Georgia football history

1983 was the year of The Great Rebuild for Georgia athletics. The basketball team saw star forward Dominque Wilkins leave early for the pros. Dawg hoops responded by going to the Final Four. The 1983 Georgia football team was no less impressive—they lost Herschel Walker, one of college football’s all-time greatest running backs, early to the pros. The football Dawgs responded with their own run to the national top four and a big impact on history.

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Georgia had spent the last three seasons in the elite. They won the SEC title and went to the Sugar Bowl all three years. They won the national title in 1980 and played for it in 1982. But with Herschel gone, the Bulldogs opened the 1983 college football season ranked #15.

The cupboard wasn’t bare in Athens though. Defensive back Terry Hoage was an All-American and finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting. Freddie Gilbert was a game-changer at defensive end. And though Georgia didn’t throw the ball much, tight end Clarence Kay was a good blocker and would enjoy a solid nine-year career in the NFL with the Denver Broncos.

Head coach Vince Dooley replaced Walker with a running back-by-committee approach, splitting the load between Keith Montgomery, Barry Young and David McCluskey. Quarterback John Lastinger also did some running, although he never dazzled anyone. And as a passer, Lastinger didn’t bring much to the table. He threw for fewer than 800 yards, completed less than 50 percent of his passes and only averaged 5.8 yards-per-attempt.

Georgia opened the season at home against 20^th-ranked UCLA. The led 12-8 in the fourth quarter when the Bruins began driving for the potential game-winning score. Defensive back Charles Dean stepped in front of a Rick Neuheisel throw, intercepted the pass and took it 81 yards to the house, sealing a 19-8 win.

A road trip to Clemson, a nine-win team and two years removed from winning the national championship, resulted in a 16-16 tie, but the Dawgs still nudged up in the polls, now ranked #14. Then they began piling up wins against the soft part of their schedule.

South Carolina, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Temple all were either under .500 or no better than six win-teams. Georgia won them all, with a 20-13 scare at Vandy being the only game that was close. By the time it was done, the calendar was turning to November and Georgia was ranked sixth in the country.

The Dawgs were joined atop the SEC by Auburn. Florida was right behind, and Georgia would play each team on successive weeks in November.

Florida had the conference’s best passing quarterback in Wayne Peace and the Gators moved the ball, getting inside the Bulldog 25-yard line six times. But those trips netted only three field goals. The Bulldogs got a 51-yard field goal from future NFL kicker Kevin Butler, but still trailed 9-3 when they got the ball on their own one-yard line in the fourth quarter.

Twice in the previous three years, Georgia had beaten Florida by driving 90-plus yards in the fourth quarter. In 1980 it was a lightning strike, a 93-yard touchdown pass. In 1982, it was by repeatedly giving Walker the football. This time it was another long drive. The Dawgs went the distance, all 99 yards, and won 10-9.

Now they were up to #4 and hosted Auburn in a head-to-head showdown that could win Georgia a fourth straight conference title. They didn’t get this one, losing a tough 13-7 decision, but with a 27-24 non-conference win over Georgia Tech to end the season, Georgia was still ranked #7. Not bad for a team on a rebuilding year.

The Cotton Bowl noticed and invited Georgia to pair up with second-ranked Texas. The Longhorns were one of two undefeated teams in the country, along with #1 Nebraska. Texas had the best defense in the country and was hoping against hope that fifth-ranked Miami could upset the Cornhuskers in the Orange Bowl and open a path for Texas to get to a national championship.

But Texas was offensively challenged. Even though Georgia punted nine times and did next to nothing offensively, the Dawg defense only allowed three field goals. The deficit was just 9-3, as the clock ticked under the five-minute mark in the fourth quarter.

Georgia resorted to their top weapon of the day—punter Chip Andrews. He kicked another one. Texas fumbled. The Bulldogs recovered on the Longhorn 23-yard line and had new life.

Even so, 23 yards against this defense wasn’t exactly an easy road to travel. Two plays netted six yards. On third down, Lastinger ran the option. The pitch man was covered, forcing the unathletic QB to try and make the play on his own. The quarterback did—he not only got the first down, but he raced for the right corner of the end zone and found it. Improbably, it was 10-9 Georgia and that was it.

It was a stunning upset, even in the moment of late afternoon on New Year’s Day. By nightfall it became monumental. Miami shocked Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. The Hurricanes’ national championship ushered in a new dynasty and has become a watershed moment in the history of college football.

But it should be remembered, the magic of that night would not have happened without the magic of the afternoon, when Georgia capped its “rebuilding” year by winning the Cotton Bowl and ending up fourth in the nation.

