OXFORD, Miss. – One sentence stood out as Georgia players spoke Saturday night after a resounding 28-10 loss at Ole Miss. There was safety Malaki Starks, who shared what Kirby Smart told the team:

“Don’t come out and point fingers, we don’t have to point fingers, just look at yourself in the mirror and realize what you can do better.”

Next up was nose tackle Nazir Stackhouse.

“We’re not a finger-pointing team,” Stackhouse said. “We know some guys have had a tough time, but that’s why we’re a team. We hold each other up, and we have each other’s back.”

Well, good news: No one on this Georgia team is playing well enough to deserve to point the finger at anyone else.

What’s the one thing this team is really good at? What can you count on to be good in every game, no matter what? Well, except for the gambler and the place-kicker, who are both doing very well. The fact that they are undoubtedly the best things on this team right now speaks volumes.

Blame it on the offense, as many Georgia fans do, for a myriad of reasons: the lack of a run game, the absence of explosive play, the offensive line that isn’t improving, the quarterback who seems to have regressed.

Blame the defense, which pinned Ole Miss to the goal line — thanks to a kick from team MVP Brett Thorson — and then let the Rebels complete a slanting 16-yard pass that the entire building knew was coming. Or the defense that, after the offense showed some life early in the second half, allowed Ole Miss to drive back down the field to make it another two-possession game.

There is complementary football. This was complimentless football.

That’s been Georgia for almost the entire season. The closest we’ve come to a full game on either side of the ball was the Oct. 19 win at Texas, with the season-opening victory against Clemson a close second, though the latter did have a slow start on offense. Otherwise, the season has been a mix of consistency, with glimmers of greatness on both sides and frustrating spells on both sides. Entering this weekend, Georgia ranked seventh in the SEC in offensive yards per game, and sixth in defensive yards per game. Not great either.

Some of that can be attributed to the schedule. Georgia has now played four teams ranked in the first Top 25 of the College Football Playoff selection committee, and they all won on Saturday. Four road games have been played, three of which started in the evening and the fourth (Ole Miss) under the lights for most of the second half. That’s the kind of scheme that magnifies errors.

But the shortcomings are quite magnified.

The offensive line, an expected strength, was a problem. The unit is in turmoil, especially at guard, but the tackles have not been good.

The wide receivers and tight ends are what they’ve always been: not game-changers but not bums either, good enough as a group to win with, but prone to poorly timed drops lately.

Quarterback Carson Beck hasn’t been consistent, but he hasn’t really had a run game to lean on either. And yes, offensive coordinator Mike Bobo can call plays better.

An observation: Georgia’s offense featured a lot of pre-snap movement on Saturday, a lot of moments where guys pointed to each other in the right spot. Think about the sequence at the end of the first half, when the offense should have been making quicker plays to score points, but ended up taking way too much time between plays and then punting anyway.

It might be time to simplify things. Smart constantly talks about how much the staff spends on Beck when it comes to checking in and out of plays at the line, safeties, moves, etc. Maybe it’s time to play free and easy. Stop trying to outsmart the defense and just outwork them. You’re Georgia, you should still have the talent to do that.

The defense must also follow that approach. There is far too much talent on this unit to look as helpless as they do at times, especially on Saturday. Find a way to play with more swagger.

The point is, this season isn’t as dire as it seems. It just doesn’t match the past few years. So it’s understandable that fans and outsiders alike are wondering if this just isn’t a good Georgia team. But the teams of recent years lacked two things:

1. This is a difficult schedule.
2. So much margin for error.

Smart is in his ninth year as Georgia’s coach, and this is only the third time in that span that the Bulldogs have lost two games in the regular season. The first two times (2016, 2020), the second defeat meant that Playoff hopes were over. This time around, Georgia is still viable in the Playoffs and still has a shot at an SEC Championship, but far from out of the question.

“It’s a different world,” Smart said. “We’re not on this roller coaster wave of emotions. We are on a long journey. It’s a long journey, and you have to play the next game, you have to play the next game, because that’s the goal. That’s why I said to the players: Boys, our future is ahead of us. We have to figure out how to get better.”

The problem is figuring that out so late in the season. It could be that this team just isn’t good enough, with too many flaws on both sides of the ball.

It could also mean that there is still a win for this team. Georgia has recruited and replenished its top three recruiting classes in the portal, and the head coach has two rings. If this team makes the Playoff, and the odds are still good (69 percent, according to Austin Mock’s projections), this will be the team no one wants to face.

But this team is also nine games into it, and at this point it’s fair to wonder whether we should just believe what we’ve seen so far: flawed on offense, inconsistent on defense, just not very good at in general.

Maybe it’s time to lower expectations. Then be prepared to be surprised.

“Man, I don’t even know how to explain it,” Starks said. “I think it’s a different world, like college football the way it’s set up. The teams that can handle that best will move forward, and ultimately we’re just trying to be one of them.”

(Photo: Justin Ford/Getty Images)