It seems this Georgia Bulldogs team just has to do everything the hard way.
Instead of powering over opponents while barely breaking a sweat, as the Dawgs’ super-talented 2021 and 2022 national championship teams did most of the time, the 2024 team has had to battle through a schedule that put it on the road to meet highly ranked opponents while having to overcome numerous injuries and a talent level drained considerably by the NFL draft.
And yet, somehow, these blue-collar Bulldogs did something that one of those elite predecessors with a natty couldn’t accomplish: win an SEC Championship.
And now they take their never-say-die play to the College Football Playoff with a second seed and first-round bye.
It has been that kind of season, a campaign full of ups and downs, with fans never quite sure what they’re going to see from Kirby Smart’s 2024 Dawgs.
The headline over a Mark Bradley column across the front page of Saturday’s AJC asked: “Which UGA team will show up today?”
The answer: Both.
The Georgia team that has frustrated fans this season with its slow starts, dropped passes, lack of a consistent running attack, poor tackling and blown coverages was right there on the field at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for much of the first half of Saturday’s SEC Championship Game against Texas.
Still, the Dawgs’ defense played well enough in the “high red zone” (between the 25 and 15) to hold the Longhorns to a couple of field goals and a 6-3 lead.
Also showing up Saturday was the Georgia team that has come back from adversity time after time this season while playing the toughest schedule in college football, the same team that went into Austin back in October and gave the then No. 1-ranked Longhorns their only regular season loss.
And, once again, those Dawgs pulled off a gritty, hard-fought, thisclose win, coming out on top in overtime for the second consecutive week, despite losing starting quarterback Carson Beck to injury for all but one play after halftime.
Following the game, when the “SEC Football Final” crew asked Georgia offensive lineman Tate Ratledge how the Dawgs overcame their first-half troubles, he answered in a matter-of-fact tone: “We’d been through much worse than that in this season.” And so, he said, the team knew it could come back. “We’re battle-tested.”
His head coach used the “battle-tested” description, too, in explaining his current team’s “never say die” mindset.
Said Smart in his post-game press conference: “Our team never quit tonight. I’m really proud of them.”
He conceded that “I’ve had more physically tough [teams], I’ve had more physically talented, but I don’t know that I’ve ever had a more mentally tough team. They just keep coming and keep coming, and they never say die. I have a lot of respect for the leaders in that room because of what they’ve been through, probably the hardest schedule in the history we’ve ever had. And they endured it, they came out on top, and they fought their way through it.”
Georgia losing in the SEC title game last year also factored in, Smart said. Some have questioned the need for conference championship games in the expanded playoff era, and even Smart noted that in the pre-game he didn’t think it “had the same juice. It didn’t have the same atmosphere that I’ve seen it have before.”
That may have been because it was expected (correctly) that both teams would be in the playoff, win or lose, and they were vying chiefly for a bye.
But Smart was having none of dismissing conference championships. “For people to devalue that over a playoff, I just don’t see it that way,” the Georgia head coach said. “I value SEC championships. I hold them in high esteem because the work it requires to do that is incredible.”
As he said later in his “SEC Football Final” interview, “Our kids wanted this game because of last year. … Our seniors took pride in the fact that they’ve got two SECs.”
And, he added: “They’re hard to come by.”
This one was very hard.
In the first half, the Georgia defense had trouble stopping the Longhorns on third down, though it did much better in the red zone. And the Georgia offense, going up against probably the best defense in the nation, mostly was ineffective in the first two quarters of the game, with almost no rushing attack. (Smart later said he addressed that issue with the offensive line at halftime, and you’ve got to imagine their ears were somewhat blistered.)
The Dawgs had just 54 yards of offense on 21 plays and were 1-for-5 on 3rd down in the first half while Texas posted 260 yards of offense on 42 plays and was 4-for-10 on 3rd down. UT had held the ball for just over 20 minutes of the half.
But while just about everything seemed to be going Texas’ way in the first half — even a sandlot play where the ball was snapped through the quarterback’s legs worked — they still had only 6 points at intermission.
And thanks to a 44-yard field goal by Peyton Woodring, the Bulldogs, who had dropped passes, given up big plays and seemingly couldn’t run, were only 3 points behind.
In a brief bitch to ABC as halftime arrived, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian placed the blame for his team’s lack of scoring on all the penalties that had been called against them, wondering whether maybe in the second half the officials would call holding on Georgia as well.
Actually, Sark’s team was just playing sloppily. The Texas holds were quite obvious, as were their false starts in an arena where the crowd leaned heavily Georgia.
Still, things looked dim for UGA, since the first half ended with the Dawgs’ starting QB prone on the turf. It was obvious as he was helped off the field that Beck had some sort of arm injury that probably would prevent him from continuing.
But if that sight buoyed the halftime mindset in the Texas locker room, the Horns weren’t taking into account one Gunner Stockton.
In the other locker room, however, Smart later said that when Stockton — who had appeared in only three games all season in mop-up duty — was told he was starting the second half, the entire offense cheered. “They all love Gunner. … It brought a lot of love and energy” to the team, the coach said.
As Smart summed up to ABC’s Holly Rowe about Stockton: “This kid’s a winner. He’s special, and he’s a winner.”
