Georgia football countdown to kickoff: 100 days to go
The 2018 Georgia football season begins in just 100 days.
As Georgia football fans, we begin the countdown to the beginning of the season as soon as the previous season ends. But now the wait becomes even more agonizing. It’s May 24 and there are only 100 days until kickoff on September 1 for Georgia versus Austin Peay.
So I decided, to help with that countdown, I’ll have a series of stories centered around the number of days left on the countdown. For day 100, we’re looking at both times Georgia football scored over 100 points.
The first 100-point game
Predictably so, the first time Georgia passed triple-digits was 1910, William A. Cunningham’s first season as head coach. Cunningham transformed the Georgia football program from mediocrity to winners. So it’s no surprise that the first 100-point game came with Cunningham on the Herty Field sidelines.
The opponent was the Locus Grove Institute in Henry County. The team, nor the school lasted very long and the school building is now the Locust Grove City Hall. The game was simply meant as a tune up for Cunningham’s first team which featured freshman Bob McWhorter, who became Georgia’s first All-American as a senior in 1913.
That win sparked a great beginning to the 1910 season. They team had one more tune up game against Gordon State. Georgia Tech opened their season with a 57-0 win over Gordon that year and the Athens Banner questioned if the Georgia team could beat them as bad. Georgia actually won by a much larger margin, 79-0.
Georgia opened that season with five-straight wins and later defeated tech for the first time since 1903. They ended the year 6-2-1, setting the school record for wins in a season. That’s a record they broke three times in the following 17 seasons.
Georgia breaks record with 108 points
Cunningham loved his tune-up games. But you can’t argue with results. His record as head coach was 43-18-9 with two one-loss seasons in eight seasons. I wonder how Cunningham would feel about everyone trying to schedule other upper tier programs for their season openers today?
In 1913, Georgia opened their season with Alabama Presbyterian and slaughtered them 108-0. Georgia led 27-0 after the first quarter and 47-0 at halftime. And most of the starters, including McWhorter who began his All-America season that day, didn’t play in the second quarter.
Next: Who else was considered a UGA rival in the early 1900's
McWhorter and the starters returned for the third quarter and they added 20 more points. But in the fourth quarter, Georgia did something that would no doubt draw scorn from sports media today; They scored five touchdowns with a 67-0 lead. I guess Cunningham didn’t think his team was tuned up enough. In the end, Georgia won 108-0.
They went on to slaughter Dahlonega and Alabama to outscore their first three opponents 179-0. Georgia ended that season 6-2 and 3-1 in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletics Association.