The Georgia Bulldogs were the showcase of college football during the three years of the Herschel Walker Era. They displaced Bear Bryant’s Alabama atop the SEC. The Dawgs won the national championship in 1980. They reached the Sugar Bowl in 1981. The 1982 Georgia football team went back to New Orleans for another Sugar Bowl and in position to win another title before coming up short.

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Herschel was one of the great backs in college football history and he ran for over 1,700 yards this season. He blew away the rest of the SEC in rush yardage, scored 16 touchdowns and grabbed the Heisman over a field that included SMU running back Eric Dickerson and Stanford quarterback John Elway.

Other All-American talent included defensive tackle Jimmy Payne and defensive back Terry Hoage. And even though Jeff Sanchez didn’t make All-American, the defensive back was one of the best ballhawks in the country, picking off nine passes.

John Lastinger didn’t have a lot put on him at quarterback, which was a good thing. Lastinger only completed 42 percent of his passes, only threw for 6.1 yards-per-attempt and still threw nine interceptions in spite of only throwing for 907 yards and eight touchdown passes. The Bulldog offense was all about Herschel.

The season opened on Labor Day Night against defending national champion Clemson. It was a defensive war, but Georgia was able to get a 13-7 lead and then come up with two key fourth-quarter stops to preserve the win. They continued to play a good non-SEC schedule with a home date against an eight-win BYU team five days later and survived it, 17-14.

Georgia went to South Carolina—then an independent and not very good—and won 34-18. A so-so win over a so-so team followed, 29-22 at Mississippi State, but the Dawgs finally moved into the national top five in early October.

A 33-10 blowout of a subpar Ole Miss team moved Georgia to #4 and then a 27-13 over a surprisingly good Vanderbilt squad got the Bulldogs to #3. Two games against terrible teams followed—Kentucky and Memphis only won a single game between them in 1982. The Bulldogs weren’t inspiring in a 27-14 win over the Wildcats, before beating the Tigers 34-3.

It was time for the rivalry game with Florida at a neutral site in Jacksonville, just as this game is today. The Gators were ranked #20, would ultimately win eight games and had the conference’s best quarterback in Wayne Peace. What followed was a complete demolition.

Georgia won 44-0 in their best performance of the year—indeed, probably their best game of the entire Walker era. On the same day, top-ranked Pitt was upset by Notre Dame, and Georgia moved to the top of the polls.

The Bulldogs were holding on to a half-game lead in the SEC over LSU, who had one tie. Auburn was in the mix with just one loss and Georgia had to play at Auburn on November 13. It was their final SEC game of the season, so a victory would wrap up the conference title and Sugar Bowl bid.

Auburn took a 7-3 lead in the second quarter, but Walker galloped 47 yards for the go-ahead touchdown. It was 13-7 in the third quarter, before Tiger back Lionel James answered with an 87-yard TD run to give Auburn the lead.

With the season on the line, head coach Vince Dooley put the ball in Walker’s hands. An 80-yard drive was highlighted by Herschel getting the football eight times. On the day, Walker ran for 177 yards and this drive ended with a go-ahead touchdown.

There were still anxious moments—the Dawgs missed the two-point conversion and the score stayed 19-14. Auburn drove it down to the Georgia 11-yard line with 2:39 left. The Tigers had a freshman running back who would eventually supplant Walker as the feared physical specimen in the entire country—Bo Jackson.

But Georgia stopped Bo on first down and then Dale Carver came up with a huge sack to put the Tigers in 3^rd-and-26. The Dawgs closed out the win. They closed out the undefeated season two weeks later with a 38-18 victory over a six-win Georgia Tech squad.

The Bulldogs were undefeated and headed to the Sugar Bowl for a showdown with #2 Penn State. The Nittany Lions were looking to win Joe Paterno his first national championship and Joe Pa’s pursuit against Herschel’s greatness was the storyline throughout December in the media run-up to the game.

On New Year’s Night, Georgia did not play well. They dug themselves a quick 20-3 hole in the first half, unprepared for a Penn State offensive assault that came at them through the air. But the Bulldogs didn’t roll over and die.

They got a touchdown just prior to intermission to change the momentum and make the deficit manageable at 20-10. Lastinger did what most people thought he couldn’t do, and hadn’t done all season and it was rally the Dawgs. They cut the lead to 20-17 and were in position to tie or take the lead before Lastinger threw an interception in the end zone.

There were still chances, but the Lions hit another long pass for a touchdown and the final score ended up 27-23. Georgia’s bid for a second perfect national championship season in three years was over.

So was the Herschel Era. Early entries to the pros were rare—if not unheard of—in the early 1980s, but there was a new United States Football League (USFL) that was aggressively bidding for talent and for a couple years the USFL was making the NFL sweat. The new league had a flamboyant owner of the New Jersey franchise that you may have heard of—Donald J. Trump. He got Walker to come to the USFL after his junior season.

