Five takeaways from Georgia's 43-14 road win over Tennessee

Georgia went on the road to Tennessee pulled away late for a 43-14 win. Here are five takeaways from Saturday's matchup.

The Georgia vs. Tennessee series was knotted up 23-23-2, and with the 43-14 win over the Volunteers, Georgia takes the series lead. This victory also means that Georgia currently holds the series lead in every matchup with SEC east members. 

Kirby Smart enjoyed this win especially, jumping into the stands to join Georgia fans that made the trip to Knoxville. 

1.) Georgia is continuing to wear teams down late in football games

The gameplan for Georgia is pretty simple. They are going to play a physical brand of football, that come the third and fourth quarter, you are going to wear down. 

The only issue so far for this Georgia team has been slow starts, scoring just 10 points in the first quarter over the last two contests. 

Yet despite the slow starts, Georgia has continued to dominate time of possession, contributing to the attrition of the opponent. They controlled the ball for 34 of the 60 minutes against Notre Dame, and over 36 minutes against Tennessee. 

2.) Georgia's defense shows signs of being truly scary

Look, Georgia's defense hasn't allowed a rushing touchdown all season. They are allowing just 10.8 PPG through 5 games, allowing just 59.6 yards per game on the ground. But Georgia's been one step short of scary all season, and the Bulldog faithful have seen flashes of it all season. 

The pass rush. Georgia currently has 12.0 team sacks, lead by Azeez Ojulari with 3.5. That ranks 20th in the country, and only behind Florida for the SEC lead. And historically the pass rush isn't something the Kirby Smart defense has relied upon. 

In fact, Kirby Smart coached four national championship defenses at Alabama over 8 years as a defensive coordinator, they cracked the top-ten once in Sack Percentage. 2012, a defense that allowed just 250 YPG and 10.9 PPG. Bama destroyed Notre Dame for the title that same season.

Georgia RB, Brian Herrien

3.) Brian Herrien is finally getting his fair share of the workload

Brian Herrien's career-high for careers in a season is 63, all the way back in his freshman season as a Bulldog where he rushed for 363 yards and 3 scores. But this season Herrien has finally gotten a good bulk of the carries. 

He's gotten 40 carries so far and has already set a new career-high in Touchdowns, set a career-high for longest carry this weekend on a 41-yard scamper, and is on pace to average 6.3 yards per carry.  His personal best prior to this season was 5.9 YPC last season. 

4.) This Georgia offense is on the brink of a breakout

Though it's great that Georgia beat Notre Dame in a tight 23-17 affair, and sure, despite a slow start against Tennessee, they ultimately put up 36 points on the offensive end. 

But I don't think I'm breaking news by telling you that Alabama, Clemson, LSU, or Ohio State are teams that are going to be able to put up points on any defense. Therefore, in order to win those late-season matchups, Georgia's going to have to score, and score often. So, look for James Coley and staff to add a few more explosive wrinkles into the offense. 

We told you here on the Bulldog Maven all summer long that it would be a jog, not a sprint in terms of offensive creativity early for the Georgia Bulldogs. The good news is the growing pains have almost worn off and the Dawgs are still 5-0. 

Georgia QB, Jake Fromm

5.) Jake Fromm is asked to do more than any other QB in college football.

Let me set the scene... You are second on the all-time yardage list in Georgia High School football history, behind only Deshaun Watson. You were a 4-star recruit, the third overall pocket passer in your class. You can make seemingly every throw. 

Now, here's Georgia's pro-style, run-heavy offense. And yea, I know everyone else in the country gets to stand in the shotgun and throw it 35 to 40 times a game, but that's not how things work here. 

Jake Fromm is given 28 or 29 shots at making an impact on every game, and asked to make tight-window throws, the majority of the time with his back turned to the defense via play-action. 

He controls the pre-snap reads, he controls the pass protections, he controls the checks at the line of scrimmage. There's no reading play cards from the sideline or reading a play sheet on your wrist. No, Jake Fromm is given the keys to a tank and handed jussssttt the right amount of shells.