Georgia beats Tennessee to tie win streak record for SEC team

 

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Nobody needs to remind Georgia that the postseason is just around the corner.

The No. 1 Bulldogs are playing their best football of the season and made it look easy Saturday night in a 38-10 romp over No. 18 Tennessee at Neyland Stadium, a victory that tied the SEC's all-time winning streak for one of its teams at 28 straight games.

Georgia (11-0, 8-0 in the SEC) can break the record next week against Georgia Tech, a record that was set two different times by Alabama from 1978-80 and 1991-93. The second time Alabama won 28 in a row, though, the Crimson Tide were later forced to forfeit eight wins from the 1993 regular season because of NCAA sanctions.

So officially, the Bulldogs have a chance to break a record that has stood for more than 40 years, but nobody in and around the Georgia locker room, especially coach Kirby Smart, was interested in putting into perspective what the streak or any other records the Bulldogs have broken mean.

"I've got to go play [Georgia] Tech next week. That's the perspective that I've got," said Smart, whose Bulldogs have strung together three straight 8-0 seasons in SEC play, the first time in history that's happened. "I mean there will be a time to look back on that and there will be a time to celebrate that, but it's not right now."

What Smart did want to talk about was the culture surrounding Georgia's program and the way the Bulldogs are never satisfied and are always "trying to be the best version of ourselves." During their 28-game winning streak, their average margin of victory is 25.6 points, and 24 of their 28 victories have been by double digits.

Earlier in the season, Smart wasn't ready to say where his team was elite. But 11 games in, he has no doubt.

"Taking a punch," Smart said. "It's way, way, way more indicative of who you are, your ability to take a punch, than to get one. The knockout fighters ... they get knocked out if they can't take a punch. This group's proven again and again that they can take jabs and punches with the best of them and hang around until they can throw one."

The first punch Saturday came via Tennessee on the first play from scrimmage when running back Jaylen Wright ripped off a 75-yard touchdown run. It was about the only highlight for the Vols, who had their 14-game home winning streak snapped.