The All-Time Underappreciated Georgia Football Team
Wide Receivers: Amp Arnold and Jimmy Orr
Belue, Walker, Womack and Arnold – flanker Amp Arnold is the forgotten man of the 1980 backfield. But in the most glorious of Georgia football seasons, the Cedar Shoals graduate caught 20 passes for 357 yards to lead the team in receiving.
His final reception was a ten yard square out to give the desperate Bulldogs a first down and keep the Notre Dame offense off the field, allowing Buck Belue to run out the Sugar Bowl clock. Arnold also scored the final 8 points – a touchdown on fourth down and a two-point conversion in the waning moments– to defeat Georgia Tech in 1978. The 29-28 Georgia victory came in what is still the greatest football game ever played in Sanford Stadium.
Jimmy Orr played wide receiver, punted and returned punts for Georgia from 1955 -1957. He led the Dawgs in receiving yards and punt return yards, but he never received all-conference recognition. Orr proved to be one of the finest receivers to leave Georgia for the NFL, playing three seasons for Pittsburg and nine seasons for the Baltimore Colts . In 1958, 1964 and 1968 he led the NFL in yards per catch and was All-Pro each of those years.
Tight End: Richard Appleby
Even though Richard Appleby led Georgia in receiving all three of his varsity seasons, he receives no recognition as a tight end for his efforts. He earned All-SEC honors his junior year but went undrafted. Appleby and his Clarke Central teammate Horace King were part of the first class of African-American players to wear a Georgia football uniform.
After Appleby’s senior year, his high school coach, Weyman Sellers, quipped, “Richard can throw it 100 yards. We thought about lining him up on the goal line and letting him throw it just to scare the other team.” The secret was kept until the ninth game of his junior year when Appleby’s arm, not his hands, won him a spot in Bulldog lore. “Appleby to Washington, 80 yards!”
The easiest of our Underappreciated picks manned the underappreciated offensive line.
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