Mark Richt’s last incredible Georgia team threw us off the scent. The 2012 Bulldogs began 5-0, trouncing Missouri and Vanderbilt and eking past Tennessee in a shootout but got destroyed at No. 6 South Carolina in early October, and that was supposedly that.
5 years later, Georgia’s looking for those 5 final yards against Alabama in Atlanta
Sometimes symbolism is subtle. Sometimes it bops you over the head. Let’s get it on.
Photo by Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images
This would be another disappointingly successful season in Athens, one that burnished Richt’s reputation as one of the school’s best-ever coaches while further convincing Dawg fans that he’d never get over the hump. UGA barely got by a terrible Kentucky the next week for good measure.
But then the Dawgs beat No. 3 Florida in Jacksonville, getting 118 yards from Todd Gurley and a long fourth-quarter score from Malcolm Mitchell. In November, they outscored four overmatched foes by a combined 162-34. South Carolina losing to LSU and Florida was enough to secure the SEC East title and set up a BCS play-in game between No. 2 Alabama and the No. 3 Dawgs in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.
It was the best game of 2012 and one of my favorite college football games ever.
The game was already guaranteed a spot in the top three or four of this list before the final minute. Bama’s Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon had rushed for 334 yards and three touchdowns, Georgia had already put up an incredible fight, and Alabama’s Amari Cooper had already scored what felt like the SEC title clinching 45-yard touchdown with 3:15 remaining. But Georgia got the ball with 1:08 left, and we witnessed one of the most dramatic minutes in college football’s history.
Georgia had used a fake punt to set up the first touchdown, but Alabama took a 10-7 halftime lead with a touchdown, a Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix interception, and a late field goal. Georgia rode Gurley for a 75-yard touchdown drive to start the third quarter, and then Alec Ogletree returned a blocked field goal for a touchdown and a sudden 21-10 UGA lead.
Alabama scored, forced a three-and-out, and scored again early in the fourth quarter, but Georgia responded with a 45-yard pass from Aaron Murray to Tavarres King and a 10-yard Gurley score. The Dawgs got the ball, up 28-25 with seven minutes left and a chance to put the game away, but Jesse Williams and Brandon Ivory stuffed Gurley on third-and-short, and just three plays after the ensuing punt, AJ McCarron and Cooper connected for the aforementioned 45-yarder.
After two punts, Georgia got one last chance with no timeouts left, and damned if the Dawgs didn’t nearly pull a miracle. Murray found Arthur Lynch for 15 yards, King for 23, and Lynch again for 26.
Lynch’s final catch set UGA up at the Bama 8 with 15 seconds left, but instead of spiking the ball to stop the clock, the Dawgs attempted to take advantage of the reeling defense by running a play. I loved the call. You don’t catch the Tide flat-footed often, and you should milk every advantage when you do.
With nine seconds left, Murray received the snap and attempted to lob the ball to Mitchell, single-covered in the end zone.
But the ball was batted at the line. Receiver Chris Conley turned and saw a ball fluttering in his direction; he instinctively (and hesitantly) caught it but was tackled at the 5, and time expired:
Bama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart was the first coach onto the field to celebrate with his exhausted, relieved players:
The Crimson Tide would whomp Notre Dame a month later — just as Georgia would have probably done with 5 more yards in Atlanta — to secure Nick Saban’s third national title in four years.
Georgia returned a boatload of difference-makers in 2013, but most of them got hurt in a disappointing 8-5 campaign. Gurley exploded out of the gates in 2014, but his season was derailed by NCAA suspension and injury, and despite Nick Chubb’s emergence, the Dawgs missed another trip to Atlanta because of a surprising blowout loss to Florida.
Near the end of another disappointingly successful season in 2015 — 10-3, but with more key injuries and blowout losses to Bama and Florida — Richt was let go.
Georgia brought Smart, an alum, to town in the hopes of building a Bama.
Five years and one month ago, Georgia and Alabama played in the de facto national title game a few hundred yards from where Mercedes-Benz Stadium now stands.
Now it’s up to Smart to find 5 extra yards for his alma mater.
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