Georgia-Tennessee most-watched game of season so far
Georgia-Tennessee was the biggest game of the College Football weekend, and the numbers reflect it. According to CBS Sports, the game averaged 13.059 million viewers, up 122% from last year’s game, also on CBS in the 3:30 p.m. ET window. That makes it the most-viewed Georgia-Tennessee game on record (since 1997) and the most-watched College Football game of the season on any network.
No. 3 Georgia gave an extraordinary crowd what it came to see, dropping No. 1 Tennessee 27-13 in the highest-ranked matchup in Sanford Stadium history. The Bulldogs held the high-flying Volunteer offense out of the end zone until late in the fourth quarter while the offense had its way in the first half.
Stetson Bennett completed 17 of 25 passes for 257 yards and two scores. He added another touchdown on the ground. The defense held Tennessee to its season-low of just 289 total yards.
“What an incredible environment,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said in his postgame press conference. “I don’t know that I’ve ever — I texted my wife — I’ve never seen our fans not leave the stadium like that, even when it rained. You know, Claude made a mention that the start of the second half, there wasn’t an empty seat in the house other than the ones they purchased. Our fans were elite today. We asked them to be. They responded, and they get the second-place vote. Players on this team were bought in, and they understood the plan, they executed the plan, they played extremely physical. They played without ego, and they played complementary football, which is always important. I’m really proud of the way our guys played.”
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With the win over the Volunteers, Georgia is in prime position to make another run at the College Football Playoffs. The Bulldogs can clinch their spot in the SEC Championship Game by winning the division with a victory this Saturday at Mississippi State. Even if they were to drop that one, a win at Kentucky the following week would get the job done too. Then they’d be gunning for the program’s first SEC Championship since 2017 and a second straight spot in the College Football Playoffs.
Of course Kirby Smart and company aren’t looking that far ahead though. Their focus is on Mississippi State and the challenge that awaits Georgia at Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville.
“We opened our start of work on Mississippi State today. Took a day in the bye week to work towards these guys. Very different. Really different in two ways. Different defensively, their defensive coordinator does an incredible job. Different kind of scheme than we faced before. And then offensively, obviously, they’re very different,” Smart said on Monday. “People would probably think they’re similar to Tennessee, but they’re really not similar to Tennessee. So it’s become a third week of facing a different kind of offense in terms of what they do offensively, and very, very few of our calls and schemes carry over from one week to the next when you play this offense. So it’s a new challenge for our guys, and I know our guys will be excited getting ready for it. It’s an extremely tough place to play, a place I’ve been many times. Their environment is electric. It’ll be at night, and their guys play really hard and they’re really physical. We saw that, you know, a couple years ago, here at home against them.”
Kickoff time for Saturday’s game against Mississippi State is set for 7:00 p.m. ET on ESPN.
