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The Georgia Bulldogs have been a downright juggernaut in 2022. The Dawgs are coming off winning their first national championship in over 40 years last season, and they look every bit the favorite to repeat this time around.
Georgia entered the SEC championship game against LSU on Saturday with a perfect 12-0 record. In the Bulldogs’ two biggest regular season games, against Oregon and Tennessee, they had an average margin of victory of 30 points.
The Tigers meanwhile, rebounded from a Week 1 loss to Florida State to get all the way up to No. 5 in the College Football Playoff rankings entering the final week of the regular season. But LSU’s playoff and title hopes came crashing down with a 38-23 upset loss to 4-7 Texas A&M in the final week of the season.
Though that didn’t seem to upset their most-famous student all that much.
The confluence of events meant that Georgia entered the SEC title game as a 17-point favorite over the Tigers. And early on, it was easy to see why.
Georgia Scores Hilarious Touchdown On Blocked Kick To Start SEC Championship Game
LSU received the opening kick of the game. But neither team got much going on offense early, exchanging punts. On the Tigers’ second drive, however, they marched into the UGA red zone. But the drive stalled there and they sent kicker Damian Ramos on for a 32-yard field goal attempt.
Then this happened…
Nazir Stackhouse blocks the LSU field goal and Christopher Smith returns it for the first touchdown of the SEC Championship 🏈pic.twitter.com/m46G3gt6vp
— 247Sports (@247Sports) December 3, 2022
Nazir Stackhouse, a 6-foot-3, 320-pound defensive tackle, got his hand up to block the kick. But LSU players didn’t seem to know the play was still live since the ball crossed the line of scrimmage. Georgia defensive back Christopher Smith took note of this, waiting for the ball to juuuuust about stop before scooping it up and returning it, unencumbered, for a touchdown.
The Tigers went down and tied the game up on the next drive, but the Bulldogs have since taken full control and lead 21-7, thanks in part to yet another comical bit of LSU misfortune.
https://twitter.com/MrMatthewCFB/status/1599161833445023744?s=20&t=1itzS8NLEhuzyY0s2FdCoQ
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