Georgia football: Top five matchups against Tennessee
By Joey Shiver
#4. 2012 — No. 5 Georgia 51 — Tennessee 44
Georgia came into this contest ranked No. 5 and 4-0 on the season. Tennessee came in 3-1 with their loss coming to Florida in Week 3.
But the records didn’t matter on this Saturday.
Georgia came into the game loaded on offense; led by Aaron Murray at quarterback, Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall at running back, and Tavarres King, Malcolm Mitchell, and Marlon Brown at wide receiver. And they came to play!
By the end of the first quarter, Gurley had 33 yards and 2 touchdowns while Marshall had 90 yards and a score. The score was 21-10 and Georgia appeared to be in control.
The second quarter belonged to Tennessee as Tyler Bray threw for 2 touchdowns and AJ Johnson ran in another. The score at the half was 30-30 and I remember being totally exhausted just watching the back and forth.
Georgia came out of the locker room for the second half on fire and Aaron Murray threw 2 touchdowns to Michael Bennett while Keith Marshall scored on another 72 rushing play. Tennessee was held to only one touchdown in the third when Cordarrelle Patterson scored on a 43-yard rush.
With Georgia entering the fourth quarter up 51-37, the defenses finally took control. Tennessee mustered a rushing touchdown from Raijon Neal but Georgia forced 3 turnovers in the final six minutes to seal the win 51-44.
This became the highest-scoring game in SEC history and was another key game in a march to Atlanta for the Bulldogs.
Keith Marshall finished the game with 164 yards rushing and Todd Gurley finished with 130. If you want a game with high scoring offenses and explosive plays this one is for you. Georgia’s running backs showed out and that’s why the Dawgs won the game.
Without these two studs, Georgia could have lost this one. Unlike a lot of the games between these two teams it was a shoot out which made it the fourth most memorable game since 2000.
It wasn’t everyday you got to see Mike Bobo show out with the offense, but this was one of those games.