Dawgs hunker down for win
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- If the measure of a championship team is winning when it's not at its best, then you can go ahead and start measuring ring sizes at Georgia.
It is only the second week in September, and as anyone who saw Miami on Friday night understands, the third-ranked Bulldogs hardly have a monopoly on winning ugly. But there was a different quality about Georgia's 20-16 victory at South Carolina on Saturday night.
Down 16-0 at Williams-Brice Stadium, one of the least hospitable venues in the Southeastern Conference, the Bulldogs didn't flinch. Widespread Panic? Nothing more than a band. Georgia stared disaster in the face, and adopting the manner of its imperturbable coach, stifled a yawn. That's what good teams do. There's an air of inevitability about their success.
This is how Georgia's defense responded: From the time South Carolina went ahead by 16 early in the second quarter, until the Bulldogs went ahead with 9:56 to play, the defense allowed the Gamecocks a total of 79 yards, 54 of them on one play.
And once the Dawgs went ahead, the defense stopped the Gamecocks twice in the red zone in the fourth quarter. The first time, rover Greg Blue knocked South Carolina quarterback Dondrial Pinkins into the middle of next week and jarred the ball loose at the Bulldog 17.
Two plays later, Georgia fumbled, so the defense forced the Gamecocks to turn the ball over on downs. On fourth-and-1 at the 7, Pinkins ran a bootleg right. Linebacker Danny Verdun-Wheeler and cornerback DeMario Minter knocked Pinkins into the end of next week, and stopped him two feet short of the sticks.
"I was saying to myself, 'I got to stop him. I got to stop him. Big play. Big play. Don't bite on the fake. That's not your responsibility. You're not going to make a play inside. Stay outside,' " said Minter, a junior. "I had help. I don't even know who it was. That [Pinkins] is a big guy. I only weigh 190 pounds."
If I'm Pinkins, I ask coach Lou Holtz about installing the West Coast offense.
This is how the Georgia offense responded to its first play in the first quarter, when tailback Danny Ware was knocked for a three-yard loss and a safety, and to its first pass of the second quarter, when quarterback David Greene threw straight to South Carolina free safety Ko Simpson, who returned it 57 yards down the sideline for a touchdown.
Because Greene is one of the best quarterbacks in the nation, it's difficult to find an adjective to describe his play for the first 20 minutes of the game. "Rixian" comes to mind.
"You never know when you're going to play bad and go through adversity, " Greene said.
Greene rebounded to lead touchdown drives of 73 yards in the third quarter and 62 in the fourth. He never completed a pass longer than 22 yards, and that one only went that far because wideout Fred Gibson fumbled the ball forward and beat the rush to fall on it. But Greene found a way to lead the Bulldogs down the field, a little bit at a time.
This is how the best player on the field responded. Asked what the team was thinking, down that far, All-American defensive end David Pollack blurted out, "Quit. What do you think? We wanted to come back. Championship teams come back."
Pollack and Greene, roommates and leaders, aren't the only story here, only the most recognizable. But Georgia won this game because it has more good players. When starting tailback Danny Ware couldn't play in the second half after coughing up blood, backups Tyson Browning and Michael Cooper combined for 101 yards after halftime. Third-team linebacker Jarvis Jackson, forced to start because of suspension (Odell Thurman) and injury (Derrick White), made eight tackles, two for loss.
This is how the team responded: it made its biggest comeback in Richt's four seasons.
"You need to go through that," Richt said. "Truthfully, it's no fun when you get in that position. You need to see what's in their heart, what their character is like when their backs are against the wall."
Every Thursday at 2 p.m., the Bulldogs split up by class and meet. Each meeting is led by a different coach. Richt meets with the seniors.
"We talk about that a lot at the senior meeting," Richt said. "'What will you do to hold the thing together? People will be looking to you.' They did a great job."
On his right hand, Richt wore his 2002 SEC Championship ring, a glittering reminder to his team of what would be at stake, even in the second week of September.
"It's not too early to say we had our backs against the wall," he said. "We could have folded up and crumbled under the pressure of it."
South Carolina coach Lou Holtz put it best, as he usually does. Asked about the visitors, Holtz said, "Georgia is used to winning."
Ivan Maisel is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.
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