Georgia’s bowl streak continues. The Dawgs defeated in-state rival Georgia Tech 42-34 tonight in Athens to earn them their sixth win of the season and their ninth in the last 10 meetings with the Yellow Jackets. Georgia has now qualified for 14 consecutive bowl games.
“It would’ve been sickening to be 5-7 right now and (the season) just be over,” said head coach Mark Richt. “It would’ve been tough. So I’m glad we’re not dealing with that right now. I think it is important that we even our record. I think it’s important that we have a bowl game and all those extra practices, but by far our biggest motivation was just to beat Georgia Tech.”
It was not easy for Richt’s Bulldogs.
After taking a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, Georgia found itself tied with the Jackets with 2:05 remaining in the half when Roddy Jones ran 12 yards for a touchdown. But quarterback Aaron Murray led his team down the field in the final two minutes of the half and connected with tight end Bruce Figgins to re-take the lead at 21-14.
“They eat up a lot of clock and they really don’t give you a lot of possessions,” said Murray about Tech’s triple-option offense. “Whenever you get the ball, you’ve got to take what they give you and you really got to put points on the board so your chances are very few.”
The second half featured even more back and forth. After Tech tied the game on the first possession of the second half, Georgia scored back-to-back touchdowns to re-take control of the game.
Within 35 seconds in a late third quarter sequence, Justin Houston returned a Roddy Jones fumble 18 yards for a touchdown just after Washaun Ealey scored on a one-yard plunge. The Dawgs led 35-21.
But the scoring did not end there. Georgia needed a missed extra point by Tech’s Scott Blair, who had made 77 PATs prior to the fourth-quarter miss.
However, the Bulldogs would score once again when Ealey scampered untouched for a 20-yard touchdown with 1:29 remaining after Tech missed on a fourth-down conversion attempt. The Tech defenders did not touch Ealey as they wanted to get the ball back to try to tie the game.
“We didn’t coach very good,” said Richt about not telling Ealey to fall down after the making the first down. “We got out-coached right there. That was good strategy by Coach Johnson right there to have a chance to … tie it. As soon as it happened, I said ‘He got us, he got me.’”
But Georgia’s defense would hold, this time on an interception by Houston, who may have been playing in his last game in Athens. It was his first career interception.
“I’d been waiting a long time for it,” said Houston. “That’s something my coach always tells me: ‘Players make plays,’ so I knew for us to win, we had to make some plays and that’s what the defense did.”
The Dawgs will now await the outcome of next week’s SEC Championship Game which will help to determine their bowl destination. The thought circulating in Athens is that Georgia will be headed to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. Liberty Bowl officials were at the game tonight watching the Bulldogs.
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