When Hutson Mason went out of the Belk Bowl with a concussion late in the first half, Georgia coach Mark Richt said the Bulldogs simply had to go to Plan B.
“Plan B was just to give the ball to Chubb,” he said with a chuckle.
Well, it had worked before, and it worked again Tuesday as tailback Nick Chubb ran roughshod over No. 21 Louisville to lead the No. 13 Bulldogs to a 37-14 victory. The 5-foot-11, 228-pound freshman from Cedartown piled up a career-high 266 yards rushing on 33 carries and scored two touchdowns. Included in his performance was a bowl record 82-yard run out of the shadow of the Georgia’s goalposts.
It was the second-best rushing effort by a Georgia back in school history, coming up just short of the 283 Herschel Walker recorded against Vanderbilt as a freshman in 1980.
“It’s a blessing being in the same sentence as him,” said Chubb, who finished his first season with the Bulldogs with 1,547 yards rushing. “I’m very excited, but I wouldn’t have been capable of that without the rest of the team.”
The fact that the majority of Chubb’s work came only after he was pressed into service due to the suspensions and injuries of others makes it all the more astounding. After beginning the season as the fourth-string tailback behind Todd Gurley, Keith Marshall and Sony Michel, Chubb started the last eight games of the year.
“We know Nick’s a great player,” Richt said. “Normally we’d have him share more carries. But the time when Nick took over, you had Gurley’s suspension, Marshall’s injury, Sony’s injury, so he had to carry that rock a lot. It wasn’t a mystery to us that he could do something like this.”
That Chubb and the Bulldogs did it against Louisville defensive coordinator Todd Grantham and the Cardinals’ No. 3-ranked rush defense made it all the sweeter. And they fact they did it with an interim offensive coordinator added to the cool factor as well.
Tight ends coach John Lilly, pressed into play-calling duties when Mike Bobo became Colorado State’s head coach just a week ago, coordinated Georgia’s offensive effort. With 37 more points Tuesday, the 2014 finished with a record 537 this season.
“I don’t want to sound over-confident or arrogant or whatever, but that’s what we expected to happen, quite frankly,” Lilly said after the game. “I knew they’d go out there and execute at a high level if we put them in position to. Of course, the fact that Nick Chubb got on the bus helped.”
The win gave the Bulldogs (10-3) double-digit wins under Richt for the ninth time in his 14 seasons as their head coach. Georgia’s seniors will leave with a 40-14 record.
Georgia’s defensive also was dominant. The Bulldogs had three interceptions on the night — two by freshman safety Dominick Sanders — and held the Bobby Petrino-coached Cardinals to 18 points below their scoring average. Linebackers Lorenzo Carter and Ramik Wilson each had nine tackles and a sack apiece. Georgia totaled four sacks and the game ended with Carter dropping the Cardinals’ quarterback for a 19-yard loss.
“We’re a group of fighters and we’re slowly working to become great here,” said outside linebacker Jordan Jenkins, who four tackles and a half-sack. “We wanted to come out and end this season with a bang and show that we’re a team that fights to the very end and is going to get after you.”
As for the performance coming with his former position coach on the opposing sideline, Jenkins said, “That definitely was motivation for some guys.”
Mason, the fifth-year senior, left the game suddenly and almost noticeably on the Bulldogs’ next-to-last offensive possession of the first half. His absence was apparent only when redshirt freshman Brice Ramsey entered the game on the next series and promptly threw an interception.
Georgia originally announced that Mason might return with an undisclosed injury. It wasn’t until midway through the second half that the school reported he would not return due to “vision issues.” He finished 10-of-15 passes for 149 yards and a 44-yard TD pass to Chris Conley.
“I’ve never been concussed in my life but I came to the sideline and I knew something wasn’t right,” Mason said. “I was just super dizzy and my vision was all jacked up.”
Sophomore safety Quincy Mauger also suffered a concussion on a pass break-up late in the first half and did not return and Michael Bennett, a senior, hurt his left knee early in the third quarter and also was lost for the game.
“The team just stayed focused on the task at hand,” Conley said. “We didn’t allow ourselves to make excuses. I’m so proud of everybody because it’s so easy in those situations to make excuses. Everyone just kept their head down and kept grinding and we were able to come out of some of those difficult situations.”
Said Richt: “It was a year that we had to overcome a lot. This game maybe very similar to the type of season we had as far as losing some key people other guys having to step and make plays and continue to focus and fight.”
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