huckaby

Darrell Huckaby is a syndicated columnist and author of six books including two about Georgia football. Read Huck’s Wit and Wisdom every Wednesday and Sunday. Subscribe at darrellhuckaby.net.

11.09.25

Real Dawgs on Top in Starkvegas

So now I have been to Starkville, and I found it to be—in a word—stark. I had been to Starkville, of course. We played basketball there when I was a manager at UGA way back in the previous century. And I had been to away games against Mississippi State---but only in Jackson. Saturday I was on hand as Georgia dominated the Maroon Bulldogs in Starkpatch and those cowbells were every bit as obnoxious as I have always heard. Until they weren’t.

To be honest, the atmosphere was quite pleasant. We had an easy time getting in. The campus was nice, albeit small. Unlike Athens, there weren’t tailgates scattered everywhere from a one mile epicenter. The tents were all crammed together—like in The Grove in Oxford—and you couldn’t really walk among them very well. Must be a Mississippi thing. But with an 11 am kick, we weren’t concerned with tailgating. Me and my group were there for a football game, not a party. So was Kirby and his group.

Yes, we started the game by allowing our opponent to drive the field and score to start the game. That seems to be the Georgia way this year. And, yes, the cowbells were very loud for the first six minutes and if the game had gone down to the wire, I would hate to think how annoying they might have become. But the game didn’t go down to the wire. After a couple of hiccups that led to having to settle for a field goal and then a red zone fumble that wasn’t—and I don’t care what the refs on the field or the replay booth said, I have eyes, too—the defense didn’t let State piss another drop until the game was well in hand and people you had to look up on the program were playing. And the offense? Well, the offense was pure Mike Bobo. Balanced and deadly. And if you are still bad-mouthing Mike Bobo’s offense, you probably think we’d be better off with Carson Beck as QB1 and would have called for Vince Dooley’s firing for twenty-five years.

How bout Gunner Stockton! He has thrown nine touchdowns in three games, I think, and when he pulls that ball down and runs, the defense doesn’t know whether to defecate or wind their watch. Nate Frazier! We haven’t seen numbers like that since you-know-who. He seemed to have another gear yesterday when he got in the open. The receiver room is very deep. We had some great catches and could have had a few more if the zebras hadn’t decided to phone it in and ignore Mississippi State’s holding and pass interference infractions throughout the entire second half.

The game was as close to being a complete four-quarter game as we have seen in a long time. There were, of course, too many outstanding plays and outstanding players to mention them all, but that is okay because what we really have at Georgia this year is not a collection of great players and great performances. What we have is a football team. BIG TEAM. Little me. We do.

The world of college football is different and none of us like it. But Kirby Smart is the one constant. As other teams rise and ebb with the tide, Kirby has kept us riding the crest of the wave for a decade now. These are the glory years of Georgia football and no matter what happens over the next month, that is and will be the case. Win one of the two remaining games against Texas and the trade school, with a cupcake sandwich between those two real games, and we are in the College Football Playoff for the fourth time in five years—and everybody knows we should have been in in 2023 as well. That is sustained excellence.

We don’t have an elite roster this year, but the whole is greater than the sum of our parts thanks to Kirby Smart and the way he does thing. Saturday was a great example of that and now bring on Arch and the Longhorns and to Hell with Georgia Tech.

Look for me Saturday. You already know, I’ll be the good-looking guy in the red shirt—one more time.

Darrell Huckaby

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