As college football rivals got the full attention of the Georgia Bulldogs this year, it didn’t go well. From the opening game against Oregon to the SEC title fight with LSU and the Tennessee game in between, every time we thought there was a sign of vulnerability, Dawgs popped in and trampled the teams to the point of disfiguration.
You might ask, “What happened to the State of Ohio?” And I want to tell you that Georgia doesn’t really take them seriously. How can they? Kirby Smart’s team demolished Michigan’s last CFP, and UM has dominated Ohio for the past two years, so the forward asset argument – and contagion – has allowed Georgia to relax.
That’s why the focus of Dawgs is something I’ve been trying to evaluate all week. They were favored by nearly two touches and the imperative “How Stetson Bennett went from walk to legend” was written for the eleventh time. They’re also an SEC team, so there’s no shortage of smoke rising from their ass.
However, they spent most of New Year’s Eve catching up with CJ Stroud and Co., and leading by less than two minutes in total for the entire game. But, yes, crown them. Which I want to do, because it’s so easy. Georgia hasn’t played bad games in a row for the past two seasons, and predicting the outcome correctly is what buys readers’ trust.
So who will win?
That brings me to my next thought, and that’s it. Damn it. The Horned Frogs need 3 million things done this year to get where they are, and very few of those breaks have been assigned to them. It’s true that Jim Harbaugh spent the first half looking at the scoreboard incredulously while Werewolf failed to deliver on his bad calls, and the Horned Frogs still had to win the match multiple times. that semi-final in the second half.
Down to the back-up, who guesses? No problem. Late game important stop after to Michigan back? Here are three of them, and one throws the ball back to number 16 for a goal in the insurance field.
So yes, give me this small, resilient, private Christian school in this David vs Goliath showdown, and hopefully there will be loads of miracles that go along with it, because blind faith and Big help is what it will take for TCU to raise the trophy.
The key to the annoyance of TCU
Max Duggan, Sonny Dykes, Quentin Johnston, and that Hypnotoad passing game should at least be confident they can find the hole in the Georgia high school. Two separate Buckeyes have crossed the 100-yard mark, and I’m acutely aware of how much I sound like a TCU apologetic.
Let me have this one, though. Positive thinking is the only thing I can rely on. Well, that, and the fact that UGA have dropped a total of 850 yards in the air and seven passing points in the past two games.
With Frog’s top driver Kendre Miller possibly in doubt after suffering a knee injury on Saturday, Duggan and Emari Demercado will run the ball, or at least keep Georgia honest. Dawgs hasn’t allowed any 100-yard games for any runner or quarterback all year and has only dropped over 100 yards on the ground four different times this season.
The last thing TCU can afford to do is fall behind early. Don’t let Bennett get comfortable, and hopefully that will keep Brock Bowers and those tight finishers from attacking Frogs with the action game. I’ve seen a lot of Smart vs Nick Saban comparisons, and I’ll at least admit this: When each coach’s respective team notices a weakness, you’ve lost.
College football fans have spent much of this season waiting for normality to return to a sport that has no equal. Tennessee lost to Georgia and then South Carolina, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Then Caleb Williams was injured, USC fell again to Utah, the Trojans were knocked out of the knockout round, a familiar Big Ten team seemed destined to make the title game against the SEC’s enemies, and everything is at least predictable in the universe.
Meanwhile, the candidate most likely to succumb to reality continues to win, and we are still waiting for our beliefs to be confirmed. That will most likely happen on Monday, but if there’s one season where the ceiling is the floor, it’s 2022.
Let’s see if TCU can shock the world once again, and tie the purple and silver bow into a year defined by the unexpected. A late school gives TCU an advantage, 41-38.
