A lot of empty seats… in part because of the opponent and maybe some people left town early for Thanksgiving.

   After all, 2-8 UMass was clearly a team in trouble, having just fired their head coach, Dan Brown. No one was expecting much. But, no one apparently told that to the Minutemen. The $1.9 million dollar payday didn’t hurt.

  Going in, I’m sure the plan was to play the starters for a quarter or so, then replace Carson Beck with Gunnar Stockton, then give the third stringers some valuable playing time.

   But, a 10 play 75 yard 5:45 minute scoring drive had UMass up 7-0 and fans scratching their heads.

   The UGA offense quickly responded to tie it at 7….then go up 14-7….then 21-7. All seemed to be on track, until the Minutemen launched another long 75 yard seven minute scoring drive gashing the Dawg defense to pull to within a score 21-14.

   The Bulldog offense again had no difficulties adding points to extend the lead to 28-14 going into the half.

   But, some disturbing stats. In the first quarter, the visitors accumulated 134 yards of total offense to UGA’s 65 with time of possession favoring them 10:50 to 4:10.

   Georgia had made up the yardage deficit in the quarter outgaining the Minutemen 183-75. They did well when they had the ball. The problem was the defense was unable to get on the field with UMass controlling the ball for 20:37 to UGA’s 11:15 at the half.
A concern was the Minutemen rushed for 176 yards in the half.

   The Dawgs kept pouring on the points with another score to make it 31-14.

   But, UMass was being stubborn and struck back quickly with a 75 yard catch by Jakobie Keeney-James, their leading receiver and it was back to a 10 point lead, 31-21.

   That’s as close as they would get as Beck and the offense added another score to make it 38-17 on freshman Nate Frazier’s 5th touchdown of the season. He wasn’t done going in on the next drive untouched from the 15 to make it 45-17. He wound up with 136 rushing yards on the day.

   Before it was all done, UGA came away with their 31st straight win at Sanford Stadium 59-21.

  But, looming ahead is Georgia Tech in the regular season finale. The Yellow Jackets must be licking their chops at the 351 yards of total offense allowed by the Georgia “D” with 226 of it on the ground, the most given up this season. Tech specializes in the run and are coming off a pair of exhilarating victories at home over then #4 Miami and NC State.

   Dawg fans can take solace in the fact that their offense looked just fine and are a much better team than the Wolfpack, who had Tech beat until 22 seconds were left in that game.

   Add to that the fact that the Jackets will be entering Friday night’s game with 8 days rest vs Georgia playing on just six.

   Needless to say, this game looks a whole lot more interesting than it did when the season started and even just a few weeks ago. And a team is coming to Sanford Stadium with a lot of momentum and confidence.

   Kickoff is Friday 7:30 p.m. on ABC.