When Georgia takes the field on Saturday night against UAB it will be Kirby Smart’s 100th game as Georgia head coach. Only three head coaches have led Georgia in 100 or more games (Vince Dooley, Wally Butts and Mark Richt); a fourth coached exactly 99 games (Harry Mehre). The Bulldogs have started 3-0 in all eight of Smart’s seasons.

The Dawgs struggled to score early last week and trailed 14-3 at the half. It was Georgia’s first game with just three first-half points since putting up three against LSU in the 2019 SEC Championship. The second half, the Bulldogs turned it around by scoring 21 unanswered points, winning 24-14 over the Gamecocks. The 24 points was one of the fewest totals by the Bulldogs since their championship run began in 2021.

The game marked the first time Georgia trailed at the half by ten or more points, then won by ten or more points, since defeating Vanderbilt 27-17 (trailing 17-3 at half).

Georgia will be facing UAB for the fourth time in school history. The Dawgs have won all three previous meetings by a combined score of 106 to 20, including a 56-7 win in 2021. In that game, Carson Beck threw his first career touchdown pass (a 12-yard pass to Justin Robinson).

Beck did not have a touchdown pass in last week’s win against South Carolina. However, he did put up some impressive numbers in the second half. Here's a breakdown on how he has fared in each half this season.

Beck is currently second in the SEC (trailing Graham Mertz) with a 74 percent completion percentage. The top seven quarterbacks in the conference have a completion percentage of 70 percent or higher. Beck ranks seventh in throwing for 8.81 yards an attempt.

Georgia had nine different players with at least one reception this past week. Brock Bowers and Dominic Lovett each had seven receptions and Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint added six more. It was the first occasion since Georgia faced Georgia Tech in 2000 that the Dawgs had three players with six or more catches. Here are the last three times this has happened, and the players who caught the passes (this last game is the only one of the three the Dawgs won).

Rosemy-Jacksaint’s six receptions and 71 yards receiving were both career highs. You probably could guess that Bowers' seven grabs were not a career high. It was the third time the tight end has had at least seven receptions in a game. He now has 132 receptions in his career. More importantly are his receiving yards. Not only can he move into the top ten in career receiving yards in Georgia history, but with 42 more, Bowers can also reach an impressive milestone.

In the 2021 game against UAB, Bowers had three receptions for 107 yards and two touchdowns. One of the touchdowns was his career-long of 89 yards.

Daijun Edwards returned to action in a big way against South Carolina with a career-high 20 carries and a career-high 118 yards. It was the third time that Edwards had at least 100 yards in a game. The 20 rushes by Edwards made just the 14th time a Bulldog has had 20 attempts in a game under Smart.

One of those rushes for Edwards was for a touchdown. Dillon Bell and Cash Jones also provided rushing touchdowns for the Dawgs. At least three different Dawgs have rushed for a touchdown in 25 of Kirby Smart’s 99 games as a head coach. That's the most games in the SEC in that time period.

On defense, Georgia had three sacks against South Carolina after having just one in its first two games combined. Mykel Williams, Nazir Stackhouse, and Jamon Dumas-Johnson are the defenders who found their way to the quarterback. The Bulldogs are 39-5 when Georgia had at least three sacks in a game under Smart and 114-15 in those games since 2000.

Georgia also had two interceptions in the game. Dan Jackson and Tykee Smith each pulled one down in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs have six interceptions this season, leading the SEC. The six is also the most through their first three games of the season, since they had seven in their first three games of 2005.

The last time Georgia played UAB, the Bulldogs had three picks in that game including one by current Dawg, Jamon Dumas-Johnson. That's still his only career interception and it was returned 20 yards for a touchdown.

UAB makes us think of Jake Ganus, who played for Georgia in 2015 after three seasons at UAB. Ganus led the Dawgs in tackles with 102 in his lone season wearing red and black.

The last thing I want to mention is that when I think of UAB, I think of Norm Reilly, who was one of the sports information directors at Georgia for 15 years, and later became the head of sports information at UAB in 2002, spending 14 years there as well. He passed away in 2016 after a lengthy battle with cancer. We miss you, Norm!