Auburn Stuns No. 1 Georgia 27-24 on Buzzer-Beating Field Goal in Massive SEC Upset

Alex McPherson drilled a 34-yard field goal as time expired Saturday, and unranked Auburn stunned No. 1 Georgia 27-24 inside Sanford Stadium in one of the biggest upsets of the college football season. The Tigers, who entered 3-2 overall and 1-2 in the SEC, shook up the national title race and handed the Bulldogs their first loss of the year.

Georgia (6-1, 4-1 SEC) took the nation’s top ranking only a week ago, after Texas lost its grip on No. 1, and the Bulldogs were laying roughly 19.5 to 20.5 points depending on the sportsbook. Auburn (4-2, 2-2 SEC) was a double-digit underdog with a moneyline that closed somewhere around +700 to +980, and it still walked out of Athens with its first win over Georgia since 2017 and its first in Athens in 21 years.

Byrum Brown Wrecks the Script

Senior quarterback Byrum Brown had the finest afternoon of his Auburn career, and he did it mostly with his legs. Brown rushed for 115 yards and a touchdown and added 150 passing yards and another score, including a nine-yard touchdown pass to Chas Nimrod on a one-handed grab late in the first half. He became the first quarterback to run for 100-plus yards in a win over an AP No. 1 team since Vince Young went for 200 against USC in the 2005 national title game.

Georgia jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, scoring on its first two possessions, with Dwight Phillips Jr. adding a 15-yard touchdown run. Then the game flipped. Auburn scored 24 unanswered points, held Georgia scoreless into halftime, and pushed the lead to 24-14 on a five-yard Brown touchdown run in the third quarter. The 17 first-half points were Auburn’s most inside Sanford Stadium since 2009, and the Tigers finished with 168 rushing yards on a day when Georgia’s pass rush could not consistently contain Brown.

The Late Collapse in Athens

Georgia did not go quietly. Peyton Woodring kicked a 42-yard field goal to trim the deficit to 24-17, and Gunner Stockton hit London Humphreys on a four-yard touchdown pass with 2:58 left to tie it at 24. But Stockton, who threw for 272 yards and two touchdowns, also threw two interceptions and fumbled with 58 seconds to play near midfield, giving Auburn the ball at its own 44-yard line with a chance to win.

Brown and the Tigers capitalized. A roughing-the-passer penalty on Georgia’s Gabe Harris Jr. with 15 seconds left moved the ball 15 yards to the Georgia 19, and McPherson, who had never before hit a walk-off game-winner in his career, split the uprights as the clock hit zeros. The loss was Georgia’s first to an unranked opponent since 2019 and snapped a nine-game winning streak in the series that had matched the program’s own record run from 1923 to 1931. It was also a brutal blow to a Bulldogs program that entered 95-3 under Kirby Smart when leading by at least 14 points.

What the Upset Means for Bettors and the Playoff Race

For bettors, this was a rare one. Georgia closed as a heavy favorite on the spread, with the line moving from an opener of -18.5 to as high as -19.5 and -20.5 by kickoff, and the Bulldogs’ moneyline was priced as high as -2000 at some books. The public leaned hard toward Georgia, with 62 percent of spread tickets on the home side, so books had a good day on the Auburn cover. It ranks as the third-biggest upset loss by point spread for Georgia since 1950. Anyone who grabbed the Tigers at plus money, whether on the spread or through FanDuel promo code offers, cashed one of the most memorable tickets of the college football year.

The result also adds a historic footnote. Texas lost on a walk-off field goal last week, and Georgia has now followed on the final play of its own game, marking the first time in AP poll history, since 1936, that the No. 1 team has lost on the last play in consecutive weeks. It is also the first time since 1990 that the AP’s top-ranked team has lost in back-to-back weeks to unranked opponents.

Georgia’s College Football Playoff path is narrower but far from closed. The Bulldogs still have No. 10 Ole Miss on the road and No. 13 Missouri on the schedule, and they should only fall a few spots in the next rankings. Auburn, meanwhile, got the signature win of the Alex Golesh era and a major boost to its bowl and SEC standing. Before you bet the next SEC slate, check the odds probability calculator to see what the implied chances really are, because Saturday proved that even a heavy favorite can lose.