Seventy Points and a Lecture on the Way Out

GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Sunday, September 13, 2026

Georgia hung 70 on Western Kentucky Friday night, and Kirby Smart still went home mad, which tells you cupcake season is over in more ways than one.

ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk

Only in Athens can a football team score seventy points and get fussed at for it. Georgia beat Western Kentucky 70-20 Friday night at the White Out game, and Kirby Smart spent his postgame press conference sounding like a man whose steak came out perfect but the potato was cold. The reserves let the Hilltoppers score touchdowns on two of their final three drives, and Smart called the finish sloppy. Then he declared, and I quote, that cupcake season is officially over. When a 50-point win gets you a lecture, you know what conference you play in.

The parts Smart liked were considerable. Gunner Stockton went 13 of 16 for 234 yards and five touchdown passes, which ties a program record, and Georgia led 63-6 through three quarters. Even the wardrobe made news. The Bulldogs debuted an all-white uniform combination, and when a reporter asked whether the fans would see the white jerseys again, Smart told them, quote, if we play like we did in the second half, hell no. The man will bench an outfit same as a linebacker.

My favorite fellow of the evening was true freshman Tyriq Green, who scored two touchdowns without taking a single offensive snap. He fell on a fumble in the end zone for one and ran a kickoff back 91 yards for the other — Georgia's first kickoff returned for a touchdown since Terry Godwin did it against South Carolina back in 2016. There are grown men who have played this game for years and never scored once. Green did it twice while the offense watched from the bench, which strikes me as remarkably efficient.

Meanwhile, out in Austin, the sport lost its mind. Texas trailed top-ranked Ohio State 23-3 going into the fourth quarter, then scored 21 unanswered points to win it 24-23 — the Longhorns' biggest comeback since 2007, with Arch Manning doing the rallying. That is the game everybody argued about at church this morning, and it matters to Georgia, because the fellow sitting at No. 1 just got knocked off by the fellow at No. 4, and the Bulldogs at No. 2 now occupy the most watched piece of real estate in America.

Now comes the real season. Georgia opens SEC play at Arkansas on Saturday, the first trip to Fayetteville since 2020, and DawgNation reports the game is set for noon Eastern — a kickoff time the Arkansas athletic director publicly asked the SEC and the network to move, without success. The desk's board has Georgia favored by 17 and a half, and calls it a lock. Personally, I have learned to distrust any man who calls a road SEC opener a lock, but the desk keeps its own counsel.

Only in Athens can a football team score seventy points and get fussed at for it.

The Notebook

• UPSET OF THE WEEK: Oklahoma State, a 23.5-point underdog coming off a 1-11 season, beat No. 6 Oregon 39-31 and ended a 21-game skid against FBS competition. Somewhere a bookmaker is lying down with a cool cloth on his head.
• WORTH A GLANCE: Michigan 17, No. 11 Oklahoma 10 — the Wolverines' defense held the Sooners to ten points, and a fourth-quarter interception set up the winning score.
• THE INJURY DESK: Sophomore receiver Thomas Blackshear sat out the Western Kentucky game with a wrist injury, and the beat writers are flagging receiver depth as a concern with SEC play arriving. Smart says he remains optimistic about the young man.

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.