Joel Klatt names college football powerhouse that has 'major flaws'

With November here, the race for the College Football Playoff starts to resemble a beauty contest. Every contestant is a good contestant, but they're each trying to stand out with a few extra style points. FOX analyst Joel Klatt notes that one major program isn't passing that style test on the Joel Klatt Show. Klatt says that the Georgia Bulldogs have "major flaws."

7-1 Georgia has won a surprising number of close games. Of the seven wins so far, three are by one score, including last week's 24-20 win over 3-5 Florida. Klatt sees some deeper problems with the Bulldogs.

Klatt's take

They're really talented, but there's something missing. It's going to be hard to beat them, but they have some major flaws. How many games are we going to sit here and just be like, 'Well, they got a comeback in this game and they got a comeback in this game and they got a comeback in this game.' We can say they're hard to kill and they're resilient, but at what point does it come back to haunt them? At some point, it will.
Joel Klatt

Georgia's reliance on comebacks

To Klatt's point, Georgia trailed Florida in the fourth quarter before rallying for the winning score inside the game's final five minutes. Ole Miss led Georgia by nine points with 13 minutes remaining in that game before UGA rallied and won. Georgia trailed Auburn 10-0 before a controversial call kept the Tigers from jumping up 17-0 just before halftime. Georgia trailed Tennessee 21-7 and 38-30 with three minutes left in that game. All of those matchups have ended in Georgia wins, but the difficulty factor has been surprising.

Georgia had won just seven one-score games combined over the past three seasons and with Texas, Georgia Tech, potentially the SEC title game, and the College Football Playoff ahead, could eclipse that total in just the 2025 season.

Defensive struggles

One potential reason for Georgia's need to squeak out close games is a shockingly mediocre season by the Bulldog defense. Georgia is not only last in the SEC in sacks (with eight), they've barely managed half of the 15th place team just ahead of them. Georgia is also last in tackles for loss (29) and tied for last in turnovers forced (six).

After leading the SEC in scoring defense in 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023 (and finishing second in 2020), Georgia was seventh last season and is sitting and seventh this season (19.6 ppg). Struggling to get off the field has seemingly led Georgia to rely on late comeback to camoflauge Klatt's acknowledged major flaws.

Georgia and Kirby Smart might be headed for the College Football Playoff, but FOX analyst Joel Klatt sees cause for concern in Georgia's reliance on late-game comebacks. | Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images