Thursday March 28th, 2024 9:52AM

The Last Time: Georgia vs. Missouri

Honest question, how many of y'all thought we'd get to the Missouri edition of The Last Time with Georgia still undefeated?

I'm not going to shy away from the fact that I thought we'd drop one — maybe two — of the first six, but here we stand, with the Dawgs a 30 — THIRTY — point favorite at home against the Tigers.

Let's ride the wave while we've got it, folks, because come the Cocktail Party, this schedule gets a bit crazy.

But you didn't come here for that sort of talk.

You came here for stats and facts and sarcasm.

I shall oblige.

The last time...

1) These teams met:

This seems to be a recurring theme for The Last Time, with me mentioning how I watched a game at Walt Disney World.

Well, guess where I was when Georgia traveled to Columbia, Mo. in Sept. 2016?

Sitting inside my room at the Port Orleans: French Quarter resort at Walt Disney World, watching the game on my iPhone.

And anybody who's watched a game on a stream knows that it's, uh, a wee bit behind the live action. (Sometimes as much as a full minute.)

I say that because my own phone spoiled the game for me. I got the push notification from ESPN that Jacob Eason had tossed the go-ahead touchdown to Isaiah McKenzie a full 30 seconds before the play was ever snapped on my phone.

I still had to see it to believe it, but my heart skipped a beat when I saw the notification. What if it was reviewed? What if McKenzie dropped it? What if we missed the extra point?

Still, I might've yelled and woken up the neighbors at the resort, but it was so worth it. Might, your honor.

(Georgia won 28-27, a rare highlight of an otherwise forgettable season.)

2) Georgia went undefeated against the SEC East:

A win Saturday would move the Bulldogs to 3-0 against the East, with Florida, South Carolina and Kentucky still to play.

Not exactly murderer's row, but certainly not three guaranteed wins either.

Still, if the Dawgs were to go 6-0 against the East it would be the first time ... ever.

Since the SEC split into divisions in 1991, Georgia has never had a perfect record against the East.

Even its two best seasons, 11-1 campaigns in 2002 and 2012, saw the Dawgs lose to Florida and South Carolina, respectively.

I still wonder to this day if Steve Spurrier made some sort of ritualistic sacrifice in Jacksonville that has forever cursed his most hated rival.

3) Missouri won a conference road game:

Like Georgia, the Tigers' last conference road win came in the state of Tennessee.

Unlike Georgia, it happened nearly three years ago.

On Nov. 22, 2014, Mizzou made the trek to Knoxville, and knocked off The Champions of Life Tennessee 29-21, en route to an SEC East title, the second straight for the Tigers.

(Did that one count as a #LeadershipRep for Tennessee?)

Whether it did or not, Missouri is working on eight straight conference road losses since then.

4) Georgia won four conference games by 28 points:

The Bulldogs have already won three conference games by margins of 28, 41 and 31 points.

The last time Georgia had four conference wins by 28 or more was all the way back in 1971, when the Dawgs knocked off Mississippi State 35-7, Ole Miss 38-7, Kentucky 34-0 and Florida 49-7.

Know what else happened in 1971?

According to my inside sources (Wikipedia), that is the year the U.K. voted to join the European Economic Union, which would later be absorbed by the European Union.

Know what happened within the past year?

The U.K. voted to leave the European Union.

It's all come full circle — we were just waiting on the Brits!

5) The previous year's Liberty Bowl participants were both ranked in the Top 10:

I'll take a bit of break from tomorrow's game to point out a weird stat.

Both Georgia and TCU, the participants in last year's illustrious Liberty Bowl, are in the Top 10, with the Dawgs sitting at No. 4 and the Frawgs at No. 6, the second straight week the Fighting Kirby's and the Fighting Gary's have been in the Top 10.

Until last week, this hadn't happened since 1986.

In 1985, Baylor knocked off LSU in the Liberty Bowl 21-7, and both teams were fairly highly ranked to start the 1986 season.

In Week 3 — Sept. 20, 1986 — the No. 9 Bears fell to USC 17-14, while the No. 8 Tigers fell to Miami (Ohio) 21-12.

