard the name Gumbo Gaskins a lot more than we ever have (in fact, I can’t remember hearing his name during a broadcast before Saturday.)

What’s Next

Vanderbilt has a bye week before traveling to Ole Miss on October 28; time and television network will be announced tomorrow.