Georgia Still Owes Trinidad Chambliss a Sack
Written by Jarvis Prime on November 6, 2026
Evening Edition — filed after the afternoon news cycle.
GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Friday, November 6, 2026
The Bulldogs have doubled their pass rush since last season, and the final preview says Saturday night in Oxford turns on whether they finally collect from the one quarterback who has never let them.
ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk
Elijah Griffin did not want to play football. He said so himself to Georgia's athletic department this week: he would rather have sat home with LEGO Batman and the WWE, thank you, and did not warm to the game until seventh grade. He is 6-foot-4 and 310 pounds now, out of Pooler, one of eight Bulldogs who have started every game on defense this fall, and on Tuesday he told reporters what Saturday night in Oxford comes down to. "Honestly, we just got to keep him in the trap," he said of Trinidad Chambliss. "Obviously, he's a great escape artist."
Here is the thing about the trap. Sports Illustrated's Ryan Kerley counted it up this week: Georgia has 26 sacks in eight games, after managing 20 in all of 14 games a year ago. That is a pass rush that found religion over the summer. And in two meetings with Chambliss last season, the win in Athens and the Sugar Bowl loss that ended Georgia's year, the Bulldogs sacked him exactly never. A reporter put it to Griffin Tuesday that Ole Miss has allowed only five sacks this season. Griffin allowed the Rebels' line is physical and wants to punish people, then said his own front seven would be a fine challenge for them.
Georgia has sacked quarterbacks 26 times in eight games this fall, and in two tries last season it never once put Trinidad Chambliss on the ground.
Kirby Smart is not pretending there is a trick to it. SicEmDawgs reported Monday that Smart credits the sack surge to inside linebackers who blitz well, to Chris Cole working both the edge and the inside, and to Glenn Schumann mixing the pictures, and he declined to hang it on any one man. On Chambliss, the message was humbler still: there is nothing Georgia will show him that he has not seen, so the job is tackling with no yards after the catch, forcing turnovers and winning third down. Chambliss has helped some, with eight interceptions this fall after three all of last year. Cole, named a Lombardi Award semifinalist Wednesday, has 9.5 tackles for loss and three fumble recoveries.
Smart's larger theory is older than the sack total. After the Florida win he said, "if you can't run the ball, and they struggled to run it, it makes you one-dimensional, and then everybody gets to feast and rush the passer." Florida's Jadan Baugh came in averaging 109 yards a game and left with 38 on 17 carries, and the Gators managed 54 on 28. Georgia's athletic department notes Ole Miss ranks ninth in the SEC in rushing at 157.50 a game, with leading rusher Kewan Lacy nursing a separated shoulder, though the Rebels ran for 224 on Auburn without him. The desk's press file adds that both Ole Miss losses came in games it ran for 128 yards or fewer.
So the final word, since it is Friday. DraftKings has Georgia by 3 with the total at 56.5. ESPN's FPI gives the Bulldogs 55.5 percent, the Kalshi market 59, and the desk's own opponent-adjusted rating says Ole Miss by about a point in Oxford, which is a coin you flip and do not watch land. A national panel counted by Dawgs247 went 25-3 for Georgia, and Urban Meyer picked the Bulldogs while warning that a loud Vaught-Hemingway makes it close. The desk will watch one number. If the sack column reads something other than zero by halftime, Georgia goes home happy. Kickoff is 7:30 Eastern on ABC, clear and 54 to 56 degrees.
The Notebook
- SATURDAY'S OTHER BIG ONE: Miami at Notre Dame kicks at 7:30 Eastern, the same window as Georgia. The desk has the Irish by 7.5 and calls it a lean, not a lock.
- LAST WEEKEND NATIONALLY: Top-ranked Miami needed a fourth-down touchdown with 7:49 left to escape North Carolina 38-35, and USC beat Ohio State 30-18 with the Buckeyes starting a true freshman at quarterback. Ohio State fell from No. 2 to No. 11.
- COUNTDOWN: One day. Kickoff 7:30 Eastern on ABC from Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Forecast is clear, 54 to 56 degrees, with a four-mile-an-hour wind.
Written in the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1946–1994.
Hear the desk read tonights report on Radio Free Albany, WPFQ 96.7.
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