The 2024 edition of Clean Old Fashioned Hate was a heart-pounding thrill ride.
Some Georgia Bulldogs fans walked out of a frigid Sanford Stadium Friday night exclaiming that the Dawgs’ nearly four-and-a-half-hour, up-and-down overtime win over Georgia Tech had taken years off their lives. Said one fan, shortly after the final whistle in the 44-42 Dawgs victory came just after midnight: “Whew. I am too old for this craziness.”
What made it even harder on Bulldog Nation was that Brent Key’s Yellow Jackets had dominated the Bulldogs on the line of scrimmage for the first two quarters of the game. For the fifth time this season, Georgia did not score in the first quarter, as the Dawgs trailed 3-0, and Tech took a 17-0 lead into halftime, marking the first time UGA had been shut out in the first half since 2019.
As ESPN’s Booger McFarland said at the time, “Georgia is being out coached, they are a step slow on defense all night. Offensively, they don’t scare anyone down the field and can’t run the ball at all.”
He also correctly noted that, in the first half of Friday’s game, Georgia didn’t look like a playoff team.
Even after the Dawgs got on the scoreboard in the 3rd period, Tech continually seemed to one-up the home team. When Georgia tightened the score to 20-13, the Jackets quickly scored again, making it 27-13 with just over 5 minutes left in the game.
In the end, though, the worst first half by a Dawg team in years didn’t matter, as Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs staged one of the greatest comebacks in Georgia football history, tying it up at 27-27 and sending this incredible/terrible/wonderful game into overtime.
Of course, that proved to be something of a marathon undertaking itself, as the Dawgs and Jackets battled through eight overtimes — tying an SEC record and making it the second-longest college football game ever — before a Nate Frazier run up the middle gave Georgia the 44-42 decision and finally sent the visitors from Atlanta back home with their seventh consecutive loss in the in-state rivalry.
“They really out-physicaled us tonight; the quarterback was a dang warrior,” Smart said of Tech’s Haynes King, who ran for 110 yards and 3 touchdowns, threw for 303 yards and 2 TDs and threw for two scores in overtime while running for another.
“I have so much respect for the way Brent and them play,” Smart said after the game.
But, he added, “our kids they are resilient as hell, they never quit, never say die it was sloppy [but] these fans stayed with us; it was a great game.”
Indeed, it was the best atmosphere for a Tech game in many years. Despite the temperature at Sanford Stadium heading toward the freezing mark as kickoff came at 7:44 pm., the capacity crowd was jacked for a night game Between the Hedges.
Unfortunately, Georgia got off to another of its frequent slow starts this season, taking the crowd out of the game in the first half. Some Dawgs fans left at halftime and others departed when Tech went up by 14 points again two-thirds of the way through the 4th quarter.
However, the beginnings of Georgia’s rally in the second half sparked so much noise that it caused some Tech false starts, and an estimated 65% to 70% of the crowd stayed for the duration.
Their perseverance paid off, but first they had to sit through a lot of bad football on the part of the Dawgs, who continually bought King’s fakes and couldn’t handle the Jackets’ misdirection plays. Tech’s first play of the game was a 44-yard rush by Jamal Haynes, and for much of the game, Georgia’s defense turned in a dismal performance, with the same problems as earlier in the season — too many missed tackles to count and too many receivers left uncovered.
The other way to look at it is the way Smart summed up his defense after the game: “I don’t know that we played poorly on defense tonight as much as Georgia Tech and their quarterback really played well, OK?”
OK. Let’s just say the Georgia defense wasn’t a total disaster, as the Dawgs held the Jackets to a field-goal attempt (that they missed) on one drive, made the Jackets turn the ball over on downs another time, stiffened enough at the end of a Tech drive that ate up 10:36 of the clock to allow only 3 points, and forced a fumble that set up one of the Dawgs’ scores in regulation time.
As for the offense, Georgia’s rushing attack was ineffective for much of the game and receivers continued their season-long tendency to drop the ball (an area in which the Dawgs unfortunately lead the nation). The Bulldogs only came close to getting any points in the first half when Peyton Woodring tried a 53-yard field-goal attempt on the final play, but he was kicking into a headwind and came up short.
However, Carson Beck and the UGA passing attack were effective enough to get the Dawgs back into the game and eventually prevail, with the Georgia quarterback completing 28 of 43 throws for 297 yards and 5 touchdowns (which tied a school record), plus throwing for a 2-point conversion in OT. That was after completing just 10 of 17 passes for 109 yards and no points in the first half.
Meanwhile, Tech finished the first half with 307 yards of offense (157 rushing, 150 passing) on 42 plays, and dominated time of possession, holding the ball 19:48.
It wasn’t until the Dawgs’ second drive of the second half that they got on the scoreboard, when Beck hit tight end Oscar Delp for a 2-yard touchdown. But then Georgia baffled many fans and college football observers by going for the 2-point conversion, which failed, making the score 17-6 with 9:53 left in the third. If Georgia simply had let Woodring kick a PAT, the game later would have ended with the Dawgs up by 1 point.
