Daylen Everette, Tate Ratledge and Kirby Smart all giggled in unison when the SEC’s press conference moderator Kevin Trainer introduced Everette as the SEC Championship game’s MVP.
Not that the junior cornerback wasn’t deserving. He made several huge plays in Georgia’s 22-19 overtime win Saturday over Texas to secure the SEC title, including a late fourth-quarter interception. But even Everette knew there was someone more deserving of that particular award.
“No respect to Daylen — I love Daylen, he had a big game and got the MVP — Trevor Etienne was the MVP,” Smart said after the players had left the interview room on the ground floor at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
MVP voting had to be cast before regulation ended in Saturday’s game. As it turned out, the contest didn’t end until after an overtime period. Not only did Etienne score the game-winning points with a 4-yard touchdown in extra time, he finished as both the leading rusher and leading receiver.
Etienne had 94 yards and two touchdowns on 16 rushing attempts, and he added another five catches for 28 yards. Or, put another way, finishing with 122 yards on 22 touches, he accounted for 44% of Georgia’s offense Saturday.
This after missing the past three games with a rib injury and clearing himself to play in this one.
“He came to me this week and said, ‘Coach, I want to play this game,” Smart shared after the game. “He said, ‘I came to this school because I want to win a championship.’”
Smart said Etienne later shared his feelings with the entire team.
“He told them, ‘I don’t know how you feel about this game because I haven’t been here. Y’all have played in it a lot, and I haven’t. But I want to play in this game. This game means something to me. I want to win this championship. It’s part of the reason I came here. I want to win a SEC championship.’ He spoke from the heart. I knew right then, this dude is going to play.”
Etienne was still beaming an hour after the leaving the confetti-covered field.
“It’s not about the touchdowns,” Etienne said. “It’s about what those touchdowns mean. It was a huge win tonight and I was just glad to say I was part of it.”
Nobody was sure if Etienne would participate. Smart’s never one not to take advantage of a little gamesmanship. Listed as “questionable” all week in the SEC’s availability report, Etienne suddenly disappeared from the final report posted 90 minutes before Saturday’s kickoff.
A 5-foot-9, 210-pound junior transfer from Florida, Etienne did not start Saturday. But he entered the game on Georgia’s second offensive possession and immediately touched the ball on two of the first three plays.
Georgia mostly was stymied in the first half, and so was Etienne. But he finally started to find some room to run after Gunner Stockton entered the game in the third quarter and the Bulldogs’ zone-read scheme started to show some life.
“I kind of just talked to him about what we’re saying up front, how the linebackers are playing on the combos, stuff like that,” senior guard Tate Ratledge. “I was trying to keep him confident and trust in us knowing one eventually is going to spit.”
Etienne jetted around right end for eight yards on his first carry of the second half and scored from 10 yards out on his second nearly four minutes later.
Finally, late in the third quarter, that “spit” Ratledge was anticipating finally came. Etienne took a zone-read handoff from Stockton and bounced it outside for a 48-yard gain. He wouldn’t have any more long ones like that, but the damage to the Texas psyche and defensive scheme was done. Suddenly, those play-action fakes became much more convincing.
“When he can play, he plays physical,” Smart said. “He’s got cuts. We got good backs, but he made some special runs tonight that gave us some juice and energy. He took some pressure off of Gunner.”
Between Etienne, Nate Frazier and Cash Jones, the Bulldogs finally outrushed an opponent. They would finish with 37 carries for 141 yards on the ground to 31 yards on 28 carries for the Longhorns.
In the end, that made all the difference. And for that, no one was more valuable on this night than Trevor Etienne.
“I wanted this one bad,” Etienne told reporters after the game. “A lot of these guys have been to the SEC championship, the national championship; I’ve never been to anything like that. I told them about the bowl game I went to in Las Vegas (with Florida) and they were looking at me like I was crazy. So, yeah man, I wanted this one bad. Words can’t explain how much I wanted to win this game.”
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