Five key takeaways from UGA football's 37-10 win at Arkansas

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.—Three weeks after it was originally scheduled to kick off its football season, Georgia traveled nearly 800 miles to a stadium it hadn’t played in since 2009 when Kirby Smart was in his third year on Alabama’s staff.

The 28-point favorites looked like a team that isn’t destined for a fourth straight trip to the SEC championship in the first half. Then they started to look like they’re destined for another December trip to Atlanta in pulling away for a 37-10 victory Saturday.

The No. 3 Bulldogs may have looked sharp in their red britches and white jerseys but they didn’t look good in how they played until Stetson Bennett sparked the Bulldogs offense and big plays on special teams and defense materialized in front of a reduced attendance crowd of 16,500 at Razorback Stadium.

"We came in during halftime, everyone was still positive that we were going to win this football game," safety Richard LeCounte said of a Bulldogs team that trailed 7-5 to an opponent who last won an SEC game in 2017. "We came out in he second half and played the game like we know how to play. There was a lot of things we had to fix and we fixed it."

On a day co-No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 5 LSU were upset at home to unranked team, the Bulldogs avoided similar catastrophe.

Here are five takeaways from the Bulldog victory:

The Todd Monken era started off not so great.

Georgia used two quarterbacks in the first half. Starting center Trey Hill was replaced by Warren Ericson and right tackle Owen Condon by Warren McClendon who remained in the game in the third quarter. Hill then had a second errant snap.

Yes, the Bulldogs were looking for answers where they could find it in a penalty-filled first half with 11 for 98 yards.

Chuck Dowdle asked Smart in his interview after the half on radio about not being happy with the penalties

"Hell no, terrible penalties," the fifth-year Georgia coach said. "Lethargic all over the field. No rhythm on offense. Every time we do something on offense we kill ourselves with penalties."

The Bulldogs hired Monken to generate more explosive plays and score more, but returned just three starters from the SEC championship game: Hill, guard Ben Cleveland and wide receiver Kearis Jackson.

Georgia didn’t score a touchdown in the first half despite average field position of its own 42.

The Bulldogs started one possession at the Razorbacks’ 15 and another at their 45 and got zilch.

Georgia made the most of their chances in the second half, scoring four straight times it touched the ball including an Eric Stokes pick six.

Here’s what we know about the quarterbacks after this one: Stetson Bennett moved the offense much better than starter D’Wan Mathis.

Southern Cal transfer JT Daniels may be waiting in the wings for his chance, but Bennett was at the helm when the Bulldogs poured on 32 second-half points.

Georgia looked like it missed Jamie Newman more than expected after his September opt out.

Bennett, the redshirt junior who was the backup last year, was quarterback for three drives when Georgia put up 101 of its 177 total first half yards. He finished 20 of 29 for 211 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions.

"I was expecting to come in," Bennett said. "If you don’t, then it’s kind of poor when you do. I always expect to. The first half, it was pretty poor. The second half was better. A few times, I checked to protections when I shouldn’t have on that two-point conversion. It worked out but maybe next time it won’t."

So why did Smart yank Mathis with more than 10 minutes left in the first half?

"We were on the headphones and said we were struggling offenisively and didn’t have a lot of rhythym and needed to change things up," Smart said. " We just thought it would give us some energy. There’s some things he can do well. and he’s different than D’Wan in some of his experience. It gave us a spark. It helped us out He’s very decisive with the ball. He makes good decisions."

Bennett rallied Georgia to take the lead with 6 minutes left in the third quarter. He dove and reached for the pylon to get the two-point conversion for a 13-10 lead after a 19-yard catch and dive into the end zone touchdown from George Pickens on the left side early in the third quarter.

That was an awareness that the inexperienced Mathis didn’t show when he ran just short of the first down marker on a first half run and the Bulldogs had to punt. Mathis was 8 of 17 for 55 yards and an interception and had a long run of 9 yards

Mathis was off target on a pass to freshman Jermaine Burton and Arkansas’ Montaric Brown snatched the interception.

Bennett got into a rhythm before the half, moving the team down the field with a strike to freshman tight end Darnell Washington and then getting in a groove with wideout Demetris Robertson.

Mathis returned in the fourth quarter with the game out of reach.

"I actually still have confidence in D’Wan," Smart said. "It’s not all Dwan’s fault. We did that to try to inject some energy. You do that sometimes to try to get some enthusiasm."

Defense made big plays, but also gave up some.

The final tally looks good for Georgia’s defense.

280 total yards and 10 points given up against an Arkansas team that lost its 20th straight SEC game,

It didn’t start that way on what is viewed as one of the nation’s best defenses.

Razorbacks wideout Treylon Burks slid by All-American caliber safety Richard LeCounte on a 49-yard touchdown pass from Feleipe Franks.

"We just had a little mix up on the communication,"LeCounte said.

Later in the half, Franks was out of the pocket and all the time in the world. He signaled for his receiver to come back and then he threw a dart to Burks for a 20-yard completion in front of LeCounte.

On a third-and-4 in the third quarter, he found receiver Mike Woods in the middle of the field to move the chains on a drive that ended with a field goal.

Now for the good stuff.

LeCounte had a pair of interceptions and cornerback Eric Stokes had his first that he returned 30 yards for a touchdown.

Georgia’s first points came on a safety when Mark Webb and Azeez Ojulari were in the backfield on a double reverse and the ball trickled out of end zone for with 14:30 left in first half to put Georgia on the scoreboard 7-2.

"We came in during halftime," LeCounte said. "Everyone was still positive that we were going to win this football game. We came out I nthe second half and played the game like we know how to play. There was a lot of things we had to fix and we fixed it."

Another bright sign was the early snaps from five-star defensive tackle Jalen Carter who got in a lick on Franks with a hit on one play.

"They were resilient, man," Smart said. "They fought, got put in a lot of tough situations and thank goodness we have a lot of experience on that side of the ball. The best thing they did was they never pointed any fingers, never blamed anybody, just kept working."

Sam Pittman and former Georgia special teams coordinator Scott Fountain tried to get in Jack Podlesny’s head before his first college field goal attempt.

They called timeout not once, but twice, the second time after the walk-on from St. Simons doinked the attempt off the crossbar.

The one that counted was good from 38 to cut Arkansas’ lead to 7-5 as the first half ended.

Overall, a mostly decent debut of Scott Cochran as special teams coordinator.

The Bulldogs had to burn a timeout before a first-half punt return and Smart appeared to get on Cochran, the longtime former Alabama strength and conditioning coordinator.

Running into the punter before halftime brought Arkansas’ field goal unit on the field but a delay of game took away that chance.

Georgia’s Zamir White gave the Bulldogs terrific field position in the third quarter when he blocked an Arkansas punt.

Kenny McIntosh had 91 yards on a pair of kick returns and Kearis Jackson and Tyrique Stephenson combined 3 punt returns for 57 yards.

Jake Camarda picked up where he left off last year. He averaged 49.9 yards on seven punts.

Podlesny made his second attempt, also from 38 yards with 1:23 to go.

"I thought the special teams played really well," Smart said.

No UGA wide receiver except for George Pickens was making much noise early, but by the end of the game, eight different Bulldogs had multiple catches.

Pickens had four catches for 47 yards and a 19-yard touchdown pass from Bennett.

Kearis Jackson was targeted nine times and had six catches for 62 yards.

Georgia lost sophomore Dominick Blaylock in the preseason another time due to an ACL tear.

Can Demetris Robertson be the No. 2 wideout? He had four catches for 29 yards. Freshman Jermaine Burton, who got plenty of preseason hype and started the game,had one catch for 13 yards. He was targeted four times.