Georgia obliterates Florida State 63-3 in Orange Bowl
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Georgia snapped Florida State’s 19-game win streak on Saturday with a total annihilation. The Bulldogs carried a 39-point lead into halftime, an Orange Bowl record, and ran away to a 63-3 victory. The 60-point victory breaks a record that UGA set last year with a 65-7 win over TCU in the National Championship game.
Carson Beck completed 13 of 18 passes for 203 yards and two scores while Kendall Milton racked up 104 yards and two touchdowns on nine carries. Dillon Bell led the Georgia receivers with five grabs for 86 yards.
Georgia did not score on its opening possession of the game, failing to pick up a 4th and 3 in FSU territory, but it went on a run after that. The Bulldogs found the end zone on nine straight possessions with six of those drives going further than 60 yards.
Milton scored the Bulldogs first two touchdowns of the game, staking his team to a 14-0 lead. Florida State answered after that with a long pass that got it inside of the Georgia 10-yard line. The Bulldog defense stood tall and forced the Seminoles to kick a chip-shot field goal, cutting the lead to 11 points at 14-3.
Then Georgia went on another run. Daijun Edwards scored from 15 yards out to push the lead to 21-3. Then UGA got a 27-yard touchdown run from Ladd McConkey a play where he was set up to throw the football on a double pass. He improvised, ran all the way across the formation, and scored when his intended receiver wasn’t open.
Beck found Arian Smith and Dominic Lovett for scores late in the second quarter to send the game into halftime with the Bulldogs up 42-3. When the team came out for the second half, it became Gunner Stockton’s game.
He got the ball coming out of halftime and kept the train rolling. Edwards reached the end zone for a second time to push Georgia’s lead to 49-3. Stockton then tossed the first two touchdowns of his career on the next two possessions. The first was to Lawson Luckie and the second was to Anthony Evans. Those scores were also the first of Luckie and Evans’ careers.
Georgia’s first punt didn’t come until there were less than eight minutes in the game. The Bulldog defense helped the offense by creating three turnovers. Malaki Starks picked off a pass to end the first half and Daylen Everette grabbed his first career interception in the third quarter. Mykel Williams had a strip sack in the second quarter that Georgia recovered and the Bulldogs got a short field in the second quarter when Cash Jones forced a fumble on a kickoff return and it was recovered by Cole Speer.
The 2023 season ends for Georgia with it winning 13 of 14 games and earning the program’s seventh straight bowl-season win. The Bulldogs will begin the 2024 season with a Chick-Fil-A Kickoff matchup with Clemson inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
