Georgia’s defense played well for the first time since the Bulldogs’ opener Saturday, limiting Arizona State to 202 yards of total offense and 17 points.

After putting up 93 points in its previous two games, the offense didn’t fare so well against the Sun Devils, putting up just 20 points against an inferior opponent.

Georgia is 3-1 and ranked No. 18 in the country, but in order to top No. 4 LSU at home Saturday, they’ll have to put forth solid effort on both sides of the ball.

“When we play a team like we’re getting ready to face, we have to have a perfect game,” said linebacker Rennie Curran. “We can’t give them any room to breathe. We have to get ready for our best game of football.”

After surviving a 30-26 scare against Mississippi State last week, the Tigers are undefeated and the fourth-ranked team in the country.

The struggle LSU faced is something familiar to the Bulldogs, as the offense has put up big numbers while the defense has struggled, and vice versa, in every game this season.

But the Bulldogs are focusing more on the fact that they’ve found ways to win rather than their propensity to make games close.

“I know that after Week 1, if you would have asked us where we wanted to be going into the LSU game, we would have said 3-1,” said quarterback Joe Cox.

“That’s where we are. We found ways to win. We stuck together. When the defense needed to make plays, they’ve made plays. When the offense needed to make plays, we made plays. There’s a lot of things in between that we need to correct that could make us a pretty good football team.”

Running backs still “50-50″

Head coach Mark Richt said Tuesday that tailbacks Richard Samuel and Caleb King are still pretty even in his mind.

“They are 50-50 in my thinking,” Richt said. “One guy might be running a little better than the other, and he may get more. We’re not in the position where we’re saying 75 percent of the totes here and 25 percent there.”