Sports

Goodbye, title hopes

• With Saturday's loss to Tennessee, the Bulldogs are all but out of any shot at a national championship.

Colin Chmielewski

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -Consider this riddle: If the second half of a football game doesn't matter, does the game still count?

Sadly, for the Georgia Bulldogs, the answer is yes.

In a game that was vital in the Southeastern Conference race for both teams, No. 12 Georgia watched as Tennessee rolled out to a 28-0 lead in the opening 25 minutes as the final 30 minutes weren't much more than a formality. In the end, the Volunteers waited to celebrate their 35-14 win and the Bulldogs' dreaded a zombie-like ride back to Athens.

That dazed and confused state of mind may suit Georgia, though, as the Bulldogs seemed comfortable starting the game in it.

"It was just a sloppy game all around. It was a terrible first half and Tennessee just beat us (Saturday)," fullback Brannan Southerland said. "They looked a lot better than we did. This is not how I envisioned the game; this is not how any of us envisioned the game."

Just how bad was it? Georgia only gained 69 yards on 25 carries on the ground. Senior Thomas Brown left in the first half with a clavicle injury and didn't return. The Bulldogs equaled their worst defeat under coach Mark Richt - a 34-13 loss against LSU in the 2003 SEC Championship game. And to top it all off, Georgia (4-2, 2-2 SEC) is now left to ponder the fact that no team has made the conference title game with two division losses.

"It sucks. You know, it hurts," senior flanker Mikey Henderson said. "It hurts just because we needed a win. If our back was against the wall with one loss, we really put ourselves in a hole."

Henderson couldn't have summed it up much better: The Bulldogs knew all about holes Saturday.

From Georgia's first drive of the game, it was clear something was missing.

A 2-yard run by Brown and then two incomplete passes gave the Volunteers (3-2, 1-1) the ball and the crowd of 107,052 its first chance - of many - to cheer.

But from that point on, quarterback Erik Ainge, running back Arian Foster and mates in burnt orange gave their fans plenty of chances.

Foster, who finished with a game-high 98 yards rushing, scored his first of three touchdowns on the day on an 8-yard jaunt. Receiver Lucas Taylor pulled up on a trick-play reverse and threw the ball back across the field to a wide-open LaMarcus Coker for a 56-yard score.

Montario Hardesty capitalized on another Tennessee blocked punt - in last year's 51-33 win the Vols sparked their comeback with a block - going in from 10 yards out. And then Foster went untouched for 22 yards up the sideline.

Like that, it was 28-0.

"That took our gut. That just took our momentum right from the jump," senior safety Kelin Johnson said. "When you have a team come down scoring like that, and your offense is struggling, that's not a good combination.

Somebody has to save somebody, and we didn't do that (Saturday) as a team."

At the start of the second half, the Bulldogs appeared as if they intended on trying to get back into the game. They stopped the Volunteers and forced a three-and-out. On the ensuing drive, Stafford - who finished 16-of-33 for 174 yards with an interception and two touchdowns - moved the Bulldogs down the field before Demiko Goodman made a sensational catch over a Tennessee defender for a 26-yard score.

But as he had done all day, Ainge - who went 17-of-22 for 165 yards - mixed the run and the pass beautifully during a methodical 13-play, 65-yard drive that ate up 7:10 off the clock.

"When they answered our answer, that's big," Johnson said. "That is hats off to their program. They had momentum all game. They had that fire."

Foster capped that monster drive off with a 4-yard TD - an emphatic final score to an eye-opening afternoon.

"It was a huge statement," Foster said. "Everyone was questioning our ability to run the ball. We came to play."

And why the Bulldogs didn't is something that they will try to determine through watching film and soul-searching this week. But Saturday, it was a question that will echo in the ears of Georgia's players for the foreseeable future.

"I don't have all the answers," said Johnson on a day when they were in short supply.

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