KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — There had been a lot of criticism of Georgia coming out of the Austin Peay game.
The offense was struggling. Georgia didn’t look like it was up to the same standard as it was when it was winning national championships.
When Tennessee scored three straight touchdowns to open the game, many of the priors about Georgia seemed confirmed. Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar completed his first 14 passes for 231 yards.
But Georgia wasn’t dead yet, even if Kirby Smart heard tales of his program’s demise.
“There’s a lot of outside whistling by the graveyard, you know, a little bit of acting like one thing,” Smart said. “But we feel like our team is a certain identity, and we’re not going to go down without a fight. We’re nowhere near where we need to be. We’re a long way from being there, but boy, we’ve got some kids that aren’t afraid to fight.”
Smart spent much of this offseason talking about how young this Georgia team was. Saturday was the first road start for key contributors like quarterback Gunner Stockton, offensive lineman Dontrell Glover and outside linebacker Gabe Harris.
Perhaps it was unsurprising this team found themselves in an early hole.
“Just what we’re built on,” Stockton said. “And being resilient. And fighting until the end of the game. That’s what we did. And we just kept fighting.”
Georgia eventually reclaimed a 24-21 in the third quarter and seemed to have all the momentum. A 14-play touchdown drive made up of 13 runs and a KJ Bolden interception handed Georgia the ball in Tennessee territory.
Yet the Bulldogs let Tennessee off the hook. Georgia went run, run and pass on its three offensive plays to lead to a 48-yard Peyton Woodring field goal.
The Volunteers responded with a 56-yard touchdown pass to Chris Brazzell II. Harris was in position to possibly intercept that ball, but he couldn’t come down with it.
“They grew up. I mean, look, the defense for two weeks has heard about how good they are, and they got punched in the face,” Smart said. “I mean, they’re correctable things is a good thing, but we really weren’t beat. We just misplayed it. That’s tough to swallow.”
The fourth quarter produced more the same, only Stockton was this time the central character. He was stripped with Georgia trailing 35-30. On the ensuing drive, he fired a perfect 28-yard pass to London Humphreys to pull Georgia back within two.
He completed the two-point conversion to Zachariah Branch but there was no guarantee he would get the ball again. Especially as Tennessee’s Max Gilbert lined up for a 43-yard field goal. All Stockton could do was hope for a shank.
Stockton got his wish but there was no sense of relief on Georgia’s sideline. Rather a focus on the next round, overtime.
“I didn’t say anything,” Smart said. “I talked about red-area defense. I talked about what breakdowns we’ve had in the previous drives. I told coach Bobo ‘Hey what works in the red area, let’s focus on what works.’ I didn’t want to do a bunch of hoo-rah at that point. I think the biggest thing is we got to play defense first. And we got to stop, which was huge.”
Georgia forced an immediate field goal from Tennessee, as the Volunteers gained only three yards on their three offensive plays.
The Bulldogs gained 25 on their three play, the final yard coming via Josh McCray burrowing his way into the end zone to deliver the final blow for Georgia.
“I mean, they never say die,” Smart said. “I mean, we told them coming in. It was going to be blow-by-blow. How many could we take? Could we sustain? And could we keep throwing back? And we did, but we also cut it way too close. So we’ve got a chance to put somebody away, which I thought we did, we’ve got to do it.”
Saturday was a marquee win for this Georgia team. If it’s going to accomplish what it hopes to this season, it can’t be the last one. The Bulldogs have future games against the No. 8, 13, 14, 18 and 22 teams in the country.
Georgia is going to find itself in a lot of fights this season. Such is life in the new college football world as there’s less talent at the top. Georgia, like everyone else, has been pulled to the middle.
Tennessee dragged Georgia into the mud, playing the type of game it would’ve liked. No one thought this Georgia team was capable of winning a shootout.
It did. That speaks volumes about what this team can do.
Georgia will have to fight cleaner and more efficiently if it wants the high point of the 2025 season to be a national championship, instead of a road win in Neyland Stadium.
“We’re going to be back at home against a really good team,” Smart said. “We’re going to be on the road against really good teams. I mean, it can be good and bad. It’s how you take that medicine. And I’m going to make sure they take it the right way, and that we get better from it. We have to improve, and that’s the goal. We want to be on an elevating trajectory, not flat.”
