My how the tables have turned.

Unranked and sitting at 3-3 for the first time in the Mark Richt era, Georgia heads to Vanderbilt Saturday. While it would be a stretch to even say the Commodores are mired in mediocrity, it’s Georgia that will be Vanderbilt’s homecoming opponent, and it’s the Bulldogs pointing to this game as a huge one.

“Everything else that we talked about before the season is out of our hands,” said quarterback Joe Cox.

“Anything could happen, but as far as us winning the East, going to the SEC Championship, that’s not anything we can control anymore. We’ve just got to go one game at a time . We need a win more than anything, having two losses in a row. So we want to win this game against Vanderbilt first and foremost before we focus on anything else.”

But in many ways, this trip to Nashville isn’t just about coming out with the win for Georgia.

It’s about putting together a complete game arguably for the first time this season, and escaping what would be a full month of negativity with a bye week coming up before the Bulldogs’ Halloween date with top-ranked Florida.

“It’s very crucial to just get things back on track, not only for the win, but just mentally,” said linebacker Rennie Curran.

“Everybody’s just exhausted. This season’s been a huge emotional roller coaster, having a good week, bad week, guys not playing on the same page. We’ve just got to go into this week just looking at those failures and just using that to have a great week, using these bad experiences to turn it into something positive for our team that can hopefully get us back on track. We need some momentum for the rest of the season.”

Vanderbilt (2-4, 0-3 SEC) is coming off an overtime loss to Army, a team that’s been shellacked by both Duke and Iowa State this season. The Commodores’ only wins this season have come against Western Carolina and Rice.

The Bulldogs are only a game better and still struggling to put together an effort where the offense and defense play well in the same game.

Neither was particularly adept in Georgia’s 45-19 loss to Tennessee in Knoxville last weekend. The Bulldogs need to put it together more than ever Saturday.

“It’s kind of hard to understand what it is from week-to-week, because I don’t think we’ve done things differently from the first three weeks to the last three weeks,” said tight end Aron White.”I think it’s just execution. Some weeks we come out and everything’s clicking and you’re just going, and the last few weeks I just feel like we haven’t been able to get anything going and get things moving. It’s definitely not anything that I don’t think that we can overcome.”

In 2007, the Bulldogs followed a 35-14 beating at the hands of Tennessee with a last-second win against the Commodores.

In 2006, another trouncing by the Volunteers led the Bulldogs into a loss on a game-ending Vanderbilt field goal the next week.

This time around, Georgia needs a win more like the ones they came to know during the majority of a current string of 13 wins in its last 14 contests with the ‘Dores.

“It’s very important. Each week is important,” said defensive tackle Jeff Owens. “You never want to lose, you just want to go out and play harder and do what you have to do on Saturday. We have to go out and play for each other and dominate. For us to be successful, everybody’s got to do their job and leave everything on the field.

“You’ve got to sell out.”