Georgia football classics: The 1998 Bulldogs upset LSU in Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE, LA – OCTOBER 25: (Photo by Dave Martin/Getty Images) /

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Quincy Carter may have been 21 years old, but he was making just his fourth start as a Georgia football player. Carter previously played baseball but he came to Georgia in 1998 and took over as quarterback. October 4, 1998 presented Carter with his first big test. That day, Georgia traveled to Baton Rouge to play the no. 6 Louisiana State Tigers.

And boy, did Carter pass that test. He went 27-of-34 with 318 yards and two touchdowns. That performance is a big reason why the Bulldogs won 28-27. Carter also caught a pass for 36 yards and ran for 41 yards. That’s 395 yards of offense for one player.

But Carter was barely the only reason Georgia won. Champ Bailey was on the field for 96 plays that day on offense, defense, and special teams. Bailey caught the first touchdown pass from Carter in the first quarter. He also caught seven passes for 114 yards. At that time, it was the best performance of his career.

First half

Both defenses stayed in the locker room in the first half. Georgia opened the game with a 79-yard drive that ended with Carter’s pass to Bailey on the goal line. LSU answered with a 20-yard run by Rondell Mealey just four minutes later. Georgia regained the lead late in the first quarter with an 80-yard drive. This time Olandis Gary scored from a yard out.

LSU answered again early in the second quarter with a five-yard pass from Herb Tyler to Kyle Kipps. Tyler finished the game with 16-of-26 with 205 yards. But he went 11-of-15 for 169 yards in the first half. Georgia shut him down in the second half.

The Bulldogs wasted no time in regaining the lead with another 80-yard drive. Ronnie Bradley scored the touchdown, again, from the one-yard line. LSU re-tied the game with just 14 seconds left in the first half as Tyler found Reggie Robinson for a 15-yard touchdown pass.

Second half

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The defenses arrived at halftime, but the offenses left after Carter hit Tony Small for a 17-yard touchdown pass midway through the third quarter. That gave Georgia a 28-21 lead and the Bulldogs wouldn’t relinquish it.

LSU added two field goals in the fourth quarter, but they weren’t able to get close enough for a third field goal that could have won the game. And for the second-straight year, Georgia defeated a no. 6 ranked team and began the year 4-0. Georgia, on the arm of Carter, the hands of Bailey and the backs of the defense, defeated LSU 28-27.

Quotes

“Quincy was on fire. He just doesn’t let anything get to him, he makes plays constantly. He is an unbelievable player,” said Champ Bailey of Quincy Carter.

“The guy made plays, that’s his job. It’s my job to hit him and his job to make plays. He did his job better than I did mine,” said LSU nose guard and current ESPN analyst Anthony McFarland about Carter.

“The one thing we told our team at halftime was that we couldn’t get down on our defense, our defense has been carrying us all season long,” Georgia coach Jim Donnan said.

“We had to come out and score early,” Bailey said. “They came right back and scored, then we came right back and scored, and it kept going for a while. It seemed like the defense was not even out there.”

“Going into the game, I felt the team which played technically better would win,” LSU coach Gerry DiNardo said. “I felt both sides would play hard, and that’s what happened. They just played better.”

Aftermath

The win for Georgia propelled the Bulldogs into the Associated Press Top 10 at the no. 7 spot. Georgia hosted Tennessee the following week and for the first time ever, ESPN’s College Gameday visited Athens. However, Georgia lost 22-3 and fell back to no. 13. The Bulldogs ended the season with two more losses to finish 9-3. They defeated Virginia 35-33 in the Peach Bowl.

LSU wasn’t as fortunate and the loss was the beginning of the end for Gerry DiNardo as head coach. After finishing 7-4-1, 10-2 and 9-3 in his first three seasons, and starting the 1998 season 3-0, LSU only won three more games with DiNardo as head coach.

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The Tigers lost two more games in the weeks following the Georgia loss, demolished a no. 24 Mississippi State team, and then finished the year with four-straight losses to go 4-7. DiNardo was fired in 1999 after staring the year 2-8. LSU would hire Nick Saban in 2000.

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