To gaze into the future might be construed as not paying due reverence to what occurred Monday night, but gaze we must. Next year’s national championship game is set for SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., which sits 12 miles from the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. The date will be Jan. 9, 2023. Georgia fans should make travel plans. All this winning could go on for a while.
Over the final 12 minutes at Lucas Oil Stadium, the Bulldogs answered all questions about Stetson Bennett, about Kirby Smart, about this program and the twin peaks it hadn’t yet climbed. By beating Alabama to win the national title, Georgia has left nothing undone. Few teams have the resources the Bulldogs possess. When those resources – rabid fans, fertile recruiting base, top-tier coaches, NFL-ready players, an all-in administration – coalesce, Georgia football is a colossus.
The College Football Playoff has been in place eight years. Four programs – Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Georgia – have claimed 14 of the 16 berths in the championship game. The Bulldogs were unlucky not to win the title Jan. 8, 2018, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. That they won it on their second CFP try tells us they were no one-hit wonder. They saw Roquan Smith, Nick Chubb and Sony Michel leave for the pros. They were back four years later, bigger and better.
Alabama isn’t apt to go away until Nick Saban steps aside, but how much longer does a 70-year-old who carries seven national championships care to work? Clemson, which became No. 1B to Bama’s No. 1A, dropped from the playoff to the Cheez-It Bowl and lost its longstanding offensive and defensive coordinators. Oklahoma saw coach Lincoln Riley leave for USC. Notre Dame lost Brian Kelly to LSU, which mightn’t be a fit.
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
You become a national championship coach only by winning a national championship. Having joined the club, Smart is more apt to become something approximating the next Saban – he was the sorcerer’s apprenticeship in Tuscaloosa before answering his alma mater’s call – than to fizzle in the manner of Gene Chizik and Ed Orgeron. Smart built Georgia in the Bama mold for a reason: The Bama mold works and keeps working.
We’ll wonder forever how Mark Richt’s Bulldogs would have fared in the playoff era. His teams in 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2012 would have been tough outs in a four-team field. Alas, the Bowl Championship Series limited itself to No. 1 versus No. 2, and Richt’s teams were never better than No. 3. We keep hearing that the CFP is about to expand to 12 invitees, which would mean a team of Georgia’s eminence would need to mess up royally to fall from contention.
The Bulldogs have lost 10 games over five seasons. Four of the 10 were to Alabama. When they meet again, and you know they will, it will no longer be Little Brother facing Big Brother. It will be as equals. Not for nothing was Georgia favored over the Crimson Tide twice in five weeks. The belief in the industry held that Georgia had become the better team. The better team won Monday night. The world is that team’s oyster.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Smart could have his pick of jobs, but Smart isn’t so silly as to chase bigger money at a lesser program. He’s making $7 million per year. He can name any price – almost any price – and UGA will meet it. He’s the new king of college football. He’s the prince of Athens. He came home to make his school win bigger. His school just won it all. He’s 46. He should have many more seasons left in him. Put it this way: He’s not leaving to coach Auburn.
We knew in 2017 that Smart’s Bulldogs were gathering steam. Nothing in sports is inevitable – weird stuff happens – but even after another stroke of that famous Alabama luck thrust the Tide into a fourth-quarter lead Monday, Georgia was unfazed. Said Bennett: “I knew when I fumbled the ball I was not going to be the reason we lost this game.”
Two minutes and five seconds later, the Bulldogs were ahead to stay. Bennett threw the prettiest ball of his life to Adonai Mitchell, who rose above defender Khyree Jackson to snag the rainbow. It was the sort of throw Bennett’s detractors believed the former walk-on couldn’t make, and he made it with a national championship on the line, and why are we still giving voice to those detractors?
Said Bennett: “It’s the thing coach Smart and the whole team has been preaching all year – resiliency, toughness, composure, connection.”
Georgia scored the frantic game’s final 20 points. It took its first national title in 41 years. It won’t have to wait so long for its next. It mightn’t have to wait any longer than next January. There’s no lid on this program anymore. The Bulldogs can beat any opponent, win any game. They’re where they always believed they belonged. They have no plans to vacate their exalted premises.
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