Or, as my buddy Scott Peacocke noted: “Kirby could have saved everyone all that stress by not going for 2 in the third quarter!”
After the game, Smart stood behind the decision, though, saying that call was made because of “analytics.” However, he did admit that “it ended up looking really interesting, because you [could have kicked] an extra point to win the game.”
Tech kicked a field goal on its next possession, going up 20-6 early in the 4th quarter.
And that’s when the Dawgs really got going. A 13-play drive — aided by a pass-interference call against the Jackets on a 4th-and-4 play — ended up with a 1-yard Frazier touchdown run. This time, Georgia kicked the PAT, and the score was 20-13 with 8:18 remaining on the clock.
The Jackets then went 75 yards on 6 plays to extend their lead to 27-13 with 5:37 left.
A lot of folks thought that was it for Georgia’s chances, but the Dawgs quickly drove for another score, with Beck tossing a TD pass to Lovett, cutting the Tech lead to 27-20 with 3:39 remaining.
As Tech began another drive, the Georgia defense stepped up big-time, with safety Dan Jackson stripping the ball from King on a run that would have been for a 1st down and linebacker Chaz Chambliss recovering at the Tech 32 with 2:02 to play.
Another Beck pass to Lovett, this one covering the final 3 yards, saw the game tied up 27-27 with 1:01 remaining on the clock, and Tech was unable to do anything in the final minute, sending the rivalry to overtime for the first time in 10 years.
In the first overtime period, Georgia had first crack and scored on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Beck to wideout London Humphreys, giving the home team their first lead of the game, 34-27. But Tech answered with a TD of its own, forcing a second overtime.
Tech got the ball first to start the second overtime and quickly scored on a run by King. But on the 2-point attempt mandated by OT rules at that point, Georgia’s Smael Mondon Jr. broke up King’s pass attempt, so the Jackets led 40-34.
The Dawgs didn’t mess around, responding on the first play of their second OT possession with a 25-yard touchdown pass from Beck to back Cash Jones, making it 40-40. But the Dawgs’ 2-point try also failed.
So, the game went to a third OT period, and at that point the teams just start rotating 2-point plays. A Georgia pass was incomplete, but Tech was unable to take advantage of the opportunity, also throwing an incomplete pass.
In the fourth overtime period, Tech failed to score with a pass and a Beck run up the middle fell just short of the goal line.
The fifth overtime saw Beck connect with Bell for a score, but the Jackets answered with their own score, to tie it up 42-42.
The sixth overtime began with Jackson sacking King, but Georgia was unable to score when Arian Smith dropped a pass in the end zone.
Neither team could score in the seventh overtime, so the game went to an eighth OT. Pressure on King from Georgia’s CJ Allen led to a Jacket incompletion, and the the long night finally ended with Frazier’s run to give the Dawgs the 44-42 win in the 16th overtime game in school history.
Georgia’s record in those games is 9-7, including 2-2 against Tech. The Bulldogs are 2-2 in OT games in the Smart era.
Also, the Bulldogs now have won 26 straight night games at home, including 17-0 under Smart. The streak began with a 2010 win over Tech.
After getting blanked in the first half, Georgia finished with 405 yards of offense on 69 plays while Tech tallied a season-high 563 yards of offense on 84 plays, the third-most allowed by Georgia in the Smart era.
Beck completed 28 of 43 passes for 287 yards and 5 TDs and Tech’s King ran for 110 and 3 touchdowns and threw for 303 and 2 TDs.
Tech possessed the ball 37:11 to Georgia’s 22:49.
On defense for Georgia, Mondon had 13 tackles and overtime hero Allen had 10, along with 2 pass break-ups and a tackle for loss.
The 17-point deficit Georgia overcame in the game matched the biggest of the Smart era, the other being in the Rose Bowl game against Oklahoma.
And so now Georgia heads back to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game this coming Saturday, and a rematch with Texas, the darlings of the College Football Playoff committee. The Dawgs beat Texas 30-15 a few weeks ago. The Long Horns won over rival Texas A&M 17-7 in the Lone Star Shootout Saturday night.
It’s a tall order for the Dawgs, as the general consensus belief is that it’s very tough to beat the same team twice in a season.
The previous win over the Long Horns easily ranks as the best game the Dawgs have played this season — especially for the defense — but, as my friend Scott put it in our post-game discussion, you can never tell which version of our schizo team will show up.
And while Georgia’s run defense has been inconsistent in recent weeks, Texas’ rushing attack has improved considerably since the previous game. The Horns’ Quintrevion Wisner ran for 186 yards on 33 carries against A&M.
Still, Texas QB Quinn Ewers, while he played much better Saturday night, didn’t react well to Georgia’s pressure the first time around, so let’s hope that the awesome pass rush we saw back then returns for the rematch. One thing’s for sure, however: The Dawgs can’t afford another of the slow starts that have plagued them for much of this season.
Of course, ESPN’s playoff watchers figure that Georgia most likely is in the playoff no matter what happens next week.
Still, considering some of the baffling decisions the playoff committee has made this season — and their seeming ambivalence about Georgia — the Dawgs need to make a good impression in the SEC Championship Game, win or lose.
