Fleeting Thoughts: Arkansas Edition

This one's going to have to be brief (or at least shallow) as I have a plane to catch in about 45 minutes.

-- Let's officially put to rest any of the talk about Joe Cox not having the arm to play quarterback in the SEC. The kid has all it's going to take to lead the offense, and his attitude in the huddle Saturday night was awesome. From Orson Charles: “My feeling was that we couldn’t be stopped, and Joe got in the huddle and said, ‘We can keep going, they won’t stop us.’”

-- A.J. Green is a man among boys. I dare another cornerback to question his ability. I honestly want to see what will happen.

-- I look forward to Stafford and A.J. playing together again in two years when Detroit has the No. 1 pick again.

-- Georgia is going to look back on that Okie State loss and wonder what went wrong. This offense has the potential to be very, very good. Orson Charles and Green are simply better than anyone they're going to go against this year. It's a mismatch every game.

-- Michael Moore may have had the quietest 6-catch, 91-yard performance in history. I was shocked looking at those stats at the end of the game. But thinking back, a number of those grabs were just huge and came at crucial times.

-- Georgia is not going to continue to win games when they turn the ball over three times.

-- Fourteen more penalties against Arkansas. I know Richt doesn't want to hurt the aggressiveness, but a lot of this had nothing to do with playing hard. It was playing stupid. I'll go back and count tomorrow, but there had to be at least a half-dozen false starts. That's just unacceptable.

-- The line had some nice plays -- obviously the 80-yard run by Samuel tops among them -- but overall I didn't think this looked like the best performance. I'll be interested to hear what Richt and Bobo say about how it looked on film.

-- Speaking of the 80-yard run, it was nice and it really demonstrated Samuel's impressive speed, but take it away and he had 24 yards on 15 carries. Caleb King was the stronger runner by a wide margin Saturday.

-- Rantavious Wooten saw a good bit of action. I may be wrong, but I think Marlon Brown got two snaps. Tells you a lot about who has the confidence of the coaches right now.

-- I've been critical of Mike Bobo's play calling in the first two weeks, but the game plan was exceptional for this one. He never backed off, and there wasn't a single stretch in which I disagreed with his calls. Just a beautifully called game on his part.

-- The defensive line isn't going to chalk Saturday up as one for the ages, but they played alright. Justin Houston had seven tackles, they got occasional pressure on Ryan Mallett, and outside of a few long ones in the fourth quarter as the wear and tear of a shootout had to be adding up, they stopped the run altogether.

-- Key stat of the night: Arkansas was 3-of-14 on third down.

-- Speaking of that key stat, that will be one of four excuses given to the defense in the coming week. Here are the others:

2.) We just need to execute.

3.) We held them without a touchdown in the fourth quarter.

4.) Vance Cuff and Akeem Dent didn't play and that really hurt our depth.

-- All of those excuses will be B.S.

-- The Bulldogs have allowed 721 passing yards in the past two games.

-- The Bulldogs have allowed 912 total yards of offense in the past two games.

-- There were some plays where Georgia's DBs were burned, but worse, there were others where there simply wasn't a DB within 10 yards of the receiver. It was as if Georgia was playing with eight defenders.

-- Brandon Boykin looked great in the kick return game again, but he was awful in coverage. By far his worst performance.

-- I love Bryan Evans. He's a good kid, a hard hitter and a smart football player. But honestly, I'm not sure he belongs in coverage. He gets burned more often than a pack of Camel Lights. (Lame, I know, but it's 8 a.m.)

-- Mallett is a stud. If he sticks around next year, Arkansas is going to be the favorite to win the West. But to be honest, I could see him bolting after this season. The kid has NFL talent and then some. Very impressive performance tonight. Yes, Georgia made his job easy, but he didn't miss a throw.

-- I know everyone wants Willie fired right now, but that's not a solution. At the end of the year? Who knows? But who is Georgia going to hire tomorrow that is going to remedy these problems? And to be honest, I'm not sure at this point how much can be pinned on Willie and how much needs to be pinned on just some awful coverage, execution and the worst tackling we've seen since Georgia Tech. Fundamentals just went out the window.

-- Drew Butler is one heck of a punter, eh?

-- A lot of this game reminded me of how last year spiraled downhill, but nothing more than Blair Walsh booting consecutive kickoffs out of bounds following big Georgia touchdowns. But give the kid some credit -- he's 6-of-6 on FGs so far, and that last one before the half was a game-changer in terms of momentum.

-- We got completely robbed of what should have been the best play of the game. On third-and-long in the fourth quarter, Mallett took off running and slid well short of the marker. Had he gone for the first down, Rennie Curran was right there to stop him. The slide prevented 5-9 Rennie from absolutely dismantling 6-7 Mallett. It would have been great.

-- Aside from the final score, I can't decide if this game was more like the Georgia Tech game last year or the LSU game. I'm leaning toward the former.

-- Arizona State won't present a fraction of the problems Arkansas did, but Georgia needs to use next week to fix a lot of problems before LSU comes to town.

-- Georgia is 2-0 in the SEC, should have an easy time of it next week, and if the Dawgs beat LSU, things could shape up to be pretty interesting this year after all. Sure wouldn't have thought that after Week 1.

-- I said this last week and I'll say it again: It wasn't an easy game to watch if you're a fan (or a writer on deadline), and there's plenty to complain about now, but man oh man was it fun.

-- Fayetteville is a fun town, and the loss seemed to do little to dampen the spirits of the Arkansas fans. I give it two thumbs up.

-- Erin Andrews said two syllables to me. It was a good day.