When Georgia needed someone to grab hold of the backfield Saturday night in Tuscaloosa, Dwight Phillips, Jr. did exactly that.
With Nate Frazier and Chauncey Bowens sidelined by injuries, Phillips made his first career start count in No. 2 Georgia’s 20-17 win over No.
6 Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium. He finished with 120 rushing yards on 17 carries, both career highs, and kept the Bulldogs moving in a game they had to have on the ground.
The first burst came immediately. Phillips opened with a 9-yard run, then followed with 7 more on the next snap.
He later appeared to score on a 17-yard touchdown run during Georgia’s opening drive, but the play was wiped out by holding. Even so, the Bulldogs still took a 3-0 lead on Peyton Woodring’s field goal.
Phillips kept stacking productive series. In the second quarter, he ripped off runs of 5, 7 and 9 yards on the drive that ended with Gunner Stockton’s 20-yard touchdown pass to London Humphreys, pushing Georgia ahead 10-0. He also had a 28-yard run in the third quarter erased by holding, but a 31-yard run later in the period did count.
His biggest sequence may have come when Georgia needed to close the door. On the fourth-quarter possession that ended with Woodring’s 23-yard field goal and a 20-17 lead, Phillips carried four times for 38 yards. That included a 22-yard burst up the middle to the Alabama 45.
"What a great kid, man," Georgia head coach Kirby Smart told reporters after the win. "This Dwight Phillips, man, y'all don't know how special this kid is. He hasn't complained one time since being here, and he's so tough for his size."
That size has changed since Phillips got to Athens. He said he arrived at Georgia at about 150 pounds, and he has added 35 pounds of muscle in the program’s strength and conditioning work while staying at 5-foot-10.
"I was 150, pretty light to be a running back, when I first got here," he said. "The conditioning staff, Coach (Scott) Sinclair and those guys, they just kept harping on me, saying I have to get bigger.
I still have some improvements to go, but I'm working on it. ... It's been hard, but I'm willing to do it."
The added strength, Phillips said, has helped him handle the punishment that comes with SEC football and has even made him faster.
"Oh, yeah. It's adding more muscle to my legs and my arms, and I'm not having as much hamstring issues as I was in high school," Phillips said.
The nickname Peanut, meanwhile, came from former defensive coach/analyst Will Muschamp a couple of years ago.
"I can't really remember how it came up, but it was in a meeting," Phillips said last month. "Once everybody started calling me it, it was like, OK, I'm fine with it."
Phillips’ climb has been steady. As a freshman in 2024, he played in six games, ran six times for 33 yards, and caught two passes for 24 yards. His first career touchdown came on a 4-yard run against Florida, and it remains the lone score from that season.
Earlier this year, fifth-year senior left tackle Earnest Greene, III pointed to that Florida touchdown as one of his favorite moments of his career.
"Besides the national championship my freshman year, I would say my favorite moment, one that always just pops up, is that Florida game in '24, when Peanut got in and scored on the little sweep play on the goal line," he said. "You saw this whole sea of red and the whole offense just kind of swarmed the end zone, and from the sideline, too.
"I just feel like that embodies what we do. We put in all this hard work every day, and to see guys get to succeed, it really exemplifies what our program's all about."
Phillips smiled when he heard that reaction.
"It means a lot," he said. "Our brotherhood is really tight here, and as long as we've got that, we're going to win a lot of games."
Last season, as a sophomore backup, Phillips totaled 22 carries for 125 yards and a touchdown. He has already topped those numbers through six games this fall, sitting at 280 yards and a touchdown on 37 carries after the Alabama win.
His recent surge has shown up all over the schedule. In Georgia’s 41-13 win over Oklahoma last month, he broke free for a 54-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter and finished with a game-high 84 rushing yards on eight carries, plus one reception for 7 yards. A week later against Vanderbilt, he logged his first career game with more than 100 scrimmage yards, rushing five times for 27 yards and catching five passes for 75 yards, including a 12-yard touchdown.
With Frazier and Bowens dealing with injuries, Phillips has earned more work and made it matter. Smart said after the Vanderbilt game, "That's what part of being a good player is. You take advantage of the opportunity you're presented with, and he's done that."
Against Alabama, he did it again. And he was not the only Georgia back who stepped up.
Sophomore Bo Walker, who entered Saturday with 20 carries for 134 yards and had posted 22 carries for 100 yards and three touchdowns last season, delivered a career-high 69 yards on 10 carries. He also ripped off a 17-yard run to the Alabama 48 in the third quarter and later added a 37-yard burst to the Tide 8, helping set up Woodring’s winning field goal.
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