ATHENS — Georgia converted on fourth down, and Auburn didn’t.
It might not seem like it by the 31-13 final score, but that essentially was the difference between the two storied SEC football programs as they renewed the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry for the 129th time Saturday night at Sanford Stadium.
Trailing by 11 points on the first play of the fourth quarter, the Tigers lost four yards on fourth-and-1 at their own 44. A little over nine minutes later, Trevor Etienne managed a yard – just barely – for the Bulldogs to convert on fourth-and-1 at their own 34. That allowed Georgia effectively to run out the clock and ultimately add three points in what was a harder-than-it-looked win.
“A resilient, hard-fought SEC win, and those are hard to come by,” a giddy Kirby Smart said in his postgame press conference.” I said when (Auburn) doesn’t turn the ball over, they’re really tough to stop. Well, they didn’t turn to ball over.”
The victory extended the Bulldogs’ national-best, 27-game home win streak and was their eighth consecutive over the Tigers. The eight wins in a row over Auburn is the second most in the 132-year-old, dating to Georgia’s nine-game run from 1923-31.
Etienne was the ball carrier on Georgia’s two biggest 1-yard gains of the night. The first saw him barely break the plane of the end zone on third-and-goal with 3:50 remaining in the third quarter. That play stood after a video review.
Four minutes later, Raylen Wilson tackled Auburn quarterback Payton Thorne for a 4-yard loss on fourth-and-1 at the Tigers’ 40 six seconds into the fourth quarter. Fast-forward to the final 5:20 of the game and Etienne was good for 1-yard again on fourth-and-1 at the Bulldogs’ 34. Again, he barely made it.
That’s three critical fourth-down plays. The Bulldogs converted both of theirs and Auburn was 0-for-1.
Etienne, a junior and a first-year transfer from Florida, shared a long embrace with Smart as the two off them walked off Dooley Field after the game.
“I feel like Coach believes in all of us,” said Etienne, who led the Bulldogs with a season-high 88 yards on 16 carries and added 36 yards on six receptions. “That’s why he pushes us and coaches us hard throughout the week. You know, he shows you how much love he has for you each game.”
Said Smart: “We won situational football tonight.
“We won situational football,” Smart said.
The opposite certainly was true when it came to the Tigers. Georgia’s Dan Jackson blocked Towns McGough’s 54-yard field-goal attempt at the end of a first half after the Bulldogs managed to score a touchdown in the final 45 seconds.
After losing 30 yards to get pushed out of the red zone late in the fourth quarter, Georgia managed to get much of it back and cash in with a 47-yard Peyton Woodring field goal.
Ultimately, the Bulldogs won all the critical moments.
Case in point, it still was anybody’s ballgame when the third quarter transitioned to the fourth. At that point, the Tigers were trailing 21-10 and faced fourth-and-1 at their own 44.
Desperate to secure is first SEC victory of his second season at Auburn, coach Hugh Freeze decided to go for it. But in his team’s biggest moment, quarterback Payton Thorne adlibbed. He checked into a zone-read keeper when the call from the sideline was a dive for running back Jarquez Hunter.
Georgia linebacker tackled Thorne for a 4-yard loss, and the Bulldogs took over on downs.
“Yeah, he absolutely didn’t go with what we called,” Freeze said. “Payton is a thinker. He knows football. He decided to run some type of zone-read there. I think everybody was a little confused.”
Hunter led the Tigers with 91 yards rushing on 13 carries. Thorne was 16-of-27 passing for 200 yards but was sacked three times.
Two minutes and 20 seconds after that fateful moment, the Bulldogs effectively put the game away. Carson Beck would need only five plays to navigate the 40 yards, with Dominic Lovett and Cash Jones covering 30 of that on back-to-back pass receptions. Dillon Bell then gave Georgia a three-score lead when he caught Beck’s hard-thrown pass on a slant for a 3-yard touchdown. The point-after kick made the score 28-10 with 12:34 to play.
On Georgia’s last offensive possession of the game, Smart surprised everybody when he had the Bulldogs go for a first down on fourth-and-1 at their own 34. Etienne’s dive at right guard didn’t go much more than 36 inches.
“At that point of the game, you get a first down and you’re starting to get close to where the time starts running out, you make them use their timeouts,” said Beck, who finished with 240 yards and two touchdowns on 23-of-29 passing. You get that fourth down, the game is almost over. It’s a big momentum shift in our favor. It was a great call by coach Smart to go for it.”
Georgia was far from dominant in the opening half, but an ideal ending to the second quarter allowed the Bulldogs to carry a 14-3 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Georgia was on the move late in the second quarter and was deep in Auburn territory when a holding call on left guard Dylan Fairchild nullified a long run by Etienne deep into the Tigers’ red zone. When Beck was sacked against a three-man rush on the next play, it looked like the Bulldogs’ scoring chances in the first half had ended with a scant 7-3 lead.
But then punter Brett Thorson came through with another special-teams gem. His 40-yard punt pinned the Tigers at their own 3 on the ensuing possession. Georgia forced a punt, and shrewd use of their first-half timeouts gave the Bulldogs to ball back at midfield with 1:02 still remaining.
Turns out that was plenty of time to score another touchdown. After 29 yards in gains from Etienne on a 23-yard run and 6-yard reception, Beck hooked up with Lovett and a quick-hitch pattern on the left hash, which Lovett was able to convert into an 11-yard touchdown and a 14-3 lead.
Georgia almost scored too quickly. Helped by a personal-foul penalty against the Bulldogs on the ensuing kickoff, the Tigers took over at midfield and managed to end up with a 54-yard field-goal attempt with two seconds remaining. But Jackson blocked the attempt, and the Bulldogs were able to adjourn to locker room with a two-score lead.
“Our identity, to me, is resiliency,” Bulldogs defensive lineman Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins said. “That’s one of our core values, but I feel like we’ve really been showing that. With the (Alabama) game last week, we didn’t give up and this week we bounced back. We came back strong.”
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