Zach Mettenberger had one final possession to burn his image into the collective memory of Georgia football. Not as the hometown quarterback taking snaps from a center in silver britches. That chance died on a sordid spring-break night in 2010. No, he was out there auditioning for the role of heartbreaker.
Another 102 seconds to do what he had done the rest of Saturday, throwing over, around and through the Bulldogs. Plenty of time — after all, it was his coach, Les Miles who afterward considered Georgia’s go-ahead touchdown with less than two minutes left and said, “I thought they scored too early, to be honest.”
Ample time, given the manic scoring pace Mettenberger and his one-time Georgia roommate Aaron Murray were setting. A pace that moved Georgia’s spent offensive coordinator Mike Bobo to say moments after the finish, “I am about to pass out.”
This was one last drive for Mettenberger to do something special on a field that had been pulled out from under him like rug on a slick wooden floor. Maybe it was not possible to totally erase the shame of spring 2010, when he was exiled from the Georgia program after his arrest for misdemeanor sexual battery and associated alcohol-related charges. He could never make these fans forget that. But he at least could make them remember him for something else, too, as they loosed on him a red wall of noise.
Down 44-41, with one timeout left, Mettenberger just needed, at the very least, to get LSU into downwind field-goal range. Or, better yet, win this thing outright with his fourth touchdown pass of the day.
First-and-10, from his own 24: Mettenberger moved around plenty after he was kicked off the Georgia team — from his home in Watkinsville to El Dorado, Kan. (Butler Community College), to a soft landing at LSU in 2011. But he really is not all that mobile. Georgia’s Leonard Floyd inflicted the day’s fourth sack upon him. The Tigers then spent their last timeout.
Second-and-17 from the 17: No problem. Already he had converted on third-and-22 in one fourth-quarter scoring drive. Two of his touchdown passes were on third-and-long. Mettenberger hit Odell Beckham for 18 yards.
First-and-10 from the 35: Incomplete to Jarvis Landry over the middle.
Second-and-10: Georgia’s Ray Drew tipped the pass off line.
Third-and-10: Incomplete again to Landry, which, like the previous pass to him, was amid some very tight coverage.
“There’s a play on that last drive I’ll have to see again,” Miles said. “(Landry) should have had a chance at the ball.”
“We had a matchup with Jarvis on a linebacker. I tried to back-shoulder him (throw to the receiver’s back shoulder). There was some contact there. We didn’t get the call to go our way. Those things happen,” Mettenberger said.
Fourth-and-10: Receiver Beckham slips, the ball sails overhead, game over.
Mettenberger had done everything except win. He threw for 372 yards and three touchdowns. He nearly matched Murray score for score. What a competition the two of them might have had for the Georgia starting job had things worked out differently.
Postgame, Mettenberger was asked if he was proud of the way he and his offense had handled a very tough setting: “Yes and no. We did a lot of good things. But not enough to win.”
He would call this trip back to Athens, “A business trip, just another game to try to put ourselves in a good position at the end of the year.”
He expressed a mild sense of relief that his much-discussed return to Athens was over. “The spotlight has been on me for things not related to football. It was a lot to ask my teammates to deal with. We can move on and turn our focus to the season,” he said.
Never did Mettenberger betray either in his words or the way he played any kind of inner turmoil over being on this field. But it had to be there. “It was an emotional day for him” said his friend, Georgia tight end Arthur Lynch, “After the whole incident, when he picked LSU as the school he’d go to, he circled certain dates and this was one of them. And he did all he could. Fortunately for us, we were still able to win.”
Mettenberger did not linger long on the Sanford Stadium floor at the end. A quick pass through, hugging some friends, missing others, embracing Bulldogs coach Mark Richt before sprinting off the field.
“(Richt) is a man I’ve known for a long, time. I congratulated him, and he said, ‘Good game; keep your head up.’ Hopefully we’ll win out and see them again,” Mettenberger said.
There remains that chance for another meeting in a couple of months, this time at the Georgia Dome, where an SEC champion is made.
“Absolutely, we’d love to make it to the SEC Championship (game) and play any SEC East team,” Mettenberger said. Maybe there would be one more chance to rewrite memories of himself in his home state.
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