Unbeaten Georgia Opens as 24.5-Point Favorite Against Vanderbilt

Unbeaten Georgia meets Vanderbilt on Saturday as a 24.5-point favorite, with former Bulldogs commit Jared Curtis now starting at quarterback for the Commodores.

Georgia reaches the one-third mark of the college football regular season still undefeated, and its next assignment is Vanderbilt on Saturday (Oct. 3). Oddsmakers installed the Bulldogs as 24.5-point favorites for the game, a number nearly identical to the line they drew against Arkansas earlier this season. The report did not list a kickoff time or television information.

One quirk of Georgia's start, noted Monday by Yahoo Sports: the Bulldogs have covered the point spread in each of the season's first four weeks. The columnist wrote that he could not recall the last time the program had done that, and he read the streak as evidence of a team that has avoided a single bad day — something he called rare at this level.

Georgia's most recent win came Sept. 26 against Oklahoma at Sanford Stadium in Athens, where Chauncey Bowens got the Bulldogs into the end zone with a first-quarter touchdown on a dive. Dean Legge of Sports Illustrated later published a review of the victory's good, bad and ugly moments.

The sharpest criticism in Monday's column targeted Georgia's third quarter against the Sooners, which the writer called perhaps the team's worst stretch of football this year. Kirby Smart addressed the dip after the game, making the point that elite teams avoid such lulls, because relaxing against another top program can swing a game's momentum on the spot.

The column reached for two recent examples of how quickly games can turn: Ole Miss during its matchup with LSU, and Ohio State in the aftermath of the Buckeyes' loss to Texas. The takeaway offered was blunt — college football is played over four quarters, not the two a dominant team might need.

Holding that edge is, in the report's view, Smart's season-long project: pushing a roster strong enough to settle some games by halftime to keep competing deep into the fourth quarter. The meeting with the Commodores was framed as the next installment of that test.

Vanderbilt, meanwhile, will put its offense in the hands of freshman quarterback Jared Curtis. Curtis was once bound for Georgia before switching his pledge to the Commodores one day ahead of Signing Day, and the report said coaches who have faced him this season regard him as an exceptional talent.

Expect the week's coverage to dwell on that reversal, the column predicted, with Smart likely to brush off questions about it as nothing significant even if the reunion becomes the game's chief subplot. The writer guessed the storyline's persistence will grate on the Georgia coach.

The columnist added, only half seriously, that recruiting choices come down to priorities: some players want daily competition, development and a run at national championships, while others prefer a promise of immediate playing time — and, in the aside's punchline, a cameo in a Nate Bargatze film.