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For the first time since 1958, Georgia will face Texas in Austin. Saturday night will be a top five matchup, and ESPN College GameDay will be there too. The teams last met in the 2019 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans with UT holding off the Bulldogs 28-21. The Longhorns own a 4-1 edge in the series. Georgia is 17-18 all-time with the College GameDay crew on site including 0-1 this year (@ #4 UA). Last year, they were in Athens to see Georgia whip No. 9 Ole Miss 52-17 and in Atlanta when it fell to UA in the SEC Championship Game.

Series History With Texas
1949 Lost 28 41…………………….%Miami
1957 Lost 7 26………………………Atlanta
1958 Lost 8 13………………………..Austin
1984 Won 10 9………………………&Dallas
2019 Lost 21 28…………….+New Orleans
%Orange Bowl; &Cotton Bowl; +Sugar Bowl
TOTALS 74 117

The Bulldogs are 3-5 in school history versus the top-ranked team and 2-1 under Kirby Smart.

^ College Football Playoff Rankings, For AP, it was #1 Georgia vs. #2 Tennessee

The Bulldogs opened the 2024 season ranked No. 1 in the AP and US LBM Coaches poll for the third time in school history (2008, 2023). Georgia dropped to No. 2 in the AP poll after its 13-12 road win over Kentucky on Sept. 14 and remained there for another week before falling to No. 4 Alabama on Sept 28. In this week’s AP poll, the Bulldogs are at No. 5 for the third straight week. Georgia was No. 1 in the US LBM Coaches poll until its first loss when it dropped to No. 5. For the second week in a row, Georgia occupies the No. 4 spot. This week’s opponent, Texas, is in the top spot in both polls.

The Bulldogs have the longest active streak of being ranked in the AP top 10 (57 straight polls). Last Saturday in Athens, Georgia used an aerial attack of 459 yards (3rd most in school history and most since 1994) to defeat Miss. State 41-31 while Texas dispatched Oklahoma 34-3 in Dallas. UT now leads the nation in Scoring Defense at 6.3 ppg and is seventh in Scoring Offense at 43.2 ppg.

First Meeting: Georgia entered the 1949 Orange Bowl on an eight-game winning streak and No. 8 AP ranking. Texas was 6-3-1 and playing in its first Orange Bowl and posted a 41-28 win. UT ran 58 times for 324 yards and five TDs, including 107 yards and a score by Tom Landry (eventual Dallas Cowboys Hall of Fame coach) in his final game.

Second Meeting: The 1957 contest came at Grant Field in Atlanta in front of a crowd of 33,000 and was the first game of 33-year-old Darrell Royal’s tenure at UT as the Longhorns won 26-7.

Third Meeting: In 1958 in Austin, Georgia was trailing 6-0 early in the 4th quarter when future Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton put himself in (coaches had planned to redshirt him as the 3rd-string QB) when he saw starting QB Charlie Britt still sitting on the bench as the team took the field. He ran in and told his teammates, “I’ve come to win this game.” He directed a 21-play, 95-yard TD drive along with a two-point conversion for an 8-6 edge. UT answered with a 17-play, 72-yard TD drive capped by a 1-yard run by Bobby Gurwitz to lift 11th-ranked Texas to a 13-8 win.

Fourth Meeting: Ask a Georgia fan what time it is in Texas and you’ll likely hear it’s Ten to Nine! In the 1984 Cotton Bowl, UT entered 11-0 and ranked No. 2 with a shot at its fifth national championship if it beat No. 7 Georgia (9-1-1). Down 9-3 with less than five minutes left, the Bulldogs took advantage of a muffed punt return by Craig Curry at the UT 24. Gary Moss recovered it and Georgia later scored on a 17-yard scamper by QB John Lastinger with 3:22 remaining for a 10-9 lead as Vince Dooley’s Dogs claimed the upset and finished with a No. 4 ranking.

Fifth Meeting: Sam Ehlinger finished with three rushing TDs and 169 passing yards to lead Tom Herman’s UT squad to a 28-21 upset of No. 6 Georgia in the 2019 Sugar Bowl. The Bulldogs finished 11-3 and ranked No. 7 while UT ended the season 10-4 and No. 9.

The 2024 Senior Class is an FBS-leading 47-3 (41-1 in the regular season) since 2021. The next best marks in this span belong to Michigan (44-5) and Alabama (41-7). Georgia’s only three losses since 2021 have come to Alabama. Georgia’s 2023 Senior Class set the school record at 50-4 with two national titles, an SEC crown plus went 6-0 in bowl/CFP games.

Georgia is 51-3 in its last 54 games. A school record streak of 42 consecutive regular season victories ended Sept. 28 this year with a 41-34 defeat at No. 4 Alabama. Also, Georgia had an SEC and school record streak of 28 consecutive SEC regular season wins snap that night.

Georgia is the only team to have finished in the top 7 of the final AP poll in each of the past 7 seasons.

Head coach Kirby Smart is unbeaten against all active head coaches over the past five years except Kalen DeBoer (Alabama). Georgia is 67-7 in that span. The coaches no longer active who have wins over Georgia during this stretch: Nick Saban (3) along with Will Muschamp, Ed Orgeron and Dan Mullen.

Georgia is riding a school record 28-game home winning streak dating to 2019, which leads in FBS.

Georgia owns the nation’s longest active bowl streak at 27 seasons and has won its last seven matchups.

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pre game notes uga tex 24

ATHENS, Ga – Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, senior defensive lineman Nazir Stackhouse and junior running back Cash Jones spoke with the media on Tuesday evening and offered the following comments.

Head Coach Kirby Smart
On what Isaiah Bond brings to Texas’ offense…
“He’s electric. He’s a great release guy. You know, they got other good wide outs. They did a great job of upgrading their talent pool in the portal. They got, I think, three, maybe four, portal receivers. I don’t know, three. They play a lot of time, and he was one of those guys. He’s twitchy fast, explosive, elite speed, and elite body quickness. So, when you talk about covering people, he’s explosive. You know, he can take a handoff, or he can run through the middle of your defense and blow the top off. And Sark [Steve Sarkisian] is used to having really good guys like that to set plays up with, to stretch the field vertically and horizontally.”
 
On practice this week…
“It’s good. I mean, I don’t know if it was our best Tuesday. I thought that it was good, not great. And we’ve had some good ones, but it was a spirited day, they got after it. We had a good competitive practice. Yesterday was a lighter Monday. Like I said, we’ve had more snaps played this year than we ever have before. So, we just did a little bit less on Monday. And the same kind of Tuesdays we’ve been having.”

On similarities between Carson Beck and Quinn Ewers…
“Yeah, it’s interesting you say that. I mean, I feel that way. You know, I don’t get a chance to watch them. I didn’t get to watch them last year, other than, you know, I watched their playoff games, obviously, and then watched them in the offseason some. And then, you know, you don’t have a full, like a full quota of his, he hadn’t played in every game. The games he’s played in, they’re very similar in terms of knowledge, understanding of their offense, protections. You know, it doesn’t seem pressure affects him much. I mean, he seems like he has really good composure in there, stands in there. They both have the ability, if something goes wrong, to get you out of a bad play and typically avoid catastrophes. That’s what older quarterbacks do. That’s the similarities they seem to have.”

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