In what might have been the most anticipated game of the 2024 college football season, the sport’s preeminent program over the past several years was able to come away with a victory.
Behind a dominant defensive line and three rushing touchdowns from Trevor Etienne, No. 4 Georgia went on the road and handed No. 1 Texas its first loss of the season in a 30-15 win Saturday night in a matchup of top-five teams at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin.
Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs set the tone early, holding what had been a potent Longhorns offense to just 38 total yards and no points in the first half to go into halftime carrying a 23-0 lead.
REQUIRED READING:Opinion: Georgia mauls No. 1 Texas while restoring life to season and order to the SEC
Texas cut into the deficit in the third quarter, scoring a pair of touchdowns to get within eight points, 23-15. The second of those came after a bizarre sequence in which a Jahdae Barron interception of a Carson Beck pass was overruled due to pass interference, but after a lengthy delay prompted by angry Texas fans throwing beer bottles on the field, the officials reversed the call, giving the Longhorns the ball at the Georgia 9-yard line. Two plays later, Texas found the end zone.
The Bulldogs were able to withstand the charge, mounting an 89-yard scoring drive on their ensuing possession to go back up by two scores.
Georgia was able to get pressure on Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers throughout the night and finished the game with seven sacks. Late in the second quarter, and with his team trailing by 20, Ewers was benched for redshirt freshman Arch Manning, who remained in for two possessions and finished with 19 passing yards while completing three of his six attempts. Ewers was put back into the game by coach Steve Sarkisian to begin the second half.
The Bulldogs were able to seal the victory with some timely plays. They ended four Texas drives in the final 20 minutes with fourth-down stops, each of which occurred in Georgia territory. The Longhorns finished the night one of five on fourth down and two of 14 on third down.
“I’m so proud of these guys,” Smart said to ESPN’s Katie George after the game. “Nobody believed. Nobody gave us a chance. Your whole network doubted us. Nobody believed us, then they tried to rob us with calls in this place. These guys are so resilient. We talked about intent. What was our intent when we walked on the field. Our intent was not to take pictures, not to do all the superstar stuff. Our intent was to eat. Our intent was to come eat and be hungry. I’m not interested in all the bells and whistles. What I want is a team that fights their a—off. And they did tonight.”
With the victory, the Bulldogs have repositioned themselves firmly in the SEC championship race, with a 6-1 record heading into the second of their two bye weeks this season. Texas, too, remains in the hunt for a conference title and a berth in the College Football Playoff, but with Saturday’s setback, its road got just a little narrower.
Here’s a look at the score, updates and highlights from Georgia’s victory over Texas:
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The Bulldogs get one final fourth-down stop, getting pressure on Quinn Ewers and forcing an incomplete pass on fourth-and-6 from the Georgia 11 to get the ball back and secure the win.
Coach Kirby Smart’s team moves to 6-1 while Texas falls to 6-1.
The Longhorns get a stop on fourth-and-1 for Georgia from its own 40-yard line, stuffing Trevor Etienne for no gain. Trailing by 15 with 2:13 remaining, Texas will take over, 40 yards from the end zone.
Longhorns still have one timeout remaining, along with the two-minute timeout, but they will need a touchdown and an onside kick recovery to remain in the game.
For the third time this half, the Bulldogs deny the Longhorns on what would have been a much-needed third-down conversion. Georgia blitzed Quinn Ewers on a fourth-and-12 from the Bulldogs’ 29-yard line, with Ewers finding Ryan Wingo, who falls who yards short of the sticks. Texas has only one successful fourth-down conversion on four attempts today.
Georgia takes over at its own 19. Anything can happen, as college football so often shows us, but that should about seal it with only 5:26 left.
The Bulldogs have now had players ejected for targeting on consecutive drives. This time, it’s Joenel Aguero, who is flagged for a hit on Quintrevion Wisner.
After the fourth-down stop, Georgia is only able to drain 36 seconds off the clock with a three-and-out. A Brett Thorson 54-yard punt goes into the end zone, with Texas taking over at its own 20-yard line with 9:27 left.
Time is ticking on the Longhorns, but they’ve still got a chance.