Georgia still had a good year in 1983, getting a Cotton Bowl bid and upsetting unbeaten Texas when they got there. But the Dawgs would not get be a steady national championship contender until our own era with Kirby Smart as head coach arrived.

The 1981 Georgia football team was the defending national champions and had one of the country’s great running backs in sophomore Herschel Walker. The SEC Player of the Year, Walker rolled up nearly 1900 yards (the second-best back in the SEC finished with 622 yards), carried the ball 385 times (the second-best in the SEC was 166) and still finished fourth in the conference in yards-per-attempt at 4.9.

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Walker finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting to USC’s record-setting back Marcus Allen, as the two runners were clearly head-and-shoulders above the field in the Heisman race.

Buck Belue did a decent job providing some air support for Walker. He attempted 188 passes, a moderate number in this era and completed a solid 61%. Even more important was that the completions counted for something, as Belue’s 8.5 yards-per-pass was the SEC’s best. His best weapon in that regard was Lindsay Scott, who finished third in the league in receiving yardage.

What the Bulldogs did not have was national respect. In spite of winning a championship and bringing Walker back, they were still perceived as the inferior to Bear Bryant’s Alabama. Georgia opened the season ranked #10 while ‘Bama was ranked fourth.

Georgia gave the pollsters something to think about in their opener at home against a pretty good Tennessee team. Walker rolled up 161 yards on the ground. Belue was 10/15 for 140 yards and twice hooked up with Scott for touchdown passes. The Bulldog offense churned out thirty first downs, 563 total yards and mauled the Vols 44-0 for their worst defeat in 58 years. After a win over lowly Cal the following week, the Dawgs were up to #4.

Then a road trip to Clemson brought Georgia back down to earth and proved to be one of the decisive moments in the national championship race. The Dawgs lost 13-3. Clemson would finish the season undefeated and ranked #1.

Georgia rolled through mediocre teams in South Carolina and Ole Miss by a combined 61-7, then blasted bad teams in Vanderbilt and Kentucky by a combined 74-21. After closing by October with a 49-3 demolition of Temple, the Bulldogs were back up to #4 and were making their annual trip to Jacksonville for the neutral-site rivalry game against Florida.

The Gators were a good team that would win seven games and had the conference’s best pure dropback passer in Wayne Peace. A year ago, they came the closest to defeating Georgia, with only an epic 93-yard Belue-to-Scott touchdown pass saving the Dawgs in a 26-21 win.

This one wasn’t quite as dramatic, but it came close. Walker put on show and had caught two touchdowns and ran for another, but Georgia still trailed 21-20, just as they had in 1980. This time they drove 95 yards to win it, with Herschel tacking on one more rushing touchdown to close his day. He finished with 192 yards and once again, Georgia had escaped their rival in a 26-21 final.

The Bulldogs beat mediocre Auburn 24-13. The victory moved Georgia to #2 in the polls and also assured them of a share of the SEC title—they and Alabama were both unbeaten in league play, though the Tide had a loss and a tie in non-conference games.

Georgia would get the SEC’s Sugar Bowl nod and finished the year by trouncing an awful Georgia Tech team 44-7. Although we should note that the Yellow Jackets lone victory in 1981 did come at the expense of Alabama.

The opponent was Dan Marino’s Pitt Panthers, 10-1 and ranked tenth in the nation. For Georgia, their national title scenario was simple—beat Pitt and hope for Clemson lose to Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. Both games would be in prime-time on New Year’s Night.

Walker didn’t run well against a good Pitt defense and was kept under 100 yards. Both teams were sloppy, with a combined nine turnovers. What Georgia had been able to do was recover a fumbled punt and turn it into a touchdown. As a result, they held a 20-17 lead and had the ball with 5:29 left.

It was the perfect time for Walker to slam the door shut, but he couldn’t close it out. The Dawg defense had to come back on the field with 3:46 left. Marino moved the Panthers methodically to the Georgia 33-yard line. There was 0:34 left. A tie was as good as a loss for Georgia.

To Pitt’s credit—they had nothing to gain from a tie—they went for the win. To the regret of Georgia, it paid off. Marino hit his tight end, John Brown, with a perfect strike to the deep post for a touchdown. The Dawgs fell 24-20.

If nothing else, Clemson won in the Orange Bowl, so the loss didn’t cost Georgia a national championship. And they would be back in 1982, for another big year with Walker in the backfield.

1980 Georgia football was the latest edition for a program that had been consistent and competitive, not unlike today. But they hadn’t won a major bowl game since 1966, nor appeared in one since their SEC title in 1976. The Bulldogs were coming off a 6-5 year in 1979, one that ended without a bowl appearance in the more stringent postseason world of the late 1970s.

