Georgia: Why you should cheer for it
TCU and Georgia will be hosting the College Football Playoff National Championship. Here’s why you should cheer for the Georgia Bulldogs to win.
College Football Playoff: Why Georgians Should Be Proud
[jwplayer PkCtjTd4-boEY74VG]
– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak
Sorry if this take sucks, it’s not my fault …
Between everyone I know who lives for Michigan and Ohio State football, I haven’t had time to deal with the freak-out factor from all my Georgia friends worrying about a gag.
Georgia is very good at college football, and it’s okay
Did we ever stop admiring amazing sports teams?
I get it. There’s a knee-jerk reaction against rooting for anything to do with the SEC.
From the “It Just Means More” slogan – loose Latin translation: we don’t have enough meaningful pro sports in our part of the country – to all the success over the years, to dealing with the blowhards when daring to point out even the slightest flaw, it’s easy to want Anyone Other candidates to win the College Football Playoff National Championship.
But there’s one key thing missing when it comes to the rise of the Georgia Bulldogs under Kirby Smart: credit.
It wasn’t a given that Georgia would be this good. It wasn’t a given that it would finally get over the hump and win the national title last year, and it certainly wasn’t a given that it would get to LA this season, much less be the prohibitive favorite after losing an epic class of players to the NFL.
And it sure as shoot wasn’t a given when Ohio State had it against the ropes for a full 60 minutes of an epic Chick-fil-A Bowl.
Although Georgia is the SEC’s biggest, most bad program, it has been successful in recruiting talent and building it up over the years. Smart deserves credit for this. That’s it. That’s the game. You can bring in top talent, train it, and then bring in more. That’s how it works.
You think it’s easy to for all big-time programs to be amazing? How many Texas A&M SEC Championship t-shirts do you own?
– Georgia vs TCU CFP National Championship Preview, Prediction
Texas was one USC first down away from still being the program that’s done the least with the most.
Tennessee and Florida State are still learning. Florida had a losing year. Penn State and USC are not yet in the College Football Playoff. Oklahoma, Michigan, and Notre Dame have not won a single game in this tournament. And then there’s Nebraska – it’s hard to get to the College Football Playoff when you can’t get bowl eligible.
Before pulling it off last year, Georgia hadn’t won a national championship since 1980 – its fan base hasn’t had time yet to become insufferable. Smart accomplished it. He continued the Mark Richt success and added a few more facets to it, including loading recruiting classes and lots of wins.
Georgia did the work, it got the job done, and now it’s being portrayed as Goliath in this College Football Playoff National Championship narrative.
First, seriously, Goliath. It’s a rock – D up or duck. Second, and I can’t express this point forcefully enough …
TCU IS A PROGRAM OF POWER FIVE.
I can’t tell you how many times over the last few weeks I’ve had to correct those who accuse me of a being a Power Five snob – which I Completely am – because I picked Michigan to whack TCU and now think Georgia is going to roll.
Picking USC to rip through Tulane – that’s full-on snobbery. TCU? No, it’s not as big as Georgia. No, it doesn’t have all the same advantages. Yes, it’s been part of the Big 12 since 2012.
TCU won the Rose Bowl with a score of 13-0 in its final year in the Mountain West. It was hosed more than any other team in the nine-year College Football Playoff history after finishing third in the penultimate rankings in 2014. They were then bounced out in their final version.
The program has won five of its last six bowl appearances, came up with ten 11-win seasons since 2005, has finished ninth or better in six AP polls since 2008, and …
Yeah, it’s a great story after going 23-24 in the four years before Sonny Dykes took over, and yeah, it’s doing with a bunch of players who’d have a hard time cracking the Georgia two-deep. But it’s here, making it the most accomplished college football program in Texas during the College Football Playoff era.
Georgia is also in the mix as it seeks to be the College Football Playoff National Champions.
It’s okay to cheer for that. It’s okay to cheer for a team that lost most of its key starters to the NFL last season. It’s okay to cheer for Georgia to win this.
It’s okay to cheer for greatness.