Texas and Georgia’s college football showdown descended into chaos on Saturday night when furious supporters began launching bottles onto the field.
The home crowd was left incensed in Texas when an interception for the top-ranked Longhorns against No. 5 Georgia was initially wiped out by a pass-interference penalty.
In protest, Longhorns fans threw hundreds of bottles on the field to make their displeasure known, before head coach Steve Sarkisian could be seen walking over and urging them to stop.
Yet incredibly, their astonishing protests seemed to do the trick when the decision was eventually overturned.
Texas fans littered the north end of their field with bottles and other trash when the pass-interference penalty had appeared to wipe out Jahdae Barron’s 36-yard interception return to the Georgia 9 late in the third quarter.
Sarkisian, who was initially irate at officials for the call, then headed toward the far corner of the field and signaled to the student section to settle down and quit throwing things.
As the debris was being picked up, officials were discussing the play and picked up the flag for Barron’s contact with Georgia’s Arian Smith before the pick.
Two plays later, Quinn Ewers threw a 17-yard touchdown to Jaydon Blue to get the Longhorns to 23-15 after they had trailed 23-0 at halftime.
However, Georgia went on to add another seven points in what proved a convincing 30-15 victory on the road in Texas.
Trevor Etienne ran for three touchdowns, the first two set up by cornerback Daylen Everette’s takeaways, as Kirby Smart’s team produced a commanding win over their top-ranked opponent.
Etienne’s last score was a one-yard plunge on fourth down with 12:04 left. That came right after the ugly sequence when Texas fans littered the field with bottles.
Georgia (6-1, 4-1 Southeastern Conference), which began the season at No. 1, has won three in a row since a 41-34 loss at then-No. 4 Alabama, when the Bulldogs overcame a 28-0 deficit and went ahead late during an exchange of long TD passes.
The Bulldogs never trailed in their first trip to Austin since 1958 to take on the SEC newcomer that had gotten through the first half of its schedule pretty much unscathed.
Texas (6-1, 2-1) won at reigning national champion Michigan in Week 2 and had been behind for less than four minutes all season before Saturday night against the team that won back-to-back national titles before the Wolverines.
The 15-point loss was the most lopsided for a No. 1 team at home since Notre Dame´s 31-16 win at Pittsburgh in 1982, according to Sportradar, when Dan Marino was the Panthers quarterback.
