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Kirby Smart considers apologizing after Georgia escapes Tennessee
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- Kirby Smart considers apologizing after Georgia escapes Tennessee
KNOXVILLE, TN – Josh McCray 's legs kept churning. In a game that saw nearly a thousand yards of offense, the final 3 feet would meet the most resistance.
And the fellas wearing zebra stripes weren't convinced. They thought the Georgia tailback got stopped inches short of the goal line.
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It's a strange sport, this thing called college football , that a game so thrilling could end in replay review. And the review showed what the officials had missed live: McCray's second-down run in overtime penetrated the goal line.
Kirby Smart's Bulldogs celebrated joyously on the Neyland Stadium turf that, minutes earlier, had braced for a possible field-storming by the home fans.
No. 15 Tennessee had multiple opportunities to finish off No. 3 Georgia, but the Bulldogs kept dodging knockout blows.
"I feel almost like we have to apologize," Smart said after Georgia's ninth consecutive win against Tennessee, "because I don't think we should have won that game. They outplayed us in a lot of ways, but that's the way it goes."
Georgia tight end Oscar Delp (4) and offensive lineman Micah Morris (56) celebrate their overtime win against Tennessee at Neyland Stadium.
It's dangerous business to let Smart's team hang around, as shown here again.
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Georgia survived, 44-41 , in a game in which each quarterback played their guts out, and each defense spent too much time looking infirm.
"It's going to hurt," Tennessee defensive lineman Caleb Herring said of the result.
Because, it so easily could have finished differently.
The Vols' usually reliable Max Gilbert missed a 43-yard field goal at the end of regulation that would have won the game. Tennessee had a false start penalty just before the field goal, pushing it back 5 yards.
Oh, the stories the south end zone here could tell.
The night you knew – I mean, really, really knew – Tennessee coach Josh Heupel was for real, a field goal fluttered over the south goal posts. Later, those goal posts succumbed to an exuberant fan base that smoked cigars by the thousands. Alabama and Nick Saban went home a loser.
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Three years later, Gilbert's kick sailed wide, wide, wide right, and the fans in that south end zone went silent.
Overtime awaited, and there would be no fairytale ending for Joey Aguilar , Tennessee's transfer quarterback whom UCLA decided it didn't want as its starter less than five months ago.
Aguilar cooked Smart's defense to the tune of 371 passing yards, four touchdowns and another score on the ground.
Gunner Stockton did some James Beard chef work of his own. In his first career road start, playing in one of the nation's most raucous stadiums, which shook on its foundation in the second half, Stockton showed a cool hand.
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Last team with the ball wins? You bet.
Gunner Stockton, Joey Aguilar supply thrills
Who needs Carson Beck ?
The Miami Hurricanes do, but not Georgia.
Stockton kept Georgia's offense counterpunching in a game when the Bulldogs' defense looked out of its depth. He threw for 304 yards and two touchdowns.
"He made some big-time throws," Smart said.
Both quarterbacks did.
Less than five months ago, Tennessee had no starting quarterback. Nico Iamaleava packed his pajama pants and vamoosed to UCLA, where he took a pay cut to play for a bad team close to home and left the Vols in a lurch. UCLA left Aguilar in a pickle. In the winter, Aguilar had transferred from Appalachian State to finish his career playing for the Bruins in his home state.
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UCLA coach DeShaun Foster later decided he wanted Iamaleava, not Aguilar, as his starter. How fortunate for Aguilar. Foster pushed Aguilar right into the arms of an offensive mastermind and a proven quarterback developer.
Aguilar proved a quick study of Heupel's up-tempo offense. In a blur, he had 21 points on the board against a Georgia defense helpless to stop Tennessee in the first quarter.
Fourteen passes, Aguilar threw, in the game's first 15 minutes. Fourteen passes, he completed, looking like Peyton Manning against Kentucky .
Nine months ago, Stockton served as Georgia's backup until Beck's injury in the SEC championship game thrust him into duty. He looked OK then. He didn't look great against Notre Dame in the playoff. He looked sensational in this one, while carving up a vulnerable Tennessee defense.
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Georgia wins on ground in overtime
Mike Bobo's developed several good quarterbacks while spending the better part of the past two decades as Georgia's offensive coordinator, across two different stints. Bobo's latest quarterback looks awfully promising and the picture of steadiness, but there's nothing that delights Georgia fans like a tailback chewing up yardage between the tackles.
A certain five-word phrase can be heard so frequently in Georgia, you'd think it must be the state motto.
Run the damn ball, Bobo.
The pockets of Georgia fans tucked into the stands here could have been only too delighted to see Bobo's game plan to open the second half. Georgia handed the ball off 13 times in 14 plays while marching 75 yards for a touchdown on a drive suited for Herschel Walker.
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Great though Stockton was, he never needed to sling a pass in overtime. His third and final handoff of overtime went to McCray, and Tennessee's defense finally showed some pushback. Not enough.
McCray finished the run with just enough surge, and Georgia showed just enough wriggle to slip out of here battered, but with its undefeated record intact.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer .
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tennessee fails to Georgia survives, Kirby Smart muses apology
