The Georgia Bulldogs will enter unfamiliar territory on Saturday when they face top-ranked Texas in a heavyweight bout in Austin. The game will be Georgia’s first trip to Austin since 1958. The Bulldogs and Longhorns have only faced off five times in their programs’ storied histories, with the Dawgs losing all but one to Texas. Despite that 4-1 record, older Longhorns fans will attest… They would trade all those wins just to have the 1984 Cotton Bowl back.
In hindsight, the game was something of a crossroads for both programs. It would be the last chance at national glory for Texas head coach Fred Akers. He was shown the door in Austin three years later. The game would also be one of the last great hurrahs for legendary Georgia head coach Vince Dooley. The Dawgs wouldn’t finish in the top ten for the rest of Dooley’s tenure. Regardless, on that fateful January day, the Bulldogs and Longhorns would clash in a knock-down, drag-out slugfest that would see more punts than points for either team...
After a heartbreaking 13-7 loss to Auburn in November 1983, Coach Vince Dooley called a meeting of the team’s leadership committee; a group that included QB John Lastinger and tailback Scott Williams, among others. The Dawgs still had one game left on their regular season schedule, but Coach Dooley presented his players with a decision.
The Bulldogs had been offered the opportunity to play in the Fiesta Bowl against Iowa. The Hawkeyes were ranked tenth in the nation at the time, and had no realistic shot at winning a national championship. If Georgia were to accept, the game would be strictly consolation for two squads whose title dreams had already been dashed. Then Dooley presented an alternative. Georgia had also been invited to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. There they would play Texas, who were undefeated and ranked second in the nation. The Longhorns had the best defense in the country, and would be considered a formidable foe for any opponent.
“Immediately, everybody raised their hand and said that’s where we wanna go,” Lastinger recalled in a conversation with DawgsCentral, “We want to play in a game that matters. We don’t wanna just go lay out in the sun in Arizona.”
The Dawgs would take care of business in Atlanta the next week, taking down rival Georgia Tech 27-24, and setting up a top ten showdown in Dallas on January 2, 1984.
The #2 ranked Longhorns had been utterly dominant all season long. With wins over Auburn, Oklahoma, and SMU, Texas had been ranked in the top three of the AP Poll throughout the entirety of the 1983 season. 9 of their 11 starters on defense would be selected in that year’s NFL draft, with the two returners garnering draft selections the following year. In total, 32 players on the 1983 Texas roster would end up being drafted into the professional ranks.
Tailback Scott Williams said, “I kept thinking, man they are loaded over there! But I was also thinking, they are a lot like us.”
That they were. Back in ‘83, both Texas and Georgia were all about running it down your throat, chewing the clock, and suffocating you on the defensive end. They both employed a multi-quarterback system, and possessed a committee of ball carriers to handle the rushing load out of the backfield. The parallels were undeniable, except for one. The Longhorns were the ones still competing for a national championship. The #7 Bulldogs entered as a 7.5-point underdog. They were just there to play spoiler in the eyes of many.
It was a cold, windy January day in Dallas. With Lindsey Nelson and Pat Haden on the call, the Dawgs would start slow. A three-and-out on the first Georgia possession gave Texas the opportunity to draw first blood. Though Rob Moerschell was listed as the starting quarterback, and had started nine of eleven games that year, Texas coach Fred Akers decided to go in a different direction. As the Longhorns took the field for their first drive, it was Rick McIvor under center instead of Moerschell. McIvor, a senior, was known as more of a passing threat. He delivered on it with a 31-yard strike on Texas’s first play from scrimmage. The Dawgs defense looked to be on their heels, but eventually they forced Texas to kick a field-goal inside the 15. The Horns took a 3-0 lead, but UGA kicker Kevin Butler tied the game a few possessions later by making a field-goal of his own. As the game wore on, Texas continued to utilize a passing based offense with McIvor at QB, a departure from their style throughout the year.
“I thought that [starting McIvor] played into our favor quite honestly.” Lastinger said of the decision. The next possession, McIvor would airmail a ball down the right sideline that was picked off by DB Andre Holmes at the 2. The Dawgs couldn’t capitalize, punting from their own end of the field after a quick three-and-out. This puntfest would continue up until the end of the first-half, when Texas would miss a 43-yard field goal that could have given them the lead. The Dawgs and Horns hit the locker rooms locked in a 3-3 tie.
Neither team bowed from their first-half strategies as the 3rd quarter got underway. The Horns continued to roll McIvor out, hoping he could find receivers to extend drives. The Dawgs would continue to pound the football, although Lastinger would drop back for a few pass attempts, many of them falling incomplete. The Dawgs struggled to protect their quarterback all day. Texas’s pair of all-conference rushers, Tony Degrate and Eric Holle, invaded the backfield constantly. On their third drive of the second-half, the Longhorns would break the scoring drought and regain the lead with a 40-yard field goal off the foot of John Ward. The Cotton Bowl scoreboard now read 6-3.
The next drive started with a gutsy run from Keith Montgomery to pick up a first down. Lastinger would then hand the ball off to Scott Williams from the fullback spot. He picked up a solid gain before having the ball dislodged from his grip. Texas recovered the football on Georgia’s 38. It would be the only lost fumble of Scott Williams’ football career.
