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The Georgia Bulldogs’ one-point win over the unranked Wildcats certainly gave fans a scare. But this isn’t the first time.

The Georgia Bulldogs eeked out a win last night over the unranked Kentucky Wildcats as they won their first SEC matchup of the 2024 season and made it into their bye week with a perfect 3-0 record.

Heading into the game, Georgia was a more than 20-point favorite to dominate the Wildcats on their home turf. However, things did not go according to plan, as the Dawgs won by the smallest margin of victory possible and trailed for the majority of the game. With such a poor preformance on the road, many fans and experts have begun to raise major concerns about the Bulldogs’ 2024 season. However, Saturday’s scare isn’t exactly the first time we have seen Georgia struggle in the regular season. In fact, regular season scares have become a regular part of Georgia’s schedule over the last three years.

The first instance of a major “scare” came during the Bulldogs’ 2022 national championship season when the Dawgs headed into Missouri. Georgia entered the game undefeated with the No. 1 ranking in the nation, while Missouri was unranked with multiple losses. Despite being nearly 30-point favorites, the Bulldogs found themselves down two scores in the fourth quarter, facing a disastrous upset. The team’s fortune would eventually turn, however, as 14 unanswered points would propel Georgia past the Tigers on the road. The Dawgs would go on to score 40 points in each of their next three games while holding opponents to an average of 10 points per game.

The second example was during the 2023 season when the Bulldogs traveled to Auburn as 14.5-point favorites over the unranked Tigers. A massive victory for the Dawgs would not be the case though, as Auburn led the majority of the game and held a lead as large as 10 points at one point. Once again, however, the Dawgs would come crawling back (thanks to the help of Brock Bowers) to eventually emerge victorious 27-20. The following week the Bulldogs’ offense would hang 50 points on the 20th-ranked Kentucky Wildcats and would ultimately finish the regular season undefeated.

The common trend over the past three seasons seems to be that there is at least one game on Georgia’s schedule where the Dawgs turn in a wildly uncharacteristic performance and nearly suffer a massive upset. The other trend of these head-scratchers is that they all happen within the first five games of the season, they all take place on the road, and they are all against SEC opponents. A trend that would give Georgia fans some hope, however, is that following these games, the Bulldogs often turn in one of their better performances of that season. The Bulldogs’ next game is of course against the Alabama Crimson Tide on the road.

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LEXINGTON, Ky.—Whenever Kentucky shows up on the Georgia football schedule, Kirby Smart sounds sort of like a broken record.

It’s usually the most physical game Georgia plays every year. Going on the road to play the Wildcats is about as much fun as a root canal.

That was the case again this week even with the No. 1 Bulldogs more than a three-touchdown favorite.

Smart sat in a cramped interview room late Saturday night in the bowels of Kroger Field after the Bulldogs edged Kentucky 13-12. The same Wildcats team that got boatraced by South Carolina 31-6 a week ago on the same field.

“I tried to tell everybody all week, nobody would listen to me,” Smart said. “I know what this team is made out of. I know how tough he coaches. …When they get disrespected like they did last week and they listen to it for a week, they come out ready to play.”

Smart said he thinks his players bought into how good he thought Kentucky is, but that playing in Lexington is a tough environment even though the Wildcats lost for the seventh time in the last eight home games.

Georgia won on its last trip here in 2022, 16-6, and has won by an average of 8.4 points in Lexington in five trips under Smart.

“They play really well against us,” Smart said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Mark (Stoops) and the defense. They do a great job. …I think people looked a lot at last year’s game (a 51-13 Georgia win) and a lot of things happened bad for them early. It kind of snowballed and got away from that. I know playing up here, that can happen, too.”

He felt that happening to Georgia, too, this time.

“There were moments that it was starting to slide, right, for us,” Smart said. “Penalties, things happen. We responded to it. A true sign of a great fighter is not how hard you punch, but what punches can you take.”

Smart brought up other tougher-than-expected road wins in recent years—26-22 at Missouri in 2022 and 27-20 at Auburn last season.

“A lot of teams look at Georgia and think we’re going to beat everybody,” said wide receiver Dominic Lovett who led the Bulldogs with 6 catches for 89 yards after having just 18 yards receiving in the first half. “You’ve got to understand other teams have good players, too, and they’re physical too.”

Georgia, the nation’s No. 1 team, was firing blanks on offense in the first half with a slow start.

“Got to block em. Shock,” coach Kirby Smart told radio sideline reporter D.J. Shockley after the Bulldogs had just 63 first half yards and trailed 6-3. “We aint blocking them. …They’ve been the aggressor.”

Quarterback Carson Beck closed the game completing 10 of his last 12 passes on a day he finished 15 of 24 for 160 yards passing.

“We’re not going to bow down to a battle,” Beck said.

Cornerback Julian Humphrey mentioned fighting “blow-by-blow,” which seemed to be a theme in the Georgia locker room.

“We thought this would be a blow-by-blow game,” Smart said. “We said the first chop of the tree doesn’t chop the tree down. It takes sometimes 272 axe chops and it took every single one tonight to get the job done.”