Bulldogs christen Dooley Field with win over Murray State

Athens — Georgia’s extended tune-up before the Notre Dame game continued Saturday as the No. 3-ranked Bulldogs played host to nowhere-close-to-being-ranked Murray State in what shall always be remembered as Dooley Day at Sanford Stadium.

It certainly won’t be remembered for the lopsided football contest that was waged on this date. The Bulldogs defeated their FCS-division visitors 63-17. But few came to see that. Most of sellout crowd of 92,746 showed up to see the field named for Vince Dooley, the school’s longtime head coach and athletic director.

Georgia’s $550,000 date with the Racers – that was the guarantee to play the game – came a week after the Bulldogs’ season opener at Vanderbilt and a week before next Saturday’s game against Arkansas State. Fans will have to wait until the No. 8-ranked Fighting Irish come to town Sept. 21 to see the Bulldogs truly tested.

Though Georgia did find itself briefly in a contest. Murray State did in the first nine minutes something Vanderbilt couldn’t do the whole game last week in Nashville – score a touchdown.

After the Racers notched their third first down of the first quarter, quarterback Preston Rice faded back and hit wide receiver DaQuan Green perfectly in stride on a deep post route. Nickel back Mark Webb not only was beaten on the play, but failed to make the tackle as well. After he fell to the ground, Green rambled the rest of the way untouched for a 60-yard touchdown.

Coupled with Jake Fromm getting sacked and the Bulldogs having to punt on the previous possession, it was a bad look for Georgia to find itself tied at 7 with 6:36 remaining in the first quarter. And the score would remain tied through the first quarter.

But things would turn around quickly for the Bulldogs once the scoreboard switched to second quarter. Thirty-six seconds into it, Brian Harrien plunged into the end zone from two yards out to cap a 78-yard drive that began in the first quarter. Thirty-three seconds after that, J.R. Reed scooped up a fumble by Murray’s State’s Jared McCray and returned it 13 yards for a score.

Most notably, it was Webb who made the hit that caused the fumble.

And with that, normalcy was restored. It wasn’t another five minutes before the Bulldogs scored again. This one was D’Andre Swift’s second of the day, a 10-yarder to make it 28-7. That would end up being the second of five touchdowns that Georgia would score in a 13-minute span. The 35-point second quarter was the most points in a quarter since the Bulldogs scored 42 points against New Mexico State in 2011.

By halftime, Fromm and Swift were done for the day and the Georgia led 42-7. Fromm was 10-of-11 passing for 166 yards and a touchdown, and Swift averaged 11.2 yards on the way to rushing for 67.

There were some memorable moments within all that, most of them recorded by freshmen:

• George Pickens, the ballyhooed 5-star receiver out of Hoover, Ala., showed what the fuss was all about with three highlight catches, each of them grander than the last. His first was an off-body snatch for a 10-yard gain early in the second quarter. His second was a diving leap on a deep ball down the Georgia sideline for a 43-yard gain. Two plays later, Pickens scored his first collegiate touchdown by hauling in Fromm's fade pass for an 11-yard TD in the southwest corner of the end zone. Pickens' scored made it 35-7.
• On Georgia's next possession, the Bulldogs were able to get Zamir White in on the act. The beloved redshirt freshman affectionately known as "Zeus" scored his first career touchdown. It came on a five-yard, tackling breaking run. He finished as Georgia's leading rusher with 72 yards on 8 carries.
• And Dominick Blaylock, another 5-star signee, caught three passes, including his first career TD, a 25-yarder from Stetson Bennett.

There was a lot of going-through-motions after that. Smart will surely bemoan the big plays Georgia gave up to a Murray State offense that specializes in them.

But there remains another full week of tune-up to work out the kinks. Then, Notre Dame.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution