Regrets? They've Got a Few

Georgia's offense has posted 838 yards and 93 points in the past two games, all of which leads quarterback Joe Cox to ask one important question: What the heck happened against Oklahoma State?

It's a night and day difference between the slugging, vanilla and low-scoring performance of Georgia's first game of the season and the dynamic, high-octane efforts of the past two games. After Georgia posted 52 points and more than 500 yards of offense on Arkansas last week, Cox and his fellow offensive stars spent the bus ride to the airport wondering why they couldn't create that same magic right from the start.

"It just doesn’t even feel like it happened," Cox said. "It’s just so weird that that game – it’s almost like it just flew by and we were all kind of like, what was that? Now looking back, it really disappoints you knowing that you can play a lot better and what could have happened if you’d have played like that against them."

Rather than being 3-0 and likely inside the top 10, Georgia took its first loss of the year early.

Rather than earning the respect of critics, Cox suffered through two weeks of reports questioning both his health and his ability.

Rather than heading into the fourth game of the season knowing they'd given it their all, Georgia's offense is stuck with the memory of the one that got away -- a memory made even worse by Oklahoma State's loss to Houston just one week later.

“I’m still kicking myself from that," said receiver A.J. Green, who had just 52 yards receiving against the Cowboys -- less than one-quarter the total he'd post during his next two contests. "I don’t know what happened that game. And then they lost – that really made it worse.”

It's enough to make Georgia's players sick to think about -- only one of them actually was sick during the game.

Cox had suffered from flu symptoms in the days leading up to the contest and took a late flight to Stillwater for the game. He said he was fine to play, but later admitted to needing an IV before the game.

The result was a dismal performance for Cox. He completed just 50 percent of his passes, turned the ball over twice, and Georgia mustered 177 yards of offense in the game following an opening touchdown drive. Worse, Cox's arm looked incapable of hitting the deep ball to stretch the field.

Considering Cox's impressive performances the past two weeks -- 35-of-49 for 576 and seven TDs, including more than a dozen deep bombs -- begs the question: Just how sick was he?

“Flu or no flu, I know I didn’t play like I needed to play," Cox said. "So it wouldn’t even be worth chalking a loss up to being sick because you know even if you were sick, there were things you could have done better. I wouldn’t even accredit that loss to anything that had to do with the flu.”

That's essentially the conclusion the players came to on that bus ride following the win at Arkansas.

Yes, they let one get away. No, they didn't give it their best effort against Oklahoma State. But the bottom line is that it's over, and there's nothing they can do now to change the outcome.

What it will do, however, is keep them motivated the rest of the way to ensure there aren't more regrets down the road.

"That (loss) will drive you crazy if you think about that all day," Cox said. But we definitely are glad we’ve improved since then. We by no means have arrived, and we keep preaching that to everybody. I think we’ve got a really good work ethic right now.”