This just has to be the most evenly matched rivalry in the country with Georgia holding a 59-56-8 all time advantage.
It’s billed as the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, but it’s also a game I don’t like to miss every season. Maybe the most famous of the Georgia/Auburn games took place in 2013 with one of the craziest plays in football history. The play, and the game, known as the Prayer at Jordan Hare allowed Auburn to continue towards an SEC championship and a national title game berth. Prayer
But, coming into this game, the series stood at Georgia leading Auburn 40-38-7.
Both Georgia and Auburn have been known for great running backs, but maybe the 1982 game featured the top two running backs athletically that have ever lived, and they were playing on the field at the same time. That must have been really something to see in person.
Who was better between Herschel Walker and Bo Jackson? Nobody will ever know the true answer to that question, but we can always speculate. Both were big and both were super fast and incredible
specimens. Georgia fans would for sure pick Walker and Auburn fans would pick Jackson and the rest of us can just have fun with it.
The 1982 game featured an unbeaten 9-0 Georgia ranked #1, versus a 7-2 Auburn.
Georgia opened with 11th ranked Clemson coming off a national championship season. This turned out to be the only loss for the Tigers of Clemson when Georgia beat them, 13-7. The Dogs followed that up with a surprisingly close, 17-14, win over a Steve Young led Brigham Young.
They easily beat a bad South Carolina team, but then struggled against conference foe, Mississippi State. The Bulldogs wound up beating the other Bulldogs, 29-22, to get a step up in the conference standings by starting out 1-0.
Georgia went 2-0 in the conference after beating a really bad Ole Miss team, 33-10. Somewhat easy wins over Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Memphis followed before they really laid it on rival and 20th ranked Florida in Jacksonville, 44-0.
Auburn was up next.
The Auburn Tigers with true freshman legend Bo Jackson started the season off with 3 straight wins and climbed into the top 20 before being crushed by 8th ranked Nebraska at home, 7-41.
They did manage to pick themselves up and win 3 more straight games and climbing back into the polls before losing to Florida, 17-19.
The Tigers crushed Rutgers next, 30-7, to come into the Georgia game with 2 losses.
Freshman star halfback Bo Jackson had 657 yards rushing on 96 carries coming in with 8 touchdowns and was averaging 6.8 yards per carry.
This game was back and forth with Georgia driving and settling for a Kevin Butler field goal and a 3-0 lead.
In spite of Bo Jackson’s stardom, it was little Randy Campbell at quarterback that provided the spark for the Auburn Wishbone attack. Campbell was nearly flawless in the first half with his passing and
managed to drive the Tigers downfield running and passing and then scoring on a naked bootleg on 3rd and goal.
The first quarter ended with the Tigers leading the Dawgs 7-3.
Early in the second quarter, the Bulldogs hand the ball to fullback Chris McCarthy who showed surprising speed on a nearly 30 yard run. But, it was star Herschel Walker that took it 47 yards a few plays later to pull Georgia back into the lead, 10-7.
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With 3 minutes left in the half, Georgia scored again on another Kevin Butler field goal to take a 13-7 lead.
The Wishbone, for all of it’s finer points, was not a quick scoring offense generally. With less than 3 minutes remaining, Auburn tried to score quickly before half and they got close. The half ended with a couple of trick plays, with neither working.
The third quarter was all about defense and neither team getting much done on offense. The closest as anyone got to scoring was Auburn, but Campbell’s pass was picked off after he hit his tight end right in the hands and he didn’t catch the ball.
In the fourth quarter, little 5-7, 170 halfback Lionel James took it 87 yards for a touchdown. At 5-7, the diminutive James supposedly could dunk a basketball behind his head demonstrating what kind of an explosive athlete he really was.
Auburn took a 14-13 lead firing up the sold out stadium and the pompoms were waving madly.
Getting the ball back, Herschel Walker had a nice run which was improved by a dumb late hit out of bounds penalty on Auburn.
The Tiger defense then got a solid taste of Herschel Walker left and Herschel Walker right. Walker, fittingly, capped the drive off with a short touchdown run to put the Dawgs back on top 19-14.
Georgia quarterback John Lastinger, missed on the two point conversion to keep the lead at 5 points.
Auburn had one final shot at winning the game at Jordan Hare Stadium. But, the promising drive is
cut short by a motion penalty and a quarterback sack, plus a few incompletions.
By today’s standards, this game was pretty lame with the Georgia 19-14 win. But, the defenses fought hard and the hitting was incredible. A great defensive battle is as fun to watch as an offensive battle for me.
Herschel Walker finished the game with 177 yards rushing which placed him over the 5,000 yard rushing mark. He was the first junior ever to top 5,000 yards rushing and he would have held the all time career rushing mark if he had come back for his senior season. He was also the guy to start the trend for juniors leaving early, but the NFL didn’t take juniors back then. He signed with a USFL team and the NFL changed their rules so that the newly formed USFl wouldn’t steal all of the top college juniors.
Georgia went on to finish the regular season unbeaten by defeating old nemesis Georgia Tech. But, they lost to Penn State in the Sugar Bowl for the national title.
Herschel Walker deservedly won the 1982 Heisman Trophy.
Bo Jackson didn’t do that much in this game, and finished his freshman season with 829 yards rushing. Jackson would go on to win the Heisman in 1985.
Auburn beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl next, 23-22, in the legendary Bear Bryant’s last regular season game. Bear Bryant-Bo Jackson
Auburn then beat Doug Flutie and Boston College in the Tangerine Bowl to finish their season 9-3. Flutie went on to win the Heisman in 1984.
The 1982 game between these two beastly football programs will never be repeated as far as having probably the best two running backs to ever play on the field at the same time.
USC fans might say OJ Simpson, or Marcus Allen were better and a Texas fan might say Earl Campbell or Ricky Williams. This is an argument that can never be won, but it’s always fun to talk about, right?