Georgia football: Top five games played at Sanford Field (1911-1928)
4. 1916 vs. The Citadel
The 1916 season nearly began in a disaster as The Citadel came to Athens and held Georgia to just six points. However, Georgia had their first of five shutout victories of the season to defeat The Citadel 6-0.
Despite the shutout, The Citadel dominated the first half on offense. Georgia managed to stop their drives before The Citadel could reach the end zone and they missed a pair of drop kicks (still legal variation of a field goal).
E.H. Dezendorf and Walter Neville became the heroes of the game with two big plays on Georgia’s only scoring drive. First Neville completed a 15-yard pass to Dezendorf and Dezendorf scored two plays later to give Georgia the decisive 6-0 lead.
Georgia righted the ship the next week with a 26-0 win over Clemson. They followed it with a 21-0 win over Florida. But Georgia succumbed to navy, Auburn and Georgia Tech in three of their final five games to settle for a 6-3 season.
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The Citadel went on to have a banner year, 6-1-1 and 3-1-1 in the SIAA, good enough to tie for second. The loss to Georgia prevented them from winning the SIAA.
3. 1922 vs. Tennessee
Georgia and Tennessee both had Southern Conference Championship aspirations when the two schools met on October 21, 1922. Georgia was 3-1 and their only loss was to Chicago. Tennessee had a perfect 4-0 record and had only given up seven points all year.
But that claim ended quickly that day when Dick Mulvihill hit Ralph “Smack” Thompson for a 35-yard touchdown pass just five minutes into the game. Georgia couldn’t replicate that success however and they spent the rest of the game protecting the lead on defense. Tennessee could only manage a field goal in the second half and the Bulldogs won 7-3.
Tennessee only lost once for the rest of the year. That was just two weeks later against Vanderbilt who ended the year 8-0-1 and 3-0 in the SoCon. Tennessee finished the season 8-2.
Georgia didn’t enjoy any of that success for the rest of the season. After beating Oglethorpe to start the year 5-1, they lost three of their last four games and tied the other to end the year 5-4-1, 1-3-1 in the SoCon.