[gatortalk] RE: [gatornews] Five plays define Georgia's season

[keith]

We could probably pick one play in the Miss game to change - and we would be undefeated. 

 

BUt life does not work like that.  The sooner Georgia realizes that - the sooner they will become winners and not losers.

 

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [gatornews] Five plays define Georgia's season
From: "Oliver Barry" <oba...@haloprop.com>
Date: Wed, December 31, 2008 10:07 am
To: <gatorn...@googlegroups.com>

Five plays that defined Georgia’s season

By CHIP TOWERS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Five plays that have defined Georgia’s season, as the Bulldogs prepare to play Michigan State in the Capital One bowl on Thursday in Orlando:

Defense saves the day

It’s easy to forget more than three months later that without the opportunistic play of Georgia’s defense — and linebacker Rennie Curran in particular — the Bulldogs may have lost their SEC opener.

Georgia clung to a seven-point lead midway through the fourth quarter when South Carolina lined up at the Bulldogs’ 2 and pitched the ball to tailback Mike Davis around left end. Curran shot in from his weakside position and met Davis in midair as he tried to leap over a pile of players. Curran’s hit jarred the football loose and it rolled into the Georgia end zone where Asher Allen pounced on it.

“It looked like a beach ball, a big beach ball covered in gold and diamonds, ” Allen said. “As soon as I saw the ball come out, I knew we had to have it.”

Said coach Mark Richt: “That play by Rennie was huge. That was as big as any play we made all year.”

Penalties make impact

Georgia’s defensive bliss was short-lived because it ended two weeks later against Alabama.

It was in Game 5 that penalties, an annoyance until then, became an issue that has dogged the Bulldogs for the rest of the season.

The Crimson Tide outscored Georgia 31-0 in the first half. But no one can be certain how a Bulldogs’ takeaway on Alabama’s opening drive might have altered the game had it not been nullified by penalty.

“You really don’t know,” Richt sighed. “Every once in a while those early plays can change the entire momentum of a game.”

The play is often remembered by Akeem Dent. Blitzing on a screen pass, he was assessed a personal foul for hitting quarterback John Parker Wilson in the face. The call nullified a fumble recovery. The Tide scored two plays later to take a 7-0 lead.

It was one of seven penalties against Georgia, including another 15-yarder on that opening drive.

“I think about it all the time,” said Dent, who still believes it was a bad call by the officials. “You never know how the game would have went if we had gotten possession right there. We go down and score there the game probably would have been a lot different.”

But, as Dent added, “It is what it is now.”

Momentous turnaround

When a game is lost by nearly six touchdowns it’s hard to imagine one play making a difference. But Georgia-Florida was still close in the third quarter before the tide turned.

Georgia had driven from its 2 to the Gators’ 29 when the game-defining moment occurred. Quarterback Matthew Stafford, trying to hit an open A.J. Green on a deep flag pattern, came up woefully short. Florida’s Joe Haden intercepted and returned it 88 yards before being run out at Georgia’s 1 by Mohamed Massaquoi. The Gators scored on the next play to extend their lead to 21-3. The Bulldogs committed three more turnovers on their next four possessions and the rout was on.

Stafford, who threw three interceptions, called that pass his worst of the season.

“That kind of put us in a hole,” Stafford said. “We were down 21-3 instead of, at worst, being down 14-6 if we kick a field goal in that situation. So that’s the worst of the year.”

Dobbs saves the day

While other coaches are getting raises and contract extensions after 9-3 seasons, few toasts are being raised in Athens. But imagine how ugly it might be had Demarcus Dobbs not come up with a last-minute interception against Kentucky.

The Wildcats, trailing by four, had driven 50 yards in less than a minute and had a first down at Georgia’s 13 when Dobbs made the defensive play of the season. The defensive end leapt and intercepted with one hand a screen pass from Kentucky’s Randall Cobb with 46 seconds remaining.

If Dobbs doesn’t make that play the Bulldogs probably aren’t in Orlando this week.

“Yeah, sometimes you think about that,” Dobbs said. “But it’s a team game and a lot of things have to happen to make an interception.”

Dobbs’ play was preceded by another play of the year. Stafford hit A.J. Green on the back line of the end zone with a high pass under a heavy rush that ended up being the game-winner with 1:54 to play.

Stafford called that his best pass of the year.

“That was kind of to win the game,” he said. “Obviously our defense had to make a stop to finalize it, but that put us ahead.”

Flood gates open

Georgia gave up 409 yards rushing to Georgia Tech and that’s why it lost. But the point when the Bulldogs lost control came on special teams.

After Tech tied the game at 28 midway through the third quarter, Georgia freshman Richard Samuel fumbled the ensuing kickoff return as he was being tackled. Tech’s Marcus Wright recovered at the Bulldogs’ 23. The Jackets’ Jonathan Dwyer scored on the next play.

“Yeah, I knew it was important, ” Samuel said when asked this week about the fumble. “I just remember I was going down and somehow it came out. I’m still not sure what happened.”

Said Richt: “That was tough on him. We all knew he felt bad about it. But I’m just going to love him, you know? He knows that it’s important to hang onto the ball. It just came out.”

 

 

Oliver Barry, CRS, GRI

Real Estate Broker

Halo Realty, LLC

700 E. Main St.

Hendersonville TN 37075

oba...@haloprop.com

office: 615-822-3509

fax: 615-822-7741

mobile: 615-972-4239

 

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