Georgia vs. Missouri Series History

Georgia plays Missouri for the 10th time this Saturday, and for the ninth time as SEC East rivals.

Out of all of Georgia football's rivalries, its series with Missouri is by far the newest.

Before the Tigers joined the SEC, Georgia and Missouri had only played once. That meeting was in the 1960 Orange Bowl, a game Georgia won 14-0 to end its 1959 SEC championship season. 

The two programs were irrelevant to each other for the next 50 years until Missouri decided it no longer wanted to be in the Big 12. The SEC was looking to expand and it welcomed the Tigers with open arms, placing them in the SEC East to preserve every division crossover rivalry (the real rivalries at least).

At the time, Missouri dealt with a lot of criticism for its decision to change conferences. The Tigers were a mid-pack team in the Big 12, so the critics wondered if they could expect to compete in the SEC. So, the Tigers "called out" the biggest team in the division by calling saying Georgia's style of play was "old-man football" heading into their first SEC encounter in 2012.

Missouri competed with Georgia, and although they lost 41-20, the Bulldogs only led 24-20 after the third quarter. Missouri's comments backfired as Georgia flipped the quote calling their style of play "grown-man football" instead. 

Missouri proved it belonged in the SEC with its next meeting against Georgia. Playing in Sanford Stadium for the first time, the Tigers offense was unstoppable against Georgia's mediocre defense. Missouri won 41-26 and jumped up to No. 14 in the ensuing rankings. The win over Georgia jump-started Missouri's SEC East Championship run. 

Since losing the 2013 matchup, Georgia has dominated the series. Nick Chubb's coming-out party produced a 34-0 victory in Columbia in 2014. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, some inexcusable conference losses allowed Missouri to win the SEC East title again. Mark Richt was officially on the hot seat after the 2014 season and a 9-6 win over the Tigers in Athens did nothing to cool his seat down.

New Georgia head coach Kirby Smart took his first crack at Missouri in 2016 with that game proving to be the best in series history. The Tigers led 27-21 with just over three minutes left in the game. Quarterback Jacob Eason led the Bulldogs 60 yards downfield from their own 20-yard line, but the the drive stalled leading to a fourth-and-10 scenario with 1:29 on the clock. On their last chance, Eason hit Isaiah McKenzie over the middle for the game-winning score. The Bulldogs won 28-27 after Missouri fumbled on its next play.

The 2017 game was a fireworks show with Georgia producing over 700 yards of total offense before kneeling out the clock at the end and Georgia won 53-28.

The next game was also competitive, but in a different way. The Bulldogs needed touchdowns from their defense and special teams to beat the Tigers 43-29 in 2018. Tyson Campbell scored on a fumble return and Eric Stokes scored on a blocked punt.

Georgia relied on its defense in 2019 while the offense did just enough to beat Missouri 27-0.

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