ATHENS, Ga. — Two years after illness cost him his entire large intestine, Alex McPherson kicked a 34-yard field goal as time expired at Sanford Stadium on Saturday, and unranked Auburn beat No. 1 Georgia 27-24.
Georgia had reached No. 1 in the AP poll only days earlier. It led 14-0, watched Auburn score 24 unanswered points, then needed a 94-yard drive, capped by Gunner Stockton’s four-yard touchdown pass to London Humphreys, to tie it at 24-24 with 2:58 left.
The result ended two droughts at once. Auburn had not won in Athens since 2005 and, by its own game notes, had not beaten a top-ranked team since the 2017 Iron Bowl. It was also the second straight weekend a No. 1 team lost to an unranked opponent, NBC Sports noted, after Oklahoma stunned No. 1 Texas.
The finish came quickly. Auburn’s athletics site reported that Cody Sigler forced a Stockton fumble two plays after an Auburn punt, and Sylvester Smith-Reed recovered it at Auburn’s 44-yard line in the final minute. Smith-Reed said all he had to do was “fly to it and jump on top of it.” The Tigers drove to Georgia’s 19, and McPherson did the rest.
Georgia, which had beaten Alabama 20-17 in Tuscaloosa the week before, saw the sequence differently. Georgia coach Kirby Smart said after the game, “We like to say the Dawgs don’t beat the Dawgs, but they found a way to beat themselves today,” UGA Wire reported. The site counted three Georgia turnovers, and said a roughing-the-passer penalty on the Bulldogs also helped Auburn’s last drive.
Auburn quarterback Byrum Brown ran for 115 yards and a touchdown and threw for 150 yards and another score. Auburn’s game notes say only Cam Newton in 2010 had also topped 100 rushing yards against Georgia among its quarterbacks in the last 40 years. “It wasn’t pretty but we found a way in the end,” Brown said.
McPherson’s own route was harder. NBC Sports reported that the kicker, the younger brother of Cincinnati Bengals kicker Evan McPherson, had his large intestine removed in 2024 after severe ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, and that he lost 55 pounds. At SEC Media Days in July he said he was “really excited just to be back to normal from where I was.” On Saturday he said, “When they turned it over, I knew my guys were going to get me into range.”
Auburn credits Sigler’s strip for the fumble. Georgia’s coach says his team undid itself. TEH could not open Georgia’s own postgame notes, so the Bulldogs’ side of that last drive rests on Smart’s remarks as UGA Wire relayed them, and the scoreboard did not choose between them.
