University of Georgia Athletics
Herrera: I Was Just Thinking Football
November 16, 2014 | Football
ATHENS, Ga. --- The year was 1982. The game was Auburn. The final score was 19-14, Dogs on top.
In one of his most famous calls of all time, Larry Munson, Georgia's late and beloved radio broadcaster, pleaded, "I know I'm asking a lot, you guys, but hunker it down one more time!" And that they did.
Saturday, those same words quietly echoed across the field of Sanford Stadium, but this time they did not come late in the fourth quarter.
Auburn received the opening kickoff to start the game. The Georgia crowd was wild and loud, eager to do its part in stopping the Tigers. Yet slowly but surely, Auburn drove down the field for a touchdown, taking four minutes off the clock and, briefly, the energy of all those donning red and black.
But in that short moment of silence, those most famous of words came drifting down and across the field. They were so quiet that perhaps only the Bulldog defense could hear them. Hunker it down one more time. And another time after that. Until the clock strikes zero.
That was the story of tonight's game. And senior Amarlo Herrera was the main character.
"Oh yeah, he led us," freshman outside linebacker Lorenzo Carter said. "When you look at Amarlo, you see a defensive player that you want to emulate when you grow up. You want to be like him."
Herrera, an inside linebacker, recorded a team-high 12 tackles, including two solo stops and a tackle for loss. He also added an interception. In what was arguably its finest defensive performance in years, Herrera was Georgia's leader.
After Auburn's opening drive, the Tigers never found the end zone again. Seven points was all they could manage against the Bulldogs, the least amount of points they've scored in the Gus Malzahn era.
But Herrera admits that nothing special changed between Georgia's first defensive attack and the next nine.
"We just kept playing ball. We just kept playing," he said. In other words, the Bulldogs hunkered it down.
Early in the fourth quarter, Auburn had the ball and was fighting to narrow the 27-7 Georgia lead. They were inside the red zone, threatening to score. On fourth-and-13, Auburn's Nick Marshall looked to the end zone for an open receiver. Instead, the ball found its way into Herrera's arms on the 2-yard-line. Georgia football. The Bulldogs capitalized on the interception, driving 98 yards for another touchdown and a decisive 34-7 victory.
"It's big," Herrera said. "It's an SEC game. It put us back in the race to get in the SEC championship. It meant a lot. We stopped a great offensive team, so it always means a lot when you can do that."
Though Herrera had much to do with Saturday's win, he didn't want the conversation to be about him. There are 11 men on defense, and he's proud to be counted among them.
"We played with confidence the whole time, we hustled back to the ball, beat them to the ball and gang tackled them," Herrera said. "Tackles are tackles. We played good defense."
He was not thinking about his stats. He was thinking about his team. He was thinking about hunkering it down one more time.
Or in Herrera's words: "I was just thinking football."