Facing a fourth-and-6 from their own 42-yard line, the Bulldogs force their fourth turnover of the game. This time, Mykel Williams gets behind Quinn Ewers and strips him of the ball before he can get a pass off.
Georgia recovers the ball at its own 44 with 10:23 left and a chance to bleed some precious clock.
Georgia defensive back Dan Jackson, a key piece in the Bulldogs’ secondary, has been ejected from the game for targeting on a hit on Matthew Golden after a catch.
The penalty gets Texas to the Georgia 46-yard line.
With the game starting to slip away from it, Georgia has an answer when it needed it the most.
The Bulldogs go 89 yards in 11 plays, capped off by a 1-yard Trevor Etienne touchdown run on fourth down.
The key play for Georgia came on a third-and-10 from its own 11, when Carson Beck connected with Arian Smith for a 21-yard pickup. The following snap, the Bulldogs ran a flea flicker, with Beck finding Oscar Delp for a 43-yard gain.
What could have very easily been a three-and-out ends with Georgia stretching its lead to two possessions with 12:04 left in regulation.
The quarter ends with Texas within eight, but Georgia has marched down to the Longhorns’ 23-yard line with a chance to extend its lead to two possessions.
We have a ballgame again. After getting dropped for a loss of eight yards on the first play of the drive, Quinn Ewers finds Jaydon Blue across the middle for a 17-yard touchdown.
Steve Sarkisian opts for the extra point, which brings the Longhorns within eight, 23-15.
In a stunning turn of events, the officials gathered together during the delay and overturned the pass interference penalty that was called the previously play on Jahdae Barron. Pass interference calls are not reviewable.
Texas takes over at the Georgia 9-yard line. Kirby Smart, as you might expect, is irate.
A potential game-changing moment just unfolded, with Carson Beck throwing an interception to Jahdae Barron, who returned it to the Georgia 9-yard line, but the play is canceled out by a pass interference call on Barron. Based on the replay, it looked pretty questionable, with contact between Barron and Bulldogs receiver Arian Smith.
The ESPN crew, including rules analyst Bill LeMonnier, doesn’t believe it should have been called.
The game is currently in a delay as beer bottles thrown on the field by Texas students and fans.
Texas’ second drive of the second half appeared just as promising as its first, with the Longhorns going 67 yards on seven plays all the way to the Georgia 29-yard line. From there, though, the Longhorns are stuffed on third-and-5 and a Quinn Ewers pass to Isaiah Bond on fourth-and-6 is broken up by Georgia.
Bulldogs will take over at their own 31 with 4:22 remaining.
The Longhorns continue what has been an encouraging (and necessary) start to the second half, forcing a Georgia punt. The Bulldogs made the most of the special teams play, though, with Brett Thorson drilling a 55-yard punt and a Texas penalty pushing the Longhorns back to their own 3-yard line, where they’ll take over with 8:08 left in the third quarter.
It took 34 minutes, but Texas is, at last, on the board.
After converting a 4th-and-1 from the Georgia 46-yard line, the Longhorns march up the field and, after a pass interference call on an incomplete pass on third down, get a touchdown when Quinn Ewers find Isaiah Bond for a 2-yard score.
Down by 23, Steve Sarkisian opts to go for two, a decision that pays off when Ewers and Bond connect again. Texas trails 23-8 with 10:57 remaining in the third quarter.
After being taken out of the game for a couple of drives, Quinn Ewers is back in for Texas at quarterback, taking over for Arch Manning. He’ll have good field position, too, with a Georgia squib kick getting recovered by the Longhorns at their own 45-yard line to open the second half.
With the Bulldogs holding a commanding 23-0 lead, here’s a look at the first half stats from Georgia’s game against Texas:
In short, it’s pretty lopsided.
The Bulldogs are able to get some points out of the Arch Manning strip sack, with Peyton Woodring making his third field goal of the evening, this one right down the middle from 44 yards, to push Georgia’s lead to 23-0 heading into halftime.
Kirby Smart’s team absolutely dominated the opening 30 minutes.
Texas appeared to, at last, be generating some offensive momentum, with Arch Manning leading the team into Georgia territory. However, sacks on back-to-back plays pushed the Longhorns back.
