84 Days to Kickoff - Dawg Post Countdown
ATHENS - And the crowd exploded… very much exploded.
It was already a lively enough game - perhaps cocktail fueled… or field with hatred. In the case of the Dawgs and Gators in 2007 lets just say it was both.
No. 20 Georgia beat No. 9 Florida 42-30 in Jacksonville on October 27, 2007 in Jacksonville. It was only the Bulldogs’ third win over the Gators in ten years, and it started with a bang. Knowshon Moreno dove into the Gators’ end zone, and the entire Georgia sideline spilled into the end zone shortly thereafter.
It was wild. None of us on the field really knew what to make of it… I know I had never seen anything like that, and have seen nothing like it since. Georgia took a 7-0 lead, but the Gators tied the game up on the following drive.
But Georgia was not done.
Matthew Stafford connected with Mohamed Massaquoi for an 84-yard TD that gave the Bulldogs a 14-7 lead in the first quarter. It showed that the Bulldogs were there to play that day. It also showed just how big an offense the team could be with all of its moving parts.
The game won’t be remembered for the 84-yard strike from Matthew to Mohamed. It will be remembered for the field storming. Before that moment the Bulldogs had lost 15 of 17 games in the series. In the decade of the 2000s, Georgia had lost as the better team more often than it should have. But from the field storming on the Bulldogs have held their own in the series.
Other notable 84s in the history of the Bulldogs…
Georgia was a long way away from where it needed to be, and it didn’t have a long time to get there.
No. 11 Georgia beat Georgia Tech 29-28 on December 2, 1978 in Athens.
But that didn’t happen without one of the most consequential game-winning drives in UGA history. Down 28-21 with 5:52 left in the game, freshman QB Buck Belue led the Bulldogs on a nine-play, 84-yard game-winning drive with only 2:24 remaining in the game. Belue hit Amp Arnold on 42-yard TD pass with 2:24 left. And then Arnold scored a two-point conversation on a pitch from Belue that pushed the Bulldogs past their in-state foes and sent the Sanford Stadium crowd into a frenzy.
Top UGA players to ever wear the No. 84
LB Leonard Floyd