Second-half surge sparks Georgia
No. 3 Georgia 44, No. 14 Tennessee 21
ATHENS, Ga. — Stetson Bennett threw two touchdown passes and ran for another score, and Georgia bounced back from Tennessee’s goal-line stand on the final play of the first half, dominating the final 30 minutes Saturday.
The Bulldogs (3-0) knocked off a ranked Southeastern Conference team for the second week in a row, shaking off a a
21-17 deficit to wipe out the Volunteers over the final two quarters.
Showing it’s still not ready to compete with the league’s top programs, Tennessee (2-1) turned the ball over three times and managed just 71 yards of offense in the second half. Fittingly, Justin Guarantano was sacked on the final play of the game.
Bennett ran for a 10-yard touchdown in the first half, hooked up with Kearis Jackson on a 21-yard scoring pass in the final minute of the third quarter, and sealed the victory with a 1-yard TD flip to 305-pound nose tackle Jalen Carter, who was supposedly in the game as an extra blocker.
For good measure, Monty Rice stripped the ball away from Guarantano, scooped up the loose ball and ran 20 yards for a fitting epitaph to Georgia’s defensive dominance as darkness fell over Athens.
Bennett, a former walk-on making his second straight start, completed 16 of 27 for 238 yards. Jackson hauled in four passes for 91 yards. Zamir White added a 1-yard scoring run.
Tennessee seemed to have all the momentum at the end of the first half. The Bulldogs drove inside the Vols’ 1 and had two shots to ram the ball into the end zone, inserting Carter to provide another massive blocker at fullback.
But Tennessee stopped White short of the goal line on two straight runs, charging off the field in celebration after the second stop ended the half.
All those good feelings evaporated when Tennessee turned it over on its first two possessions of the second half.
Guarantano was sacked by Azeez Ojulari and coughed up the ball, with Ojulari making the recovery. Then, under heavy pressure, the Tennessee quarterback wobbled a pass that was intercepted by Eric Stokes. Tennessee’s defense held Georgia to a pair of field goals after those miscues, but the Tennessee offense couldn’t get going.
No. 15 BYU 27, UTSA 20
PROVO, Utah — Zach Wilson threw for 292 yards and two touchdowns, and Tyler Allgeier rushed for 116 yards and another score to lead Brigham Young past Texas-San Antonio.
The Cougars (4-0) equaled their best start since 2014 while rolling up 472 yards.
Allgeier posted the second 100-yard game of his career to help rescue an inconsistent BYU offense.
Lowell Narcisse threw for 229 yards and two touchdowns — all after halftime — on 17-of-20 passing to lead the Roadrunners. UTSA (3-2) became the first opponent to give BYU a fourquarter test but fell short of earning the upset despite averaging 7.6 yards per play in the second half.
BYU trailed for the first time this season when UTSA took a 3-0 lead on a 39-yard field goal from Hunter Duplessis in the first quarter.
The Cougars, who came in averaging 49 points per game, short-circuited a couple of times in the opening quarter, fumbling at the UTSA 10 and failing to convert on fourth-and-6 from the Roadrunners’ 40.
It was first quarter this season that BYU did not score a touchdown.
Neil Pau’u finally broke the ice when he snagged a 4-yard tiptoe catch from Wilson on fourth down to put the Cougars ahead 7-3. Lopini Katoa hauled in a short play-action pass and raced 11 yards untouched into the end zone to extend BYU’s lead to 14-3 late in the second quarter.
Narcisse gave the Roadrunners’ offense life after halftime, but not quite enough.