{"id":1791,"date":"2026-10-20T18:10:04","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T22:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/dawg-sports-report-2026-10-20-evening\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T18:10:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T22:10:06","slug":"dawg-sports-report-2026-10-20-evening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/dawg-sports-report-2026-10-20-evening\/","title":{"rendered":"Better the Shoulder Than the Head"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- pfr-editorial:top --><\/p>\n<p class=\"pfr-byline\"><small><strong>By the RFA Sports Desk<\/strong> \u00b7 Written by Pretoria Fields Radio\u2019s AI newsroom (Jarvis) from public game data. Editor: Tripp Morgan.<\/small><\/p>\n<p><!-- \/pfr-editorial:top --><\/p>\n<p><em>Evening Edition \u2014 filed after the afternoon news cycle.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>GEORGIA MONEYBALL \u2014 Tuesday, October 20, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Kirby Smart says Gunner Stockton came out of Auburn with a stinger and no concussion symptoms, and that is the best news Georgia has had in a week.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><small>ALBANY, GA \u2014 \u00b7 By the RFA Sports Desk<\/small><\/p>\n<p>A Georgia man feels a particular kind of relief when he learns his quarterback&apos;s trouble is in his shoulder and not in his head. It isn&apos;t joy. It&apos;s the feeling you get when the rattle under the hood turns out to be the heat shield and not the transmission. At his bye-week press conference, Kirby Smart told reporters that the medical staff found no concussion symptoms in Gunner Stockton after the Auburn loss, though, in the coach&apos;s words, &quot;he did have a stinger in his shoulder.&quot; A stinger. Eleven days before Florida.<\/p>\n<p>You&apos;ll remember the scene. Stockton left the Auburn game for several plays, got checked for a concussion and came back. He finished 22 of 34 for 272 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Afterward Smart said, &quot;He&apos;s had that before,&quot; and said he didn&apos;t think it affected his play. I won&apos;t hang those two interceptions on a sore shoulder, and the coach didn&apos;t either. Still, a fellow is entitled to wonder, and now at least he knows what he&apos;s wondering about.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Seasons tend to turn on who has a healthy quarterback in late October, and Georgia&apos;s needs a little rest for his shoulder.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Smart also had a kind word for the backup. Ryan Puglisi, he said, &quot;managed those situations really well&quot; when he was sent in. That isn&apos;t a quarterback controversy. It&apos;s insurance, and the premium came due at a bad moment. There&apos;s a nice symmetry to it, too. Florida&apos;s quarterback for Atlanta will be either Tramell Jones Jr., a freshman with one start, or Aaron Philo, coming back from a shoulder injury. Both teams could show up at Mercedes-Benz Stadium with a quarterback who has spent the bye resting a shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of Georgia&apos;s infirmary got the usual bye-week poetry. On KJ Bolden, Smart said the safety &quot;just gotta recover and go through the doctor&apos;s protocol.&quot; On Chauncey Bowens, he said &quot;time will tell,&quot; which is what doctors say too, and they charge more for it. Georgia will practice through the open date, take a break and, as Smart put it, &quot;start up on Florida next week.&quot; Florida, for its part, hopes Vernell Brown III is back from a knee injury that has cost him three games. The first availability report for the game is due Wednesday the 28th.<\/p>\n<p>If it&apos;s any comfort, Georgia was not the only proud program to have a rough Saturday. Alabama turned it over four times and lost 26-10 at Tennessee. Notre Dame lost 28-24 to BYU, and its 16-game winning streak went with it. Ohio State won 19-15 at Indiana but lost quarterback Julian Sayin to an arm injury for several weeks. Seasons tend to turn on who has a healthy quarterback in late October. Georgia&apos;s needs a little rest for his shoulder. Considering how the weekend went for everybody else, I&apos;d take that and say thank you.<\/p>\n<h3>The Notebook<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>ONE SECOND SHORT:<\/strong> BYU beat Notre Dame 28-24, and the Big 12 admitted one second should have gone back on the clock with the Irish at the 8-yard line.<\/li>\n<li><strong>THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY FROM KNOXVILLE:<\/strong> Christian Mays, the No. 1 JUCO defensive lineman, flipped his commitment from Tennessee to Georgia, and four-star 2028 tackle Koehn Dial committed as well.<\/li>\n<li><strong>ELEVEN DAYS:<\/strong> Georgia and Florida meet Saturday, October 31, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC in Atlanta. It&apos;s the first time since 1995 the game has been played outside Jacksonville.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Written in the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1946\u20131994.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Hear the desk read tonights report on Radio Free Albany, WPFQ 96.7.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!-- pfr-editorial:end --><\/p>\n<p class=\"pfr-standards\"><small><em>Pretoria Fields Radio publishes under its <a href=\"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/editorial-standards\/\">editorial standards and AI policy<\/a>. Spot an error? Write info@pretoriafieldsradio.com and we will correct it in the open.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\": \"https:\/\/schema.org\", \"@type\": \"NewsArticle\", \"headline\": \"Better the Shoulder Than the Head\", \"datePublished\": \"2026-10-20\", \"author\": {\"@type\": \"Organization\", \"name\": \"RFA Sports Desk\"}, \"editor\": {\"@type\": \"Person\", \"name\": \"Tripp Morgan\"}, \"publisher\": {\"@type\": \"Organization\", \"name\": \"Pretoria Fields Radio\", \"url\": \"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/\", \"logo\": {\"@type\": \"ImageObject\", \"url\": \"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/cropped-logo-270x270.png\"}}, \"isAccessibleForFree\": true, \"publishingPrinciples\": \"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/editorial-standards\/\"}<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kirby Smart says Gunner Stockton came out of Auburn with a stinger and no concussion symptoms, and that is the best news Georgia has had in a week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dawg-sports-report","category-georgia-moneyball","category-sports-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1792,"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions\/1792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pretoriafieldsradio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}