ATHENS, Ga. – The wildest game many had ever seen had just ended. Players and coaches from Georgia and Georgia Tech still sat, shaking hands, exchanging notes, celebrating and consoling. In the midst of all this, Mike Cavan, a 76-year-old former Georgia quarterback, assistant coach and now staff member, grabbed the arm of someone close to him.

“Best win ever,” said Cavan.

The best? Cavan won an SEC championship as a player, recruited Herschel Walker, was an assistant on the 1980 national championship team and was on the sidelines throughout Kirby Smart’s career. The best?

“Best win ever Techsaid Cavan.

That’s a clarification that still says a lot: If you told the people of Georgia before Friday that they would need eight overtimes to earn a 44-42 home win over Georgia Tech, in a game in which they were with Leading by almost three touchdowns as the winner, the reaction probably would have been like this… ugh. In the more sober light of the morning, they might still end up feeling that way.

But the way things were going – 17-0 at halftime and 27-13 with five minutes left in regulation and then eight overtimes, including the last six in a two-point shootout – the prospect could wait.

Quarterback Carson Beck called it “one of the most emotional games I’ve ever been a part of.” Linebacker Jalon Walker said he was nervous for his grandmother, who was coming to the game for the first time. Many Georgia fans left after Georgia Tech took a 14-point lead with 5:37 to play. But many stopped or walked around to watch from the bridge over the West End zone.

What they experienced:

• Beck hit Dominic Lovett for a 17-yard touchdown with 3:39 left to make it 27-20.

• Georgia safety Dan Jackson forces Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King into a fumble, which Georgia recovered. Jackson is the only link to the 2021 unit on defense, being on the field for Kelee Ringo’s famous pick six and then being part of his own moment on Friday night.

“That hit fumble will be one for the ages,” Smart said.

• Beck and Lovett connected again for a 3-yard touchdown with 1:01 left to tie the score.

The next minute, Georgia Tech attempted to get into field goal range, was stopped at Georgia’s 45-yard line, and then Beck was sacked on a Hail Mary attempt. This forced a back and forth of emotions. No one could know that it was just beginning.

Georgia had practiced overtime rules before the Texas game last month – a drive from the 25-yard line in the first two overtimes, then a two-point shootout. But this was the first time I was really experiencing it.

“We go through the situation, but not every day,” tight end Ben Yurosek said. “So there were probably a few people asking around to make sure it was a two-point shootout (in the third overtime).”

• In the first overtime, Beck hit London Humphreys for a touchdown. But King responded with a scoring pass to Georgia Tech.

Continuing the second overtime, Georgia Tech started with a 1-yard run by King, but rules required a two-point attempt. It failed. Georgia got the ball and Beck immediately connected with Cash Jones on a touchdown pass. The Bulldogs could have won the game with a two-point conversion, but failed as well.

• It was time for the two-point shootout, an ironic twist for Smart: If Georgia had lost that game, his decision to go for two after Georgia’s touchdown in the third quarter would have been significant. There were 9:53 left when it happened, and Smart later appeared to acknowledge it was a questionable decision.

“Yes, interesting question. I’m not going to go really deep into it,” Smart said. “It’s an analysis and we follow it almost to the tee. That’s what our table says. It looked really interesting at the end because they could have scored an extra point to win the game.”

But this time it was the third overtime and no one had that choice. The only strategy was which plays to call, and even then there were no big surprises: Georgia Tech offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner was at Georgia from 2020 to 2022, and Smart said his coaches had many of the two-pointers Yellow jackets recognized games were running. But Faulkner certainly knew what decisions were in Georgia’s game plan and told his fellow coaches. Maybe that’s why there were so many failures.

• Both offenses failed in the third and fourth overtimes. Then Georgia converted when Beck scored on Dillon Bell. Georgia Tech responded with King completing a pass. Then the sixth and seventh overtime periods, both of which were failures for both teams. Overall, the second team could have won the game in four out of five matches, but failed to do so.

“It was just weird that it seemed like every time someone failed, they had to go again,” Smart said. “So you have to get over it, otherwise they would fail and they had to leave again.”

• Finally the eighth extension. At this point, Georgia’s defense was aggressive, going after King on every play, just from a different spot each time. Georgia linebacker CJ Allen went straight to King, who threw a pass out of the end zone.

Beck and the Georgia offense took the field. The same goes for Nate Frazier, a freshman tailback who may have seemed like a decoy since both teams had essentially played in overtime. Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo called a run-pass option, a play the Bulldogs had used before.

“But not like that, if that makes sense,” Beck said. “We perform the same piece in many different ways.”

This time Beck saw the defense’s look and when the moment came, he passed the ball to Frazier. The hole was there, he burst through it and the game was finally over.

Walker was later asked about his reaction when Frazier scored.

“I don’t know, tell me,” he said, laughing. “My mind was empty.”

It took a few moments for everyone to realize the game was over. Smart went to shake hands with Georgia Tech coach Brett Key after the game, and instead they hugged for a while. Smart and Key both coach at their alma mater and played against each other in the 1990s. They have a lot of respect for each other, especially after this game.

“Nobody knows what it’s like to sit on the sidelines and go through that pain and the ups and downs: ‘We’re going to win, we’re going to lose, we’re going to win, we’re going to go.’ to lose,’” Smart said. “I mean, he was emotionally exhausted, and so was I.”

After a few minutes of celebration, nearly the entire Georgia team had to be called back from the locker room for a ceremony at midfield, where Georgia Governor Brian Kemp presented Smart and his team with the state trophy for the seventh consecutive year. The team came back still smiling. Maybe there was some relief, but there was real joy.

Still, the question remains: What does it mean that Georgia is struggling on its home court – where it hasn’t lost a night game since 2009 – against a team it should easily beat?

“It shows the resilience of this team,” Yurosek said. “No matter what happens, what we are faced with, we are ready to put our heads down and keep working, no matter the situation. It shows a lot about this team and their character.”

Whether the College Football Playoff Committee sees it the same way will be reflected in the penultimate rankings on Tuesday. Either way, Georgia can make up for it all by winning the SEC Championship next week against Texas or Texas A&M. The winner receives a bye for the quarterfinals. And if the Bulldogs win this game against their in-state rivals, they’ll almost certainly be in the field either way: A 10-2 regular season with wins at Texas as well as over Clemson and Tennessee gives them some wiggle room to win a game like this survive.

However, when asked if that win ensured at least an overall win, Smart said he wouldn’t answer, but then seemed to realize those overtimes were on the line.

“If things went differently in one of these games tonight, we would be playing for our lives next week,” he said.

In fact, a playoff spot was on the line, and it essentially came down to a series of coin toss overtimes. It was a bizarre way things went down. In the coming days and two weeks there will be time to analyze and discuss what it means and should mean.

But immediately afterwards, Walker, Georgia’s defensive leader, could only shake his head.

“I mean,” he said, smiling, “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

(Top photo by Carson Beck: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)