We continue our literary stroll back through the Bulldogs’ 2024 season with a review of Georgia’s shellacking of the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles. This installment will sound in the style of the Queen of Southern Gothic, Milledgeville’s own Flannery O’Connor, who would have turned 100 years old today. Enjoy. But be sure to feel a little guilty and undeserving of that fleeting joy in her honor.
In the hot, indifferent light of Athens salvation comes in peculiar forms. The Georgia Bulldogs delivered their merciless benediction upon Tennessee Tech, a 48-3 thrashing that left the Golden Eagles broken like so many sinners at the altar. Coach Smart’s congregation moved with the mechanical precision of a cotton gin, displaying neither joy nor mercy in their execution, and tearing to bits any and all unfortunate to fall into their unforgiving maw.
The Bulldogs, swollen with pride and blessed with talent beyond their spiritual deserving, slouched through portions of the contest with the disdain of landed gentry forced to acknowledge their distant country cousins. In the second quarter, they allowed those Golden Eagles—poor, misshapen creatures from another football cosmos—to march eleven plays straight through their gut, as if inviting punishment for their own vanity. Passes dropped from pampered hands that would have caught hell for such transgressions against worthier opposition. And the Lord, in His mysterious ways, struck down Oscar Delp and Nate Frazier with afflictions that Coach Smart, that stern prophet of the gridiron, must now interpret and excuse.
Yet beneath the merciless Southern sun, Kirby Smart’s electi percussores dispatched their inferiors with all the emotion of a farmer slaughtering hogs in the fall. The red and black machine accumulated 498 yards—currency in a kingdom where yards are grace—and converted third downs with the casual indifference of those assured of salvation regardless of their works. Nine penalties for 85 yards hung upon them like the minor sins of those already guaranteed passage to Glory.
Carson Beck, that pale horseman of unleaded assurance, delivered his first eleven passes without error before finishing his testament at 18 completions on 25 attempts, 242 yards gained in the sight of the Lord if not without His abettance, and 5 touchdowns to mark the stations of victory. Young Gunner Stockton, still learning the dark mysteries of quarterbacking, completed 10 of 12 passes for 95 yards, a brief parable of competence from the bench.
Trevor Etienne, newly garbed in the sacred colors, carried the ball 15 times for 78 yards, his 45-yard gallop a paean to speed that seemed almost consecrated in its perfection. Branson Robinson thundered forward with the terrible certainty of judgment day, scoring once from 13 yards out, his lowered shoulder a terrible instrument of football justice. The freshman runners—Frazier and Bowens—followed by Cash Jones, formed a backfield chorus speaking in tongues of talent that might make even the faithful tremble.
Fifteen different Bulldogs—disciples of varying devotion drawn from all precincts and tribes—caught the gospel according to Beck and Stockton like the crowd at a July camp meeting. Arian Smith led this communion with 4 receptions for 73 yards, including a 50-yard touchdown that fell from heaven like divine fire. On this day at least the fire did not burn his tender hands.
The defense stood as angels with flaming swords, permitting only 134 yards to the trespassing Golden Eagles. Twenty-five Athenian warriors recorded tackles, Smart sending waves of judgment against the outmatched visitors, whose physical frailty was a visible testament to their spiritual, emotional, and gridiron unworthiness.
Kirby Smart possesses a football arsenal of biblical proportion. This truth was etched in stone tablets long before the ritual slaughter made it evident. No real questions were answered in this grotesque pageant of dominance, no Bulldog sinner truly forced to confront his sins, yet the terrible business was conducted as required. Georgia now turns its terrible gaze toward the SEC schedule, where true redemption—or damnation—awaits.
Glory be to the ‘Dawgs, now and forever.