The second of those sacks was costlier than the first. Before Manning could get his arm moving forward, Damon Wilson II was able to strip the young Texas quarterback, with the Bulldogs recovering the ball at the Texas 30-yard line with 25 seconds remaining.
After scoring on four consecutive drives, Georgia is finally forced to punt by Texas. The Longhorns stuff Trevor Etienne on a 3rd-and-1 from the Georgia 29-yard line coming out of the two-minute timeout.
A 49-yard punt from the Bulldogs gives Texas the ball at the Georgia 20 with 1:43 remaining in the first half.
A move that had been teased minutes earlier has come to fruition.
Arch Manning, the much-hyped Texas redshirt freshman quarterback and the nephew of Peyton and Eli Manning, has come into the game to replace Quinn Ewers, with the Longhorns faithful in Austin expressing its approval of the move.
A facemask penalty on a Manning rushing attempt gets Texas up to its own 45-yard line, but the drive ends up stalling, with the Longhorns not getting past their own 48. Texas ends up punting the ball into the end zone, with Georgia taking over at its 20 and with about three minutes remaining in the half.
Another field goal from Peyton Woodring, this one from 48 yards out, pushes the Georgia lead to 20-0 with about five minutes remaining in the second quarter.
After yet another three-and-out leads to a Texas punt, the most famous backup quarterback in college football, Arch Manning, is warming up on the Longhorns’ sideline.
Quinn Ewers is just 6 of 12 for 17 yards while the Texas offense has 15 total yards.
The Bulldogs now have 14 points off of Texas turnovers. A 17-yard pass from Carson Beck to Dominic Lovett gets Georgia down to the Texas 15-yard line and from there, Trevor Etienne caps off the short drive with authority, running through the teeth of the Longhorns’ defense and stretching out at the goal line for a 15-yard touchdown run.
Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs are now up 17-0. It will be interesting to see how Texas, which hasn’t been in anything close to this position this season, will respond.
With the game already starting to get away from it, Texas has perhaps its worst mistake of the night. Quinn Ewers is off target on a pass to Matthew Golden, which lands right in the arms of Georgia’s Daylen Everette, who forced the fumble on Ewers in the first quarter that set up the Bulldogs’ touchdown.
Georgia will take over at the Texas 34-yard line with an opportunity to tighten its grip on the game.
The Bulldogs are able to get something out of Evans’ return and the excellent starting field position it offered them. Georgia goes just 13 yards in seven plays, but it’s more than enough to set up Peyton Woodring for a 33-yard field goal.
A holding penalty on the kickoff not only negated a 64-yard return for Texas, but it pushed the Longhorns back to their own eight-yard line. Texas isn’t able to generate much of anything in the shadow of its own end zone, going three and out.
Worse yet for coach Steve Sarkisian’s team, Georgia’s Anthony Evans III returned the ensuing punt 19 yards to the Texas 28.
The Longhorns have just 14 yards of total offense on their first four drives.
The Bulldogs make the most of Texas’ costly turnover, with Trevor Etienne taking the pitch from Beck bouncing out to the right for a two-yard touchdown for the first score.
This marks the first time all season that the Longhorns have trailed by more than a field goal.
On a third down from the Texas 28-yard line, Quinn Ewers is drilled from his blind side by Georgia’s Daylen Everette and coughs up the ball, with the Bulldogs recovering it after a long, sloppy series of attempts from both teams to secure possession.
Georgia takes over at the Texas 13 with an outstanding opportunity to score.
There have already been three turnovers between the two teams.
Not even 12 minutes into the game, Carson Beck already has two interceptions for Georgia.
The second of those miscues wasn’t his fault, as it hit off the hands of Lawson Luckie before floating in the air and getting picked off by Texas’ Jahdae Barron.
It might end up being costlier, though, as it came deep in Texas territory with Barron securing the ball at the Longhorns’ five-yard line. Georgia had put together a nine-play, 62-yard drive before the interception that had it in position for, at the very least, a short field goal.
On a second down from his team’s own 23-yard line, Bulldogs quarterback Carson Beck throws an errant pass that ends up in the arms of Texas’ Andrew Mukuba at the Georgia 42.
It’s Beck’s sixth interception in seven games this season.
The mistake only ends up having so much of an impact, though, as the Longhorns end up gaining only a single yard before punting it back to Georgia, which will take over at its own 20 after a touchback.
