Looking Like a Title Defender, Georgia Thrashes Oregon

Some of the Georgia stat padding came as soon as the Bulldogs opened the second half, when Bennett helped engineer a six-play drive that featured Kendall Milton jogging past the goal line.

Oregon fans stuck around anyway, the rebirth they sought nowhere in sight during Dan Lanning’s debut as the Oregon coach after four seasons at Georgia, including three as defensive coordinator. Instead, many stayed for a showing that only grew worse: Georgia scored touchdowns on its first seven possessions and did not punt until the fourth quarter.

Smart, whose team converted nine of its 10 third downs, moved to 7-0 in season openers.

“They have good guys, and you can’t afford to play poorly against a good team,” said Lanning, who insisted that all of Oregon’s goals remained within reach and said that Nix would remain the Oregon quarterback.

The Georgia-Oregon matchup was one of Saturday’s few contests that pitted one marquee program against another, or so recent history and the preseason polls suggested. But the season’s first full slate of games offered glimpses of the chaos, some of it cringe-inducing, and premature hope that so often thrills and terrorizes fans.

East Carolina missed an upset of No. 13 North Carolina State by 1 point, the same margin by which Rutgers escaped Boston College. North Carolina survived Appalachian State, 63-61. Iowa managed to get past South Dakota State while scoring all of 7 points — on a field goal and a pair of safeties. (“I’ve never been around a game like that,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz, in charge in Iowa City since 1999, said.)

In Arkansas, the 19th-ranked Razorbacks outlasted No. 23 Cincinnati, which last season became the first team from a Group of 5 conference to make the playoff.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/03/sports/ncaafootball/georgia-oregon.html