OXFORD - You cannot win if you cannot score. You cannot score if you cannot move the football with a modicum of consistency.

Georgia learned that lesson the hard way, managing just 245 yards of offense, resulting in a 28-10 loss to Ole Miss on Saturday. So, what went wrong?

"Well, we didn't have a great run game going. Sometimes we ran the ball well. I thought that their front defensively stunts and moves a lot so they're very disruptive, so you have to be willing to go outside. We had some outside run game. I thought Nate (Frazier) did a really good job,” head coach Kirby Smart said. “Unfortunately, he had a turnover, but he ran the ball really hard. We talked all week about how they go after the ball. So give them credit, but when you have the penalties we have, and you have the sacks, you're not gonna be very successful, right? Penalties, stop drives, and sacks, stop drives, and we had both of those."

Indeed.

Four key penalties helped stop drives, while Georgia’s offensive line gave up a season-high five sacks against an Ole Miss defense that came into the game leading the country with 41.

"Yeah, it's tough right now, because Tate (Ratledge) didn't practice all week. We thought he'd be able to go like he did against Florida. He was not able to take many reps, but we thought he'd be able to go in the game just based on experience. He struggled, that foot was still not completely healed, and he's out there giving us all he can. So that made it a little harder. Micah (Morris) is still dealing with injury, too, from the Florida game,” Smart said. “We tried to play a combination of (Xavier) Truss and Drew (Bobo) rotating in at guard and still playing our three tackles. They did a good job. When you get in a mode of I have to throw the ball, you can get in trouble in this league, especially on the road. And we had some drives there where we had to throw the ball.”

When Carson Beck was able to throw, he did not have a ton of success.

The senior completed 20 of 31 passes with his 12th interception off a tipped pass. He also fumbled twice, losing one.

“I thought Carson played good, guys. I thought he played good. I mean, some of those penalties aren't on him. You know, now some are,” Smart said. “He had a couple snafus, too, where he maybe didn't motion a guy or didn't shift somebody in as part of the adjustment, and he knows that. But we put a lot on him, and he's playing on the road with crowd noise. But man, he stands in that pocket and converted some third downs and made some really nice plays. I thought he threw the ball away a couple times tonight. It was really good. So, I'm not here to be critical of him."

The first half was about as ugly as it could have been.

Georgia managed just 69 yards of offense in the first 30 minutes, with just three plays of 12-plus yards.

Otherwise, the Bulldogs had no semblance of consistency or continuity.

“They did what they do. They did what they do, and they did it well. They were short backs, so they went no-back some, but we actually had practiced and repped that some,” Smart said. “We thought they would go no back because of their injuries. They used 11 and some of the wide receivers in the backfield. Converted a really critical fourth down early in the game with a wide receiver in the backfield, but that's something they always do. It's not like new or different or anything. "They're just, they're good, and they're good."