Georgia State got the signature win that first-year coach Dell McGee needed to start his tenure, and the Panthers did it in dramatic fashion.
After his team blew a 12-point fourth-quarter lead, Georgia State quarterback Christian Veilleux rushed the team downfield and threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to Ted Hurst with 15 seconds remaining Saturday to give the Panthers a 36-32 win over Vanderbilt at Center Parc Stadium.
“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot, but our guys are resilient,” McGee said. “They kept fighting, kept believing and that’s part of a championship football team when you can answer the bell, when you go down and not panic. Those are the things that’s part of our DNA that we’ve got to continue to mold and create.”
Despite numerous close calls against larger schools over the past three years, Georgia State had not beaten a Power Four program since defeating Tennessee in Knoxville five years ago.
It wasn’t easy.
Vanderbilt scored twice in the final three minutes to erase a 29-17 Georgia State lead. Vanderbilt’s A.J. Newberry scored on a 3-yard run with 2:29 left to cut the margin to 29-24 lead.
After the ensuing kickoff landed at the 2 and died, Georgia State was bottled up at its own 8 after Tailique Williams had to pick up the ball and get as many yards as possible.
GSU used three conservative running plays, and Vanderbilt used all of its timeouts to quickly get the ball back at the 39 with 2:03 remaining. Quarterback Diego Pavia – aided by two 15-yard penalties – drove the Commodores into the red zone, where Sedrick Alexander scored on a 1-yard run to take a 36-32 lead with 1:14 remaining.
“The moment they scored, I was like, man, we can win this,” Hurst said.
That’s when Veilleux wrote his name into school lore alongside Dan Ellington, architect of the Tennessee win.
Starting at the 25, Veilleux threw a series of passes to quickly move GSU down the field – a 12-yarder to Williams, a 19-yarder to Hurst, a 14-yarder and a 5-yarder to Williams. With the clock down to 20 second and the Panthers in an uncomfortable range for a field goal, Veilleux got the ball out of his hands in a hurry and hit a well-defended Hurst in stride for the touchdown. Hurst caught the ball and was uncertain he had stayed in bounds, causing him to quietly hand the ball to the official and not do his celebratory dance.
“The call originally wasn’t for Ted to run that go route and coach (Jim) Chaney said, ‘Hey, make him run a fade,’” Veilleux said. “I was like, OK, and I saw they had man-to-man coverage on Ted and I just gave him a chance to make the catch and he made the catch and stayed in bounds.”
Veilleux completed 26 of 41 passes for 269 yards and three touchdowns and ran for a score for Georgia State (2-1). Hurst caught seven passes for 128 yards and two touchdowns, and Dorian Fleming caught six passes for 49 yards. Freddie Brock rushed 15 times for 96 yards.
Vanderbilt (2-1) got 270 yards from Pavia on 18-for-33 passing with two touchdowns. Eli Stowers caught eight passes for 95 yards and one score.
Georgia State got an early break. Kevin Swint roared around the right flank to sack Pavia and knock the ball loose. It bounced around, squirted away and eventually was recovered by GSU’s Izaiah Guy at the 20. But the Panthers stalled and had to settle for Liam Rickman’s 24-yard field goal and a 3-0 lead.
“It was a great way to start a game,” said Swint, who eight tackles, two sacks, two tackles for loss and two pass breakups. “The main objective was to get three turnovers, so it was a great start doing that task.”
GSU appeared to have stopped Vandy on downs at the end of the first quarter when a measurement showed the Commodores were well short of the first down. But during the break, officials went to a video view, reset the yardage and gave Vandy the first down.
It looked like Vandy had a touchdown two plays later, only to have it taken away because of holding. The GSU defense stiffened, and Vandy settled for a 28-yard Brock Taylor field goal to tie the score at 3-3 at 12:28.
GSU’s next drive was extended by a roughing-the-passer penalty. Three plays later Veilleux threw a deep ball to Hurst for a 33-yard touchdown and a 10-3 lead with 7:40 left in the half.
The Panthers got a gift on the ensuing kickoff. Vandy’s Steven Sannieniola muffed Braeden McAlister’s kick and pulled it from the field of play and into the end zone, where he downed it. The result was a safety and a 12-3 lead.
Georgia State couldn’t get points after the free kick, with Rickman missing a 45-yard field-goal attempt at the two-minute warning, and Vandy made the Panthers pay. Pavia drove the Commodores 73 yards in six plays and threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Junior Sherrill, who was standing alone in the back of the end zone. The score cut Georgia State’s lead to 12-10 at the half.
GSU scored on its first possession of the third quarter, again settling for a 45-yard field goal by Rickman, then added a touchdown on a 12-yard pass from Veilleux to Rykeem Laney for a 22-10 lead with 3:23 left in the third quarter.
Vanderbilt got its first points of the second half with 14:07 remaining. Pavia, who had been sacked by Swint on the previous play, connected with Eli Stowers, who broke an ankle tackle and navigated into the end zone for a 16-yard touchdown. That cut Georgia State’s lead to 22-17.
With its lead in danger, Veilleux drove Georgia State on a 78-yard drive that he completed with an 18-yard touchdown run, his longest run of the season and his first touchdown. It gave the Panthers a 29-17 lead with 11:42 remaining.
“We will celebrate it tonight and little bit on Sunday and move on to the next one,” McGee said. “We’ve got nine more guaranteed opportunities, so we’re going to prepare for the next one and just take it from there.”
Georgia State is off next week and returns home on Sept. 28 to play rival Georgia Southern.
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