NR 18 Season 1971 Date 31 December 1971 Stadium Gator Bowl Stadium | North Carolina 0 Attendance 71,208 Location Gator Bowl Stadium | |
MVP TB Jimmy Poulos (Georgia) Champion Georgia Bulldogs football team Similar 1987 Liberty Bowl, 1969 Sun Bowl, 2015 Russell Athletic B | ||
The 1971 Gator Bowl (December) was a college football postseason bowl game that featured the Georgia Bulldogs and the North Carolina Tar Heels.
Contents
Background
In the battle between the Dooley brothers was a finely balanced match up of an Atlantic Coast Conference champion that hadn't lost a conference game and a team that had only lost one game (#7 Auburn) which had cost them a Southeastern Conference title. This was Georgia's first Gator Bowl since 1948 and North Carolina's first since 1963. Altogether, the match was also called the "Dooley Bowl".
Game summary
The third quarter proved to be the most crucial part of a game dominated by defese. The Tar Heels took the lead on a Craven 35 yard field goal with nine minutes left in the quarter. But the Bulldogs drove 80 yards down the field on the following possession, culminated with a 25-yard run by Jimmy Poulos with 1:39 left in the quarter to give Georgia the go-ahead touchdown. Poulus went for 161 yards on 20 carries, in an MVP effort. North Carolina was limited to under 200 yards.
Aftermath
The Tar Heels would win the ACC title the following year, advancing to the Sun Bowl. They returned to the Gator Bowl in 1979. Georgia returned in 1989. The two teams met again at the 2016 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game where Georgia beat the Tar Heels, 33 to 24.