And until last week, we hadn't seen the defending Liberty Bowl-ers both ranked in the Top 10 since.

6) Georgia trailed:

Ever since Rodrigo "Hot Rod" Blankenship booted the go-ahead (and eventual game-winning) 30-yard field goal with 3:34 remaining against Notre Dame, the Bulldogs haven't trailed.

That was more than a month ago.

Since then, Georgia has never trailed in dominating wins over Samford (45-14), Mississippi State (31-3), Tennessee (41-0) and Vanderbilt (45-14).

In terms of game time, we're talking about 4 hours, 3 minutes and 34 seconds without being behind.

I can get used to that.

BONUS: Missouri led:

The Tigers, meanwhile, are heading in exactly the opposite direction.

The last time Missouri led was in the second quarter of the South Carolina game — also in Week 2.

With 12:37 left in the half — Mizzou leading 10-7 — Deebo Samuel scored on a 25-yard run, giving the Gamecocks a 14-10 lead, which they would never relinquish en route to a 31-13 victory.

In the three games since then — losses to Purdue, Auburn and Kentucky by an aggregate score of 126-51 — the Tigers have never led. That's three hours, 42 minutes and 37 seconds of game time without ever once having a lead.

7) Missouri lost five games in a row:

The Tigers are on the cusp of a dubious honor: two consecutive years with a five-game losing streak

A loss Saturday would be Missouri's fifth straight since an opening week win over FCS Missouri State.

In 2016, the Tigers also dropped five straight with mid-season defeats at the hands of LSU, Florida State, Middle Tennessee State, Kentucky and South Carolina.

A classic #LeadershipRep if I've ever seen one.

(I'm sorry, the Butch Jones jokes are just too good to pass up.)

8) A Georgia player who isn't a defensive back intercepted a pass:

The Bulldogs have intercepted four passes so far this season, one each by J.R. Reed, Dominick Sanders, Deandre Baker and Tyrique McGhee.

If you aren't up to date on the roster, all four of those guys are defensive backs. (And shame on you for not being up to date on the roster this far into the season.)

To find this stat, we need to jump back to 2015, when Jake Ganus, a linebacker, picked off a pass against Tennessee.

Since then, the Georgia defense has notched 25 interceptions — all from the defensive backfield.

9) Missouri beat a ranked opponent:

The Tigers are working on five straight losses against ranked opponents, dating back to the Citrus Bowl on New Year's Day 2015.

Missouri knocked off No. 25 Minnesota 33-17 to close out an 11-3 season.

Since then, Mizzou hasn't beaten a single ranked team, though interestingly enough tomorrow's game is only the second ranked opponent the Tigers have had to play on the road over that stretch.

10) Georgia lost the week immediately following a win over Vanderbilt:

There's a couple different ways you might slice this one, so I'll take two swings at it for you.

(The extra one is free of charge, too.)

First, we can obviously throw out years like 2006, 2013 and 2016, since the Bulldogs failed to, ya know, beat Vandy.

And going back, the last time Georgia lost in the game immediately following a win over the 'Dores was 2009, when the Dawgs followed up a 34-10 win in Nashville with a humiliating 41-17 thumping at the hands of No. 1 Florida.

The catch, though, is that Cocktail Party actually followed a bye week, so if you want to get literal with the term "immediately," and make it a game that happened the very next week, we need to keep digging.

Alllllllllll the way back in 1996, in fact.

That season — Jim Donnan's first — saw Georgia beat Vanderbilt 13-2, then fall to Kentucky the very next week 24-17 in Lexington.

Depending on how you look at it, we're looking at 21 straight years without losing the week after a win over the Commies.

***

Time for the usual look at the stat line.

As of this writing, Georgia is a 30-point favorite at home over Missouri, as mentioned above.

I guess I need to get used to the new feel of Bulldog football, because the last few years would've had me laughing out loud at such a spread, no matter how pitiful the opponent might be.

30 is still a hefty spread, but I really wouldn't be shocked if the Dawgs cover. Something like 49-14 wouldn't shock me.

And it feels weird to say that.

See y'all in Athens!

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