What an incredible turn of events it was, as Georgia got the ball first in the third quarter. You could see Stockton’s teammates responding with renewed energy, which brought the Georgia crowd alive, too, as the redshirt sophomore led the Dawgs on a 75-yard drive to paydirt, with Trevor Etienne, who had not played in the three previous games because of injured ribs, ran it in 10 yards and Georgia took a 10-6 lead.
The fact that Stockton is more of a threat to run than Beck obviously changed the game and proved a huge momentum shift on that drive.
And Stockton showed a little of that Stetson Bennett-style swagger when he gained a 1st down by lowering himself to take on the cornerback and then jawed a little.
Of course, the Texas defense is very talented, and they adjusted to the change in quarterback, making the rest of the game a back-and-forth affair after Woodring tacked on another 3 points to give Georgia a 13-6 lead.
Horns QB Quinn Ewers threw a 41-yard touchdown pass to tie the game up 13-13 early in the fourth quarter, then, on a drive that featured a successful fake punt for a first down by the Dawgs, Woodring kicked another field goal to give Georgia a 16-13 lead with 4:32 left in the game. That fake punt kept a 9-minute drive alive, shortened the game and got a score.
(On the fake punt, wideout Arian Smith had the ball flipped to him by Drew Bobo and ran 9 yards for the first down on fourth-and-5. Noted Smart dryly after the game, “I got some history of fake punts in that building,” as it was a failed fake punt that helped doom Georgia against Bama in the 2018 SEC title game.)
The Georgia defense played perhaps its best three successive plays of the season on the next Texas possession, shutting the Horns down with a tackle for loss by Chaz Chambliss, a sack (one of Georgia’s 6 on the day) by Mykel Williams and an interception (his second of the day) by Daylen Everette.
But then Stockton made a major mistake with a desperation 3rd-down throw that went straight to a Texas defender with 2:30 left in the game.
A pass interference call on the Dawgs kept the Horns’ final drive of regulation alive, and with 18 seconds left in the game they kicked a field goal to tie the game up again, 16-16, making it the first overtime game in the 33-year history of the SEC Championship matches.
Georgia won the toss and elected to play defense first. The Horns were able to eke out one first down and then on 4th-and-11 had to kick another field goal, to take a 19-16 lead.
The Dawgs just managed a first down with a pass from Stockton to tight end Oscar Delp, and then the Georgia QB ran for another first down at the Horns’ 4-yard line, with a big hit from a Texas defender (initially ruled targeting before a review invalidated that call) knocking his helmet off.
By rule, that meant Stockton had to leave the field for a play. And who came trotting on? Beck, with his one arm still hanging stiffly by his side.
While he had sat out since halftime because he couldn’t grip the ball well enough to throw, Beck had no problem handing off to Etienne, who ran it in for the touchdown, winning the Bulldogs’ 15th SEC title in program history and the third in Smart’s nine seasons.
And, so, Georgia notched another storybook comeback with a backup QB in the 2nd half.
It was, as my buddy Joel said, “one for the ages” and an “unbelievably gutsy performance” by the Dawgs.
And, like I said earlier, the Dawgs continue to do it the hard way. Saturday marked the sixth time this season that Georgia has not scored in the first quarter.
The Dawgs are 5-1 in those games.
Georgia finished with 277 yards of total offense on 67 plays in the 22-19 overtime win. Stockton was 12-for-16 for 71 yards, with 8 rushes for 8 yards.
Whatever Smart said to his offense at halftime, it seemed to have an effect, as Georgia was able to run the ball in the second half, with Etienne ending the day with 94 net yards and 2 TDs on 16 carries and Nate Frazier adding another 47 yards.
UT finished with 389 yards of offense on 74 plays.
Probably the most amazing factoid of all, though, is this: Etienne and Woodring scored all of Georgia’s points in the Dawgs’ two wins over Texas this season.
Of course, voting for the game MVP takes place before the actual end of the game (go figure), so Everette earned the official MVP honors for his two picks. But, as Smart noted afterward, Etienne was Georgia’s actual most valuable player Saturday.
And the transfer from Florida cast a little shade on his former team in an interview with ABC when he said of the SEC title game: “I wanted it bad. I’ve never been part of something like this.”
Speaking of casting shade, when he was asked during the post-game awards ceremony what earning a first-round playoff bye means for his team, Smart responded: “It means some rest for a team that [SEC Commissioner] Greg Sankey sent on the road ALL YEAR LONG!”
A stone-faced Sankey, who was standing nearby, just stared straight ahead, but Smart was correct, in that the Dawgs faced a frankly unfair schedule, thanks to SEC, while Texas was welcomed to the conference with a relatively easy slate of opponents.
For sure, the 2024 Dawgs deserved the SEC title more than any other team in the conference, especially considering they beat Texas twice (and, according to ESPN, were the first team to accomplish that feat since Texas A&M did it back in 1909).
So, the Dawgs look ahead to the playoff quarterfinals, where they’ll face the winner of the Notre Dame-Indiana first-round game at 8:45 p.m. on New Year’s Day in the Sugar Bowl at the Superdome in New Orleans.
Frankly, this team is tired and beaten up. They had to play one more game than some of the playoff teams and, besides the loss of Beck, punter Brett Thorson also was injured and his status for the playoff is unknown.
But when you consider this team’s resilience and refusal to fold, I wouldn’t think many folks would want to bet against the Dawgs in the long run.
