{"id":444174,"date":"2026-11-01T09:58:19","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T09:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/444174\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T09:58:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T09:58:19","slug":"chris-cole-georgia-defense-played-fast-played-hard-vs-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/444174\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Cole, Georgia defense \u2018played fast, played hard\u2019 vs. Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

It almost felt a little like a flashback for Chris Cole.<\/p>\n

For the second time this season, the Georgia linebacker, nicknamed \u201cTarantula\u201d and \u201cDaddy Long Legs\u201d by his teammates for his freakish athleticism<\/a>, scooped up a fumble and was off to the races.<\/p>\n

In the second quarter of No. 3 Georgia\u2019s 27-8 win vs. No. 17 Florida Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Florida quarterback Tramell Jones Jr. (in after Aaron Philo\u2019s second interception of the day) was sacked for a loss of three yards by Quintavius Johnson, who also forced a fumble on the play. <\/p>\n

Cole recovered the fumble at Georgia\u2019s 34-yard line and returned it 66 yards for a touchdown, giving the Bulldogs a 24-0 lead before halftime. This marked the first time Florida had been shut out in the first half all season.<\/p>\n

Cole made a similar play in Georgia\u2019s 41-13 win against Oklahoma Sept. 26, recovering a wonky fumble by quarterback John Mateer and returning it 85 yards for a touchdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great play by Q,\u201d Cole said of Johnson\u2019s forced fumble. \u201c\u2026 Them getting the ball from the QB and just me scooping and scoring. And again, you know, just first off, not getting caught, and second, not getting tackled by the QB. So it was, you know, a blessing. Awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole becomes the first Georgia defensive player to score two touchdowns in a season since Eric Stokes in 2020. <\/a><\/p>\n

He led Georgia with nine tackles in Saturday\u2019s win, plus a sack and a tackle for a loss. <\/p>\n

Georgia\u2019s defense did some heavy lifting in this matchup, with three interceptions and Cole\u2019s fumble return ensuring Florida stayed off-balance. The Bulldogs scored 17 points off four turnovers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you get sacks, then you get turnovers,\u201d Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. \u201cMost fumbles occur on sacks. We got pressure on the quarterback. We affected both quarterbacks, and anybody will tell you if you can\u2019t run the ball and they struggle to run it, it makes you one- dimensional, and then everybody gets to feast and rush the passer, and that was a big play in the game. It was a huge momentum play because, again, it\u2019s really a 14-point swing. If they go down and score, fumble, Chris picks it up and scores, which he has a knack for doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a heck of a play to have a \u201cknack\u201d for, but Cole\u2019s teammates aren\u2019t shocked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unreal,\u201d Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton said. \u201cI definitely, I get to see it every day at practice and kind of the freaky stuff that happens. But he\u2019s an unreal player and a great teammate. And you know, he works just as hard during the week for that to pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs put up 217 rushing yards and held Florida to 48 yards on the ground, limiting Jadan Baugh to 38 rushing yards on 17 carries, a major emphasis entering this matchup. They\u2019ve studied Baugh all year.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOur focus was just stopping the run,\u201d Cole said. \u201cYou know, we knew Florida coming in, they had a lot of good running backs and especially (Baugh), so we had to be able to stop the run and just kind of stop the explosive plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bulldogs only tallied 14 yards of offense in the third quarter, compared to 76 for Florida, and were nearly shut out in the second half before kicker Peyton Woodring made a 21-yard field goal with 3:35 left to play in fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

Florida had a prime opportunity to score in the third quarter at the Georgia 3-yard line, but Jones threw an interception right at Georgia\u2019s Braylon Conley in the end zone. The Gators didn\u2019t score until midway through the fourth, after a fumble by wide receiver Talyn Taylor halted the Bulldogs just when it looked like they\u2019d build on their lead.<\/p>\n

Florida entered Saturday\u2019s contest averaging 39.6 points per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought (Georgia defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann) had a good game plan, a very disruptive game plan, but the defensive staff did a tremendous job,\u201d Smart said. \u201cTried to keep things simple because (Florida offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner) causes a lot of confusion. And, we didn\u2019t do a whole lot. Like, we kept it simple and played fast, played hard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It almost felt a little like a flashback for Chris Cole. For the second time this season, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[173053,28,30,29,1853,11707,62],"class_list":["post-444174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-atlantq","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-georgia","tag-mercedes-benz-stadium","tag-sec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}