“I was shaking and scared by the time I got up and looked at [Coach Dooley], and he was coming towards me,” said Williams. “His head hit my facemask, and I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m done. He’s gonna kill me.’”
The fumble would jumpstart the Texas offense, and the Longhorns would quickly drive inside UGA’s 10. There Georgia would make a stand. After two overthrows and a broken screen pass, the Horns would settle for a field goal, extending their lead to 9-3.
Georgia had struggled to maintain drives since halftime. On third-and-long from his own 22, Lastinger rolled left and flipped the ball on a reverse to Fred Lane, who would take it all the way to the Texas 41. Finally, a spark for the UGA offense. It would be short-lived. Three plays later, the Dawgs lined up for a 54-yard field goal that Butler would miss.
As the 3rd quarter came to a close, the teams traded interceptions on the next two drives. The Horns would attempt another field goal but it would dip left, no good. The teams exchanged punts once again, giving the Dawgs an opportunity to take the lead late in the 4th. An incompletion followed by a sack would bring up 3rd-and-17. Another incompletion from a heavily pressured Lastinger would bring up another punting situation for the Dawgs. It was beginning to seem as if there was no way through the vaunted Longhorns defense.
As the Dawgs brought on their punt team, Coach Akers, afraid of a fake, left his starting defense on the field for 4th down. As the punt flew, Texas defensive back Craig Curry retreated to field it. The ball hung and twisted in the air before clipping Curry’s right shoulder pad, falling behind him. It would bounce through the legs of another Longhorn before the Dawgs recovered it on the Texas 13… A gift from the football heavens. Suddenly, the Dawgs had been handed a golden opportunity to take down the undefeated Longhorns. Could they rise to the occasion?
Lastinger that fateful possession, “When we ran the 1st down play, we brought motion back across, and I saw the corner running with our guy… we gave it to the fullback and I carried out my fake [thinking], ‘That’s interesting, there’s really only one support guy over here’, which was the strong safety.”
After two short gains, the Dawgs were faced with a 3rd and 4. Up to that point, Georgia had converted just 1/13 third downs that day.
“I look back over to the sideline, they signaled in the play, and I thought, ‘Okay, someone upstairs saw the same thing that I saw’,” Lastinger said with a chuckle, “I’m kind of laughing to myself thinking, ‘Please don’t change defenses on me.’”
The rest is now Bulldog history. The corner ran with the motion man, just as Lastinger expected. The Texas strong safety stayed with Georgia tailback Tron Jackson, anticipating the pitch. Lastinger pulled it instead, and scampered 17 yards for the Georgia touchdown. With an extra point, the Dawgs took the lead.
“It’s funny, cause I thought, there’s no way in the world they’re going down the field, kicking a field goal and beating us cause our defense is just too good,” Lastinger recalled coming to the sideline.
Williams concurred, “Yeah, I didn’t think they were gonna score on us, no! No field goals!”
There would be no more field goals that day. Texas would punt, and Georgia would pick up the 1st down it needed to killed the clock and end the game. Against a January Lone Star State sky, the Cotton Bowl scoreboard showed the final score- “Georgia 10 - Texas 9.”
It was hardly pretty. The Dawgs finished with more punts than completed passes, but it didn’t matter. They got the win. Lastinger would be named Cotton Bowl MVP for his efforts. As the final ticks ran off the clock, Dooley counted them down with the crowd. When the final horn blew, he was hoisted onto the shoulders of his players and carried to midfield. The Dawgs had done it. They had beaten the undefeated Longhorns. That night, #5 Miami would defeat #1 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl and vault to the top of the polls. Georgia had denied Texas their national title. More importantly, they had proven that the UGA football program was more than just Herschel Walker.
“Everybody wanted to see if we were going to fail without Herschel… and we proved everyone wrong,” said Williams. “And I think that was a point of pride for Coach Dooley.”
Many Texas fans and observers would point to the game as the start of a long downturn for the Longhorns’ program. Texas had three Top 5 finishes (including in 1983) and five Top 10 finishes over seven seasons before that Cotton Bowl. They won two Southwest Conference titles over that stretch as well. Akers would lose four games each of the next two years before a 5-6 campaign led to his firing after the 1986 season. Texas wouldn’t finish in the Top 5 of the AP Poll again until Mack Brown’s fourth season in Austin in 2001.
For Georgia, the win secured a #4 ranking in the final polls. Dooley’s program amassed a winning record in each of the next three seasons before sending him out on a high note with back-to-back nine-win campaigns in 1987 and 1988. Ray Goff took over in 1989 and his tenure with a 10-2 season in 1992. Goff was fired after consecutive six-win season in 1994 and 1995. Jim Donnan arrived the next year and led UGA to a 10-2 record in 1997, but never could replicate the double-digit wins. Mark Richt’s hiring led to UGA putting together a 13-1 record and an SEC Championship in 2002.
The lasting legacy of the 1984 Cotton Bowl may be most visible this weekend in a simple joke about time. Georgia fans will tell you that their watches always read 10 to 9 whenever they are in the Lone Star State.
This weekend, the Bulldogs will take on the Longhorns on Texas soil once again. An underdog for the first time in over three years, Georgia will look to overcome a slow start to the season and beat a supremely talented Texas team. Can the Dawgs ruin the party again?
Texas and Georgia will kickoff at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
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