ATHENS, Ga. -- First-year Auburn coach Alex Golesh hadn't left his team's smoke-filled locker room before his wife informed him that fans had rolled Toomer's Corner -- and his house -- after the Tigers' stunning 27-24 upset of No. 1 Georgia on Saturday.
"Only in Auburn does everybody know where you live," Golesh said. "I guess it beats a for sale sign, right?"
Golesh won't have to worry about the Tigers running him out of town anytime soon.
Not after his unranked Tigers rallied from a 14-point deficit in the first quarter, scored 24 unanswered points and then came up with a turnover in the final minute to set up Alex McPherson's walk-off 34-yard field goal.
Auburn ended a nine-game losing streak in the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry and beat a No. 1-ranked Georgia team for the first time since 1942. The Tigers pulled off the fifth-largest comeback against a No. 1 team in the AP poll era since 1936.
In fact, unranked teams had lost 195 consecutive games against top-ranked opponents when trailing by 14 points or more, according to ESPN Research. Auburn was an 18.5-point underdog and 8-1 to beat Georgia straight-up heading into the game, according to DraftKings.
"I think we all want to get this program back to where you expect," Golesh said. "That's why we came here. That's why we chose Auburn. That's why these guys chose Auburn."
After the Bulldogs took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and seemed ready to run the Tigers off the field, Auburn scored the next 24 points and had a 24-14 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
Georgia tied the score at 24-24 on Gunner Stockton's four-yard touchdown pass to London Humphreys with 2:58 left. Then its defense forced Auburn to punt with 1:18 to go following a sack and botched snap.
The Bulldogs took over at their 39-yard line and moved closer to field goal range when a pass interference call moved the ball to Auburn's 46.
But then Stockton fumbled after he ran into his center, Drew Bobo, on a keeper. Tigers safety Sylvester Smith-Reed recovered the ball at Auburn's 44. It was Stockton's third turnover of the game; he also threw two interceptions. It was the first time in Stockton's college career that he had multiple turnovers in a game.
"They've got a lot of experience," Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. "That quarterback [Byrum Brown] has played in a ton of games. He's a good football player. When they don't turn it over and we turn it over three times and hand [them] extra possessions on penalties, Dogs beat Dogs, man. That's no disrespect to Auburn because I think they were really physical."
Golesh said he has spent a lot of time in his first season preaching to his players about taking care of the ball and forcing turnovers. Auburn had three turnovers and 11 penalties in its previous game, a 24-14 loss at Tennessee on Oct. 3.
"Really the story of the game is three takeaways defensively," Golesh said. "None bigger than the one at the very end there. And then did not turn it over offensively. We continued to talk about that being as big of a tell to winning, as big of a key to winning."
No Tiger was more resilient than Brown, who laid on the turf for several minutes after he was clobbered on a late hit by Georgia linebacker Khamari Brooks with 9:46 left in the first half. But Brown came back on the very next play. He ran for 115 yards with one touchdown and threw for 150 yards with one score.
Brown, who played for Golesh at South Florida and joined him at Auburn this season, is the first player with 150 passing yards and 100 rushing yards against a No. 1 team since Oklahoma's Kyler Murray against Alabama in a College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Orange Bowl in 2018.
The Tigers ran for 192 yards and went 3-for-3 in the red zone against what had been a very stingy Georgia defense.
When Auburn went ahead 24-14 on Brown's five-yard run to make it 24-14, the Tigers had run 54 offensive plays to Georgia's 27.
"Their quarterback is really hard to tackle," Smart said. "We knew that coming in. He did a tremendous job of [gaining] yards after contact, getting out of sacks [and] keeping them in good, normal down distances."
McPherson wasn't even at Sanford Stadium two years ago when the Tigers fell 31-13 to the Bulldogs. He was being treated for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, which led to surgery to remove his large intestine. He lost about 55 pounds but battled back.
"Honestly, I was like, did that just happen?" McPherson said of his winning kick. "You know, it's kind of the moment you dream of since you're a little kid. That's my first-ever game-winning field goal attempt. So, it's awesome to kind of knock it down and to do that for our team."
A week after Georgia knocked off Alabama 20-17 on the road to climb to No. 1, the Bulldogs looked sluggish and tired. They had three personal foul penalties, including a roughing the passer call with 14 seconds left that moved the Tigers closer to their winning field goal.
The Bulldogs also had a 54-yard field goal attempt blocked in the first half after Stockton, the holder, was late getting onto the field.
Stockton left the game after the first offensive play because of a stinger in his shoulder before returning at the end of the drive. He completed 22 of 34 passes for 272 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
"I saw him in the locker room," Smart said. "His head was up. I mean, we wouldn't have been in the position we were in if it wasn't for Gunner. I'm really proud that he's growing up and getting better. He had all the success last week, and so many people want to reach out and talk about it. It's tough."
The Bulldogs were 95-3 under Smart when leading by 14 points, including 65-0 against unranked opponents until falling to Auburn, according to ESPN Research. They had won 58 consecutive games when leading by two touchdowns.
The Tigers also snapped Georgia's 53-game winning streak against unranked foes, which was the longest in the FBS.
Georgia takes next week off before it faces two more challenges against rival Florida in Atlanta on Oct. 31 and at No. 9 Ole Miss on Nov. 7.
"Everything we want to do is in front of us," Smart said. "I know it's a big deal to everybody else, but to me, it's another game, and we have to turn around and get ready to go play again because it is a war in this league, week in and week out. Everybody can beat everybody."