ATHENS — Georgia linebacker Jalon Walker took the question in stride, but you could tell he didn’t like it. He was asked at the end of the Bulldogs’ 44-42 win over Georgia Tech in eight overtimes if his team deserved to win.
“Yes! Why would we not deserve to win any game?” the junior linebacker said, incredulous. “We fought our butts off. We practiced hard all week long coming off a short week. We did what we needed to do to prepare, and we executed when we needed to execute.”
Indeed, Georgia came out on top. But it was dominated the majority of the game, and fully for three and a half quarters. When Georgia Tech went ahead 17-0 right before halftime, the Yellow Jackets had outgained the Bulldogs 307-97, had the ball for nearly 20 minutes and were 5-of-8 on third downs.
But games are played four quarters and by the end of those 15-minute intervals, the teams were knotted 27-all. Then, they were tied 34-all, 40-all, and 42-all. Finally, Tech’s pressured incompletion on its two-point attempt to begin the eighth overtime period was followed by Nate Frazier’s 3-yard run through a huge hole at left tackle for the final two-point score.
“Like I say, we’re a resilient team,” Walker said. “That’s part of our DNA traits — we’re resilient. We went out there and played Georgia football, a nice, hard-fought game against Georgia Tech.”
With the victory, the Bulldogs beat their arch-rivals for a seventh consecutive year. That ties with two other seven-year streaks for the longest in Georgia’s series against Georgia Tech (2001-07, 1991-97). The teams did not play in 2020.
The Yellow Jackets’ longest winning streak in the series remains eight, which was broken by Theron Sapp’s touchdown in 1957. Georgia will get a third attempt to match it next year in Atlanta.
Georgia’s senior class leaves without ever losing to the Yellow Jackets. They’re 52-4 overall, which is an FBS record.
Asked what he did when he saw Frazier run into the end zone untouched at 12:02 a.m. Saturday, Walker let out a smiling gasp.
“My mind went blank,” he said. “I was just very grateful.”
Here are a few other things we learned Friday:
Georgia’s controversial first 2-point try
Georgia’s first two-point try of several Friday occurred with 5:07 into the 3rd quarter with the Bulldogs trailing 17-6. It failed and it was a mistake to try it, by every measure.
ESPN analytics expert Seth Walder, writing last year about critical in-game coaching decisions, specifically addressed in a January 2023 story what to do and not do when down 11 points in a game.
In an article that includes elaborate array of graphs, of that specific margin Walder wrote: “Down 11 points — Go for two starting roughly around the beginning of the fourth quarter. This is the same situation as down four, with a touchdown added on top.”
Smart disagrees, or at least whomever he listens to for analytical advice does. The ninth-year coach didn’t admit to making a mistake in Friday’s instance. He blamed Georgia’s “analytics.”
“Interesting question,” Smart said when asked about it in the postgame interview. “I’m not going to dig real deep in it. It’s analytics, and we follow them almost to a T. We’re in charge of that. It ended up looking really interesting because you kick an extra point to win the game.”
The reality is, if Georgia had simply kicked the extra point following Oscar Delp’s touchdown catch from Carson Beck at the 9:53 mark of the third quarter, the Bulldogs would have won 28-27 in regulation based on the way the rest of the game unfolded. Instead, they used a jet counter run with diminutive slotback Dominic Lovett, who was stuffed short of the goal line. Georgia was penalized for illegal motion on the play anyway.
Walder reported whether a team kicks or goes for two often is negligible. He writes that the “point expectancy” for a PAT has 93.7% since 2015, while and two-point conversion is 48.1% in same study, though worth double.
“They are so close that we should think of either option as an active choice,” ESPN reported.
Another slow start for the Bulldogs
Georgia would not have been considering two-pointers so early if its offense executed better in the first half. Friday represented the sixth time this season that the Bulldogs scored a touchdown or less in the first half.
Georgia was stuck at seven points or less at halftime against Clemson (6), Kentucky (3), Alabama (7), Florida (6), Ole Miss (7) and now Tech (0). Alabama and Ole Miss each prevailed.
“We had some turnovers and things we didn’t execute in the first half,” quarterback Carson Beck said. “We played some good complementary football there are the end. This game showed more about our character and heart. We can go fix all that other stuff.”
Beck finished with 297 yards and five touchdowns passing and he gained 25 yards running the ball before giving 15 back on two sacks. For the third straight game, Beck did not throw an interception. The Bulldogs did commit a turnover, though, on Dominic Lovett’s fumble late in the first half.
Drops still an issue
Beck had 15 incompletions in the game, and half of those probably should have been caught — or certainly could have.
Drops are not an official stat that is kept during by school stat crews. However, they do get tallied later by outside services. Unofficially, it looked like Georgia had six drops Friday, based on notes taken during the game. At least two of those were tipped balls and another was thrown behind the receiver.
Whatever the official number, it was too many. At one point, ESPN statistics had the Bulldogs with the most drops in the country this season.
Probably the most significant one was on Georgia’s opening offensive possession. Arian Smith dropped a perfectly-thrown ball that would have converted a first down. Instead, the Bulldogs punted and quickly found themselves behind.
“He had some drops again,” Smart said of Beck. “I don’t know that we can do anything else on that. I think show confidence in our guys and keep going back to them, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Overtime prep
Smart was asked if Georgia ever simulated eight overtime periods in practice, even while working on two-point conversion plays.
“No,” Georgia’s coach said. “We simulate about once every three weeks. … We typically stop around two or three just because you carry two-point plays. We carry a lot of them. But I’ve never practiced that many. A couple weeks ago, before we went to play Texas, we did an overtime simulation similar to that, just so the kids know the rules. We went two-point back and forth.”
One of the differences in practice and games is changing ends of the field. Typically, they don’t switch ends in practice.
“I think we added about 8,000 yards just changing (ends) of the field,” Smart said. “I saw some of y’all (photographers) huffing and puffing. I figured out why y’all were sprinting back and forth.”
The eight overtime periods played Friday were the most in the history of the SEC, but not in FBS. That distinction goes to Penn State-Illinois 2021, with the Fighting Illini prevailing in nine OTs.
“I ain’t ever seen anything like it,” Walker said. “I’ve never even watched anything that long.”
Following are longest games in FBS history, per USA Today:
- 1. Oct. 23, 2021: Illinois 20, Penn State 18 (9 OTs)
- 2. Nov. 29, 2024: Georgia 44, Georgia Tech 42 (8 OTs)
- T-3. Sept. 10, 2022: Eastern Kentucky 59, Bowling Green 57 (7 OTs)
- T-3. Nov. 24, 2018: Texas A&M 74, LSU 72 (7 OTs)
- T-3. Oct. 7, 2017: Western Michigan 71, Buffalo 68 (7 OTs)
- T-3. Oct. 7, 2006: North Texas 25, FIU, 22 (7 OTs)
- T-3. Nov. 1, 2003: Arkansas 71, Kentucky 63 (7 OTs)
- T-3. Nov. 3, 2001: Arkansas 58, Ole Miss 56 (7 OTs)
Meanwhile, in Texas
The Bulldogs will find out Saturday who they will play in the Dec. 7 SEC Championship game, No. 3 Texas or No. 20 Texas A&M. But they’ll have to wait a while to find out. That game in College Station is not scheduled to kickoff until 7:49 p.m.
“Yeah, I’m gonna watch it,” junior cornerback Daylen Everette said. “I like college football, so I’m gonna watch the game.”
Asked whether it simply watch as a fan or be taking notes, Everette paused briefly to think.
“Maybe both, I’m not really sure,” he said.
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