Bill Shanks: Greyson Lambert passes first test in Georgia debut

ATHENS -- Usually the first game of a football season, against an unranked opponent like Louisiana-Monroe, would be your typical leave-at-halftime, get-home-early game for Georgia Bulldogs fans.

But instead, it was the lightning that kept many from watching a complete audition of the new quarterbacks Saturday in Athens.

Yes, quarterbacks. That’s plural. Greyson Lambert started, but we did briefly see Brice Ramsey. That might be the rotation for a while, at least until someone gets a complete stranglehold on the starting job. It’s Lambert’s gig now, but there’s still a feeling this could be a fluid situation.

Georgia is fortunate to have somewhat of an exhibition season. Louisiana-Monroe is not very good, and Vanderbilt this week might be even worse of an opponent. This will give the offense time to get its legs under it a bit, especially before Alabama comes to town next month.

Even Lambert was somewhat vague after the game about whether he calmed the fears of the fans who wonder if this will be a revolving door. “Who knows” was his response time and time again as he was asked if he locked down the job.

Maybe Lambert doesn’t know. Maybe the coaches don’t know. Maybe we won’t know for another month.

You would have to nitpick a bit to find many things wrong with Lambert’s performance Saturday. His two touchdown passes were solid, and he did not seem rattled as he did in his first practice back in August. There were two bad tipped passes in the third quarter before the first weather delay, and that’s something that might make him cringe when he watches the tape.

But overall, he did pretty well. Lambert was 8-of-12 for 141 yards and no interceptions.

“I don’t think I did bad,” Lambert said, “but it’s all because the other guys -- the O-line, the receivers and running backs. Being able to run the ball all game kind of opens up a lot of stuff through the air, so that obviously helped.”

Lambert is right about that. Georgia has a three-headed monster at running back that could make a lot of quarterbacks look good. Nick Chubb, Keith Marshall and Sony Michel combined for 234 yards on 32 carries. Even Marshall admitted after the game that, “I think if we keep improving, the sky’s the limit. I know that’s corny, but I really believe that.”

Marshall looked like his old self again, running for 73 yards on 10 carries. How good might this running game be if Marshall is back to the level of talent he had when he first arrived at Georgia, when he actually was rated higher than Todd Gurley and before injuries derailed his career for a while?

Well, that potential success will only take the pressure off Lambert. No one expects Lambert to be Matthew Stafford or Aaron Murray, but if he can be at least as solid as Hutson Mason was last season, Georgia’s offense might be just fine.

Lambert did not look like the shaky quarterback he was at times at Virginia. And Marshall believed Lambert is dealing with the pressure of being the new starting quarterback at Georgia very well.

“He went out there and did everything he was supposed to do,” Marshall said. “He’s handling all of that well. Hopefully it does take some pressure off him where he feels confident, and not just us but the O-line and receivers so it’s not all on his shoulders.”

We might not know much more now than we did before the game about the quarterbacks, since Louisiana-Monroe was a weak opponent. It’s hard to draw conclusions on much of anything in a game like that.

It was more like a glorified, rain-shortened scrimmage, with a crowd at the end that looked more like the G-Day Game than the first game of the season. But Lambert’s first test had more positive results than negative, which is good enough -- at least right now -- for this Georgia team.

Listen to “The Bill Shanks Show” from 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WPLA Fox Sports 1670 AM in Macon and online at www.foxsports1670.com. Follow Bill at www.twitter.com/BillShanks and email him at thebillshanksshow@yahoo.com.

This story was originally published September 5, 2015 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Bill Shanks: Greyson Lambert passes first test in Georgia debut ."