ATHENS — This one’s going to hurt for a while.
Ahead by 17 points at the half, by 14 with four minutes left in regulation, Georgia Tech tasted the most bitter of defeats.
And instead of sweet, sweet victory over a most hated rival, instead of stunning a national power for whom a win Friday was widely assumed, the Yellow Jackets and their fan base once again have only heartbreak.
What if Tech could have converted a fourth-and-1 (or a third-and-1) from the Georgia 25 early on? What if the Jackets hadn’t missed a 25-yard field-goal attempt in the second quarter? What if the Tech defense could have made only one play to stop any of Georgia’s three fourth-quarter touchdown drives? What if the Jackets could have converted a first down after taking possession of the ball with 3:33 left in regulation and leading 27-20?
What if Tech could have scored on either of the two overtime periods when it had the ball second after a failed Bulldogs attempt and could have ended the game with a successful two-point conversion?
What if, what if, what if?
No. 7 Georgia 44, Georgia Tech 42, eight overtimes.
For the seventh consecutive meeting, the Jackets fell to their in-state rivals, this time in a fashion that was like a gut punch followed by a kick to the face and finished off with strangers barking loudly in their face.
But what ought not be forgotten in such a crushing defeat was the incontrovertible evidence that Tech has become a team to be reckoned with — in college football, in the ACC and undoubtedly in the state of Georgia.
It took Georgia, a national championship contender playing in front of its vaunted home crowd — where it hadn’t lost in its past 30 games — eight overtimes to survive its archrival’s upset attempt. Only once in college football history have two teams played more overtimes, a nine-overtime game between Illinois and Penn State in 2021. That was the degree to which Georgia and Tech were evenly matched.
This at the end of a regular season in which the Jackets beat two top-10 teams, won more regular-season games (seven) than they had won since 2018 and earned back-to-back bowl bids for the first time since their 18-year bowl streak ended in the 2015 season.
If Georgia goes on to win the national title, the Bulldogs and their fan base will have to look upon that late November night at Sanford Stadium and feel thankful (and perhaps lucky) that the Jackets didn’t have one more play in them.
It was so, so close. Entering the game as 17-point underdogs, the Yellow Jackets took control of the game from the start. They drove into Georgia territory on their first five possessions, twice scoring touchdowns, while forcing two punts, a turnover, a fourth-down stop and a missed field-goal attempt in Georgia’s first five times with the ball. They led 17-0 at the half, the first time the Bulldogs had been held scoreless through halftime since 2019.
If anyone had doubted Tech’s capacity to take down the Bulldogs before kickoff, the time for disbelief had passed.
Tech continued to control the game into the third quarter, with the Jackets answering two Georgia touchdown drives with a field goal and a touchdown. Quarterback Haynes King, his right (throwing) shoulder in much better health than it had been in Tech’s previous two games when his passing ability was severely limited, was at his gritty playmaking best.
When he ran in a keeper from 11 yards out that (along with an Aidan Birr point-after try) put the Jackets up 27-13 with 5:37 to play in regulation, it seemed safe for Tech fans to start to celebrate. Indeed, Georgia fans began to leave Sanford Stadium, their expectations of victory dashed.
But, as is the history of this one-sided rivalry, the talented Bulldogs had the final say. Georgia drove 75 yards for a touchdown to cut the lead to 27-20 with 3:39 left in the fourth quarter, then forced a fumble out of King on a fateful third-and-1 carry from the Tech 31. It followed another “what if?” — a King pass to receiver Abdul Janneh on second-and-13 in which Janneh was forced out of bounds just shy of the marker.
Georgia exploited the mistake and tied the score with a 32-yard touchdown drive that finished with 1:01 left in the fourth quarter.
In the wildest back-and-forth struggle in overtime, Georgia and Tech could not be separated, stuck to each other like magnets bound by titanium and sealed in a vacuum. Seven overtimes could not yield a winner.
The two teams matched touchdowns and extra points (first overtime), then touchdowns and failed mandatory two-point tries (second overtime), then failed two-point conversion tries (third and fourth overtimes), then successful conversions (fifth overtime), then failed conversions (sixth and seventh overtimes). The seventh had a now-or-never feel for the Jackets.
Going first, Georgia was stopped on a Carson Beck keeper when the Bulldogs borrowed from the Tech playbook with a fake toss by Beck and a run up the middle, a King staple. He was stopped short by safety Omar Daniels. Tech could now win with a conversion from the 3-yard line.
Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner dug deep from his own cache of plays, lining up both offensive tackles and both guards near the sideline. The resulting pass play yielded a pass interference against Georgia and now the Jackets had the ball at the 1½-yard line. If the Jackets could just punch it in from 54 inches out, victory would be theirs.
But King, carrying after a fake handoff, was tackled well of the goal line.
And in the eighth overtime, Georgia finally prevailed. King threw incomplete to receiver Eric Singleton Jr. and then Bulldogs running back Nate Frazier scored on a run up the middle.
In the first minutes of Saturday morning, game (finally) over.
Some Tech players walked straight to the locker room. King, who had played so valiantly, graciously wandered through the field finding Bulldogs players to congratulate before heading back to the locker room.
There is one consolation for Tech and its fan base. Tech must have Georgia’s full attention now. It already had Smart’s. He has seen his colleague Key build this program and claim recruits that the Bulldogs have gone after, something that hasn’t always happened in this state.
“This rivalry is good for our state, and that’s what Brent and I shared before the game and after the game,” Smart said.
Where recent Tech-Georgia meetings have been so one-sided in the red team’s favor that it barely seemed like a rivalry and losses nothing to lose sleep over, that’s no longer the case.
But on this cold night, that might have been about it.
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