ATHENS, Ga. (AP) -- Mark Richt looked past the mind-boggling offensive statistics to find the most important fact for his Georgia team.
When the game was on the line, Georgia made the plays. Even on defense.
Todd Gurley ran for three touchdowns and Keith Marshall added two as No. 5 Georgia recovered after blowing a 17-point lead to beat Tennessee 51-44 on Saturday in the highest-scoring game ever between the SEC rivals.
Georgia (5-0, 3-0 SEC), which had never scored more points against the Volunteers in 41 previous meetings, needed three takeaways in the final six minutes stay unbeaten. Twice Sanders Commings intercepted Tyler Bray's passes and in between the Tennessee quarterback was stripped from behind and the fumble was recovered by Georgia's John Jenkins.
''You can get into statistics, but the bottom line is a lot of games are going to come down to the end where somebody has to make a play,'' Richt said.
''It's nice to have a gut-check and come out on top.''
The Bulldogs' defensive plays in the closing minutes followed a game packed with offense.
The previous high for points in the series was 84 in Tennessee's 51-33 win in 2006. On Saturday, the teams combined for 60 points in just the first half.
Georgia had 282 yards rushing as its two freshmen each topped 100 yards. With former Georgia standout Herschel Walker watching, Gurley had 24 carries for 130 yards. Marshall had 164 yards on only 10 carries.
Asked if he anticipated the high-scoring pace, Gurley said ''Probably not.''
''We know what we're capable of,'' said Gurley, who has rushed for more than 100 yards in four of his first five games. ''We did our thing. We executed.''
Aaron Murray threw two third-quarter touchdown passes to Michael Bennett for the Bulldogs.
Georgia led 27-10 early in the second quarter before Tennessee took the lead with 20 unanswered points.
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