Kirby Smart and Georgia Bulldogs must fix Gunner Stockton if they want to win against tough upcoming SEC schedule

The Georgia Bulldogs somehow struggled to put away an FCS team on Saturday. Yes, there were weather delays and issues that may have contributed to Georgia playing out of sync, but that's not a great excuse that covers up the fact that the Bulldogs won just 28-6 against Austin Peay on Saturday.

Unfortunately, the real problem seems to be quarterback Gunner Stockton. If Kirby Smart and his staff can't fix him–and soon–Georgia is going to struggle against the toughest parts of their SEC schedule.

Gunner Stockton is the problem for Georgia Bulldogs offense and he has to make changes

What does it mean for Gunner Stockton to be the problem on offense? Didn't he complete well over 70% of his passes on Saturday? Didn't Georgia win 28-6 (usually a decent margin of victory)? Yes, but 14 points at halftime against one of the worst division one (FCS) programs in the country is indefensible.

What's exactly wrong with Stockton? And what needs to change if Georgia's offense is going to get where it needs to be? Several things.

It took Stockton 34 pass attempts to reach just 227 yards of production with zero passing touchdowns on Saturday. That's 6.7 yards per attempt against a bad defense–ranking Stockton outside the top 90 among FBS passers by that measure.

Stockton only faced eight pass rush pressures the entire game, but still found himself forcing the ball out of his hands far too fast (less than 2.5 seconds on average), panicking a bit, only targeting players on underneath short passes. In fact, his average depth of target (aDOT) was seriously somehow just 3.2 yards down the field on the day. That's absolutely wild for an FBS passer. His aDOT through two weeks now ranks outside the top 120 FBS passers (minimum 20 pass attempts).

Gunner was clearly a bit disappointed in the lack of explosive plays after the game saying, "I don't really know why [we aren't explosive] right now...Yeah, [it 's frustrating because] you always want to be explosive. Explosive plays real affect the game." The problem is, Stockton's complete inability or unwillingness to push the ball down field is the exact reason Georgia can't create explosive plays right now.