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A freshman running back named Herschel Walker came blazing onto the scene and transformed the team immediately. He ran for over 1,600 yards in 274 attempts, at 5.9 yards-per-carry and scored 15 touchdowns—all of which were the best in the SEC.

Buck Belue at quarterback wasn’t a great passer, but his 49% completion rate was still fourth in the conference, and with over 1,300 passing yards he was second in the SEC. And before the year was over he would complete the biggest pass in the history of the Georgia program.

Head coach Vince Dooley had a great secondary, with two All-Americans in Jeff Hipps and Scott Woerner. Kicker Rex Robinson also made All-American. Georgia had modest respect when the season opened and were ranked #16 in the first polls.

The Dawgs opened with a narrow win at Tennessee. Even though the Vols were on their way to 5-6, the 16-15 win moved Georgia up four spots in the polls. Then they crushed shaky Texas A&M 42-0 and got into the Top 10.

Georgia edged Clemson 20-16, a win that looks more important in retrospect than it was at the time. The Tigers were unranked and finished 6-5, but it was the core of a team that won the national championship the following season. Georgia then smoked hapless TCU 34-3 and were ranked sixth in the nation by the time October began.

Wins over three bad teams, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt and Kentucky followed. The former was close, 28-21, the latter two were blowouts, with a combined final of 68-zip. Now it was time for two big November tests, against South Carolina and Florida, with the Dawgs up to #4 in the nation.

Walker and South Carolina’s George Rogers were far and away the two best running backs in the nation. Rogers was a local boy who’d gone to Columbia and then beaten the Bulldogs in 1978 and 1979. Now he came to Athens with a worthy foe in Walker waiting. Both running backs put on a show, with Walker going for 219 yards and Rogers rushing for 168 yards. Georgia ground out a 13-10 win.

More good news came elsewhere in the SEC—Alabama, undefeated, ranked #1 and the two-time defending national champion had been upset by Mississippi State. The Bulldogs and Tide would not play each other and now Georgia had the inside track to the conference’s Sugar Bowl bid.

The annual trip to Jacksonville to play #20 Florida was up next. Walker picked up where he left off, bolting on a 72-yard touchdown run on the game’s third play. He rushed for 238 yards for the game and Georgia got out to a 14-3 lead.

But Florida had a good passing game with Wayne Peace at quarterback and a wide receiver named Cris Collingsworth, who was the best in the SEC. Even though Georgia still led 20-10 after three quarters, Florida rallied with a touchdown, two-point conversion, field goal and then got the ball with 5:53 left and a 21-20 lead.

The Bulldogs held and got their offense the ball back, but Georgia was on its own eight-yard line with 1:35 left. On 3^rd-and-11 Belue dropped back and found Lindsay Scott over the middle. He got behind the secondary and the race was on. “Run Lindsay Run!” was the legendary call over the Bulldogs radio station by broadcaster Larry Munson. And run he did. Scott found the end zone and Georgia survived, 26-21.

Georgia closed the season with a 31-21 win at mediocre Auburn and then rolled woeful Georgia Tech 38-20 to complete the undefeated season. The Dawgs were 11-0. Walker didn’t get the Heisman Trophy—the bias against freshman was too strong and would not be broken until Johnny Manziel won it for Texas A&M in 2012—but the team was #1 in the country.

Notre Dame was the opponent. As the regular season was winding down, the Sugar Bowl thought this would be a winner-take-all battle for the national championship. But the Irish lost their early December finale at USC. That dimmed the luster of the matchup a little, but as far as the Bulldogs were concerned, the stakes were the same. President Jimmy Carter was on hand in the Superdome to watch his home state team.

Notre Dame got a 50-yard field goal to start the scoring, and then Walker had to briefly leave the game with a separated shoulder. The freshman told the trainer to do what was necessary to get it back in place—“I didn’t come all this way to not play.”

The Irish started missing opportunities. They missed three field goals and fumbled a kickoff on the 1-yard line, setting up an easy Georgia score. Walker was running well for the Dawgs, injured shoulder and all, and even without Belue completing a pass, Georgia still led 17-10 late in the game.

Notre Dame made one more drive, but Kiel threw an interception. All that was left was for the Bulldogs to run out the clock—and for Belue to complete that elusive pass. Georgia was national champions.

Georgia continued to be a national power, reaching the Sugar Bowl with national title hopes each of the next two years. But the state of Pennsylvania got in the way—they lost to Dan Marino’s Pitt in 1981 and then to Penn State in 1982. The Bulldogs would not get this close to a national title until 2017 and a loyal fan base continues to wait for the first crown since that memorable 1980 run.