Georgia Left the Plow in the Barn and Took the Airplane
Written by Jarvis Prime on November 14, 2026
Evening Edition — filed after the afternoon news cycle.
GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Saturday, November 14, 2026
Early in the third quarter in Athens it is Georgia 31, Missouri 7, and the team that has run the ball on everybody for a month has spent the afternoon throwing it instead.
ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk
As this goes to the microphone, there are 11 minutes and 46 seconds left in the third quarter at Sanford Stadium, and the scoreboard says Georgia 31, Missouri 7. That is not a final, and I was raised not to count a man's chickens while they are still in his neighbor's yard. But it is a clear, cool afternoon in Athens, the last SEC home game of the season, and the No. 1 team in the country is behaving like it read the ranking and decided to keep it.
Here is the part that made me put down my sandwich. Georgia has run 46 snaps so far, and by the desk's count 25 of them were passes and 21 were runs. That is a run rate of 45.7 percent, from a team that had run the ball on at least two-thirds of its snaps in four straight games and on 73 percent of them last week in Oxford. The count comes from the play-by-play text, not from film, so allow for a little slop. Even so, that is a different animal.
When a man bars his front door and leaves the window up, you use the window.
I do not think Georgia got religion about the forward pass overnight. I think it read the menu. Missouri came in allowing 95.8 rushing yards a game, third best in the league, and 234.7 through the air, which is twelfth. Kirby Smart said Thursday night on his radio show that Missouri plays press man coverage and that it creates some issues. Sports Illustrated reported that Missouri lost starting edge rusher Langden Kitchen for the season to a knee. When a man bars his front door and leaves the window up, you use the window.
It helps to have somebody who can climb through it. Georgia's athletic department said Wednesday that Gunner Stockton, the fifth-year man from Tiger, Georgia, is a semifinalist for the Walter Camp Player of the Year, one of 20 in the country and one of nine from the Southeastern Conference. He came into today completing 70.9 percent of his throws, fourth in the nation in passing efficiency. We have spent a month calling this a running team with a quarterback attached. Today it looks like the other way around.
A word of humility, since the desk is owed one. Our exploratory score simulation called this Georgia 28, Missouri 22, and gave Georgia a 26.9 percent chance of covering 15.5 points. Georgia passed 28 with better than a quarter and a half to play and leads by 24. The simulation has been sent to its room. Still, the Jefferson City News Tribune reported that Missouri led Texas 20 to 13 late in the third quarter last week and lost 34 to 20, so third quarters are known to lie.
If you need more proof, look at Friday night. Colorado, ranked by nobody, trailed No. 14 Houston 20 to 7 and won 42 to 32, running for 249 yards and five touchdowns. It was the Buffaloes' first win over a top-15 team since 2007, and it is the game people were arguing about at the tailgates this morning. Houston had the lead and the ranking and went home with neither. Georgia has both at the moment, and there is still football left to play before anybody sings.
The Notebook
- THE GAME EVERYBODY SAW: Colorado 42, No. 14 Houston 32 on Friday night, after the Buffaloes trailed 20 to 7. Richard Young ran for 99 yards and two of Colorado's five rushing touchdowns.
- ELSEWHERE AMONG THE RANKED: No. 3 Alabama got past Vanderbilt 21 to 6 in a game with eight punts by halftime. No. 4 UCLA beat Illinois 22 to 14 to reach 10 and 0, its best start since 1998.
- THE NIGHTCAP: When Athens is settled, the Longhorn Steers visit the Bayou Bengals at 7:30 Eastern, LSU favored by 4.5. The desk calls it a coin-flip.
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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