Carson Beck completed 25 of 40 passes for 347 yards and two touchdowns as No. 12 Georgia kept its Southeastern Conference Championship Game and College Football Playoff hopes alive with a 31-17 win over No. 7 Tennessee on Saturday in Athens, Ga.
Beck also added a rushing score for the Bulldogs (8-2, 6-2), who bounced back from last week’s 28-10 loss at Ole Miss. Nate Frazier ran for 68 yards and a touchdown, while Oscar Delp caught four passes for 56 yards and two touchdowns.
Georgia beat Tennessee for the eighth straight year.
Nico Iamaleava completed 20 of 33 passes for 167 yards for Tennessee (8-2, 5-2), which had its four-game winning streak snapped. Dylan Sampson led the Volunteers with 101 rushing yards and a score. Tennessee led 10-0 after the first quarter, but was held scoreless in the second half.
Tied at 17, Georgia pieced together a dominant drive on its first possession of the second half, as Beck connected with Nitro Tuggle and Arian Smith for 16 yards each, before finding Dominic Lovett for 14 yards, advancing to Tennessee’s 23-yard line. Beck then ran in a 10-yard touchdown that put Georgia ahead 24-17 at the 5:32 mark of the third quarter.
Georgia’s defense then forced punts on consecutive Tennessee drives, before the Bulldogs iced the game with their longest scoring drive of the season, a 92-yard march down the field, capped with Frazier’s 2-yard touchdown run with 2:26 left in the fourth.
Tennessee took the game’s first lead with a 12-play, 78-yard scoring drive stamped with Miles Kitselman’s 1-yard rushing score to give the Volunteers a 7-0 lead at the 10:09 mark of the opening quarter.
Tennessee tacked on before the end of the first quarter, as it followed Georgia’s second punt with Max Gilbert’s 52-yard field goal with 43 seconds left, extending the Volunteers’ lead to 10-0.
Georgia’s first chunk gain of the game came on the final play of the first quarter, as Beck connected with Lovett for a 38-yard pass to Tennessee’s 35-yard line. Four plays later, Beck found Delp for a 19-yard touchdown with 13:30 left in the second quarter.
Another Tennessee punt was followed with a 10-play, 84-yard scoring drive that was stamped with Delp’s second touchdown, a 4-yard catch with 6:36 remaining in the first half. Tennessee then answered with a 10-play, 75-yard drive, resulting in Sampson’s 27-yard rushing touchdown, swinging the lead back to the Volunteers, 17-14 with 1:54 left in the first half.
Peyton Woodring’s 36-yard field goal with five seconds left knotted the score entering halftime.
–Field Level Media