Carson Beck and the Bulldogs managed just four yards on their first drive. A 58-yard punt from Brett Thorson, however, pins Texas back at its own 13-yard line, where the Longhorns will get to work.
Texas looks as though it will have one of its most important and productive players for Saturday’s matchup with Georgia.
Isaiah Bond, the Longhorns’ leading receiver, is no longer listed on the SEC availability report and was on the field for pre-game warmups.
This season, Bond has 21 catches for 369 yards and three touchdowns, all of which are team highs.
Georgia offensive lineman Tate Ratledge was listed on the SEC’s availability report Friday as probable. In the hours leading up to the contest, though, his status has been changed to a game-time decision.
Among the celebrities at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin for Saturday’s game is a familiar face to any football fan.
Former NFL star quarterback Drew Brees is on the field before the game. Though he didn’t attend either school, Brees grew up in the Austin area and was a star at Westlake High School, a Texas prep powerhouse that has also produced Justin Tucker and Nick Foles, among others.
Here’s a look at how the panel on ESPN’s “College GameDay” picked the Georgia-Texas game to unfold, with Kirk Herbstreit abstaining from a prediction since he’ll be calling Saturday night’s game on ABC:
The Bulldogs will be going with their traditional road uniform Saturday at Texas — white jerseys, gray pants and red helmets.
One of the burning off-the-field questions entering Saturday’s game was whether Georgia’s famous live bulldog mascot, Uga, would be making the trip to Austin for a potential reunion with Bevo, Texas’ live longhorn mascot, after the two squared off at the 2019 Sugar Bowl.
The answer to that question is no, with Uga’s handler, Charles Seiler, telling the Athens Banner-Herald that the beloved bulldog would not be on his way to Texas.
“This dog is only two and two months,” Seiler said. “He hadn’t been on a plane yet, hadn’t been on a bus yet. The trip is just too far for us.”
The game between the Longhorns and Bulldogs will air on ABC. Chris Fowler (play-by-play) and Kirk Herbstreit (analyst) will be on the call while Katie George serves as the sideline reporter. Streaming options for the game include the ESPN app, ESPN+ and Fubo, the last of which offers a free trial to potential subscribers.
Texas and Georgia are scheduled to kick off at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 19 at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin.
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Thomas Jones, Austin American-Statesman: Texas 35, Georgia 27
“For whatever reason, the Bulldogs haven’t played up their usual high standards on defense. A trip to Austin to face a red-hot Longhorn squad isn’t the best way to get things right.“
Marc Weiszer, Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia 27, Texas 26
“Texas is off to its first 6-0 start since 2009, but it hasn’t played a team currently in the top 20 of the ESPN SP+ rankings. The Bulldogs are the more desperate team after stumbling at Alabama, but that could work both ways. Going with Texas is probably the smart move, but this pick is made mostly in faith that Georgia will summon its best game with some of its top playmakers rising up. Smart has squeezed that out of his team too often in the past.“
Bill Bender, The Sporting News: Texas 30, Georgia 24
“The Bulldogs have been an underdog just twice under Kirby Smart, and that is a dangerous game. The Longhorns have been the more complete team this season. Texas ranks in the top 10 in scoring offense and scoring defense. Georgia has forced just five turnovers this season, and the Bulldogs have not had a consistent running game. Texas averages 5.1 yards per rushing attempt, and if they can get four yards or more the Bulldogs will be trouble. The underdog has covered in both top-five showdowns this season. We still like the Longhorns by a TD.“
Game lines and odds from BetMGM as of Thursday, Oct. 17
According to a forecast from the Weather Channel, it will be clear on Saturday night in Austin, with the temperature dropping down to a low of 59. Winds will be blowing east at five to 10 miles per hour, with a 3% chance of rain.
REQUIRED READING:Opinion: No. 1 Texas football here to devour Georgia, even if Kirby Smart anointed king
Here’s a look at Texas’ full 2024 football schedule, along with available kickoff times and television information:
All times Eastern.
* Denotes SEC game
Here’s a look at Georgia’s full 2024 football schedule, along with available kickoff times and television information:
All times Eastern.
* Denotes SEC game
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