Georgia Knocks Off No. 1 Florida

It was so much more than Vince Dooley had expected.

“I thought that we had a chance to win, but never did I think that we’d win by such a large margin,” Dooley said Saturday after his 17th-ranked Georgia Bulldogs ended the nation’s longest college football unbeaten string at 18 games with a 24-3 victory over top-ranked Florida.

“I never dreamed that we would make the long plays, nor that we could hold Florida to three points,” Dooley said. “All we wanted was for our defense to minimize Florida’s big-play capability. Our defense did a superb job.”

Georgia’s big plays came from a pair of freshmen running backs--on touchdown sprints of 76 and 32 yards by Keith Henderson in the first half, and of 89 yards by Tim Worley in the final quarter.

And although it yielded 408 yards passing to the Gators, a swarming Georgia defense never allowed Florida any offensive continuity while sacking quarterback Kerwin Bell five times and keeping him under constant pressure.

Dooley figured Florida was ripe for an upset when the Gators appeared at the top of the Associated Press poll for the first time after last week’s victory over then sixth-ranked Auburn.

“Florida was in the difficult position of winning big last week, being ranked No. 1 by AP and having to play a big rival the next week,” Dooley said.

Besides ending Florida’s unbeaten streak, the Georgia victory marked the first setback for Galen Hall, now 15-1-1 since becoming the Gators’ coach three games into the 1984 season.

“I thought the winning streak would end some time,” Hall said. “Of course, I wish that it hadn’t happened today. But this was a great experience for our kids at being No. 1 in the nation, and maybe, hopefully, we will learn from our mistakes.”

Georgia’s defense, led by end Greg Waters, kept pressure on Bell throughout the game, and the Gators were unable to sustain lengthy drives as Jeff Dawson missed two field goals before making one from 36 yards after the Bulldogs had built a 14-0 lead.

Florida came into the game averaging 29 points per game, but Waters and the other Georgia defenders limited the Gators to minus five yards rushing through the first three quarters.

Waters, a senior defensive end nicknamed Muddy after the late Chicago blues singer, outclassed a series of Florida tackles and he particularly excelled in the third quarter when he sacked Bell on one play and stripped the nation’s second-ranked passer of the ball on another.

“The second time I hit him (Bell), he said something to me that I didn’t understand,” Waters said. “I guess maybe he thought I hit him late, but I told him I’d be right back.”

Florida, found guilty of 59 violations in its football program and serving a three-year NCAA probation, is ineligible for the SEC title and cannot appear in a bowl game. Representatives from six bowls--the Sun, Florida Citrus, Fiesta, Gator, Sugar and All-American--watched the game.

In the final eight minutes, Florida moved from its two to the Georgia seven, where John L. Williams fumbled and Steve Boswell recovered for Georgia at the eight.

One play later, Worley went 89 yards for his score with 3:58 remaining.

Georgia is 7-1-1 overall and 3-1-1 in the SEC. Florida, losing in the SEC for the first time in 10 games, fell to 7-1-1 and 4-1.

Florida appeared to have ended Georgia’s mastery in the series with a 27-0 victory last year, but Saturday’s win was the seventh in eight years for the Bulldogs and raised their series lead to 41-21-2.

The victory also kept alive Georgia’s slim hopes of taking the SEC championship, but the Bulldogs will need some help along the way since Tennessee, and Alabama and LSU (who played to a tie Saturday) each have only one defeat.

The game drew a record crowd of 82,327 at the Gator Bowl, breaking the mark of 82,138 set in the 1984 Gator Bowl game.