While complaints mount over James Coley and the Georgia offense, few are questioning the validity of Dan Lanning’s defense following the team’s 21-0 victory over Kentucky.

The unit was simply too imposing for the Wildcats to string together any sort of threatening offense. The win gave Georgia its second shutout of the season and its first SEC shutout since blanking Tennessee 41-0 in 2017.

Georgia’s defense held the Wildcats to 177 total yards, with 160 coming on the ground. The Bulldogs also held Kentucky to 3-of-13 on third downs and forced a crucial turnover in the second half.

Lanning’s group gifted the Georgia offense with a much-needed short field when senior safety J.R. Reed knocked the ball loose from Kentucky quarterback Lynn Bowden on a keeper. Richard LeCounte recovered the fumble at the 31-yard line, setting up an eventual touchdown run by Brian Herrien. The fumble won Georgia the turnover battle, a stat that head coach Kirby Smart blamed for last week's loss.

“Oh, to win the turnover battle, that’s the No. 1 stat in football, right?" Smart said. "In this game, it would probably be the most critical.”

Smart continued to talk about the impact the botched punt and turnover had on the outcome of the game.

“Changed the field position. I think the punt, I don’t know how far the punt was that he hit out of bounds, but that was the biggest momentum change and got our crowd into it. Then the fumble on top of that was really big,” said Smart. “We’ve stressed turnovers to no end, and we finally got one. .... But we thought we could get the ball off him, and we finally did. That gave our offense extra momentum and incentives."

Junior offensive linemen Ben Cleveland affirmed the idea that the defensive domination helped them out on the other side of the ball.

“Our defense is second to none. They just rocked it all night long. We really relied on them tonight to keep that momentum going for us whenever we got back on offense.”

In the process of shutting out Kentucky, the Georgia defense also limited Wildcats’ quarterback Lynn Bowden to 17 yards passing. According to redshirt sophomore defensive back Eric Stokes, the Georgia game plan was always “prepare for the run.”