Double Hardware Hunting!!

History isn’t on Georgia’s side for their quest to win
back to back national championships, so their hunter
mindset is a must, one more time, against the Horned Frogs
JEFF DANTZLER
@jeffdantzlerTV
In the College Football Playoff era,
which began in 2014, there is no doubt
that December 31, 2022 will go down
as THE DAY, with two instant classics to
set the stage for Monday Night’s showdown
for the National Championship between the
University of Georgia Bulldogs and Texas
Christian University Horned Frogs.
TCU, under the watch of first year coach
Sonny Dykes, built a big early lead and held
off Michigan 51-45 to win the Fiesta Bowl in
the first CFP semifinal. Then Georgia, five feet
and 11 and a half inches under, fought and
dug back, then had some magic at the stroke
of midnight to edge Ohio State by inches
42-41.
Hands down, Georgia’s 54-48 double
overtime victory over Oklahoma in the
Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day 2018 was the
greatest semifinal game. That one now has
company. And what a matchup we have.
A year ago, TCU went 5-7 and parted ways
with legendary coach Gary Patterson, who
took the Horned Frogs from a Southwest
Conference exiled league hopper to a Big
XII power and frequent visitor to the top
10. Dykes, led by Heisman Trophy finalist
quarterback Max Duggan, did some fine
tuning and these Horned Frogs have gone to
work and put together a remarkable season.
Last year, Georgia won the national
championship, the program’s first in 41 years.
In many ways, these Horned Frogs are like
the Bulldogs of 1980, who won six times by
seven or fewer points en route to a perfect
12-0 national championship season. The
Bulldogs were 6-5 the year prior, as an extra
nugget.
En route to posting a 13-1 mark and earning
a berth in the National Championship Game,
the Horned Frogs have won six times by
eight or fewer points. Along the way, the
Frogs have put together an impressive hit
list - including Oklahoma, Texas and then
Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl. For longtime
TCU fans who went through some dark
times, those wins over a trio of college
football blue bloods resonate with great
pride.
Kirby Smart has Georgia in the National
Championship Game, again. Under his
watch, the Bulldogs are 4-1 in the CFP with
an epic quartet of triumphs over Oklahoma,
Michigan, Alabama and Ohio State. Elite.
The victory over the Buckeyes is Georgia’s
most improbable comeback triumph in a
game of great magnitude ever. Even more
so than Fran Tarkenton to Bill Herron in the
14-13 win over Auburn in 1959, Buck Belue to
Lindsay Scott on Georgia’s greatest ever play
to top Florida in 1980, and David Greene to
Michael Johnson on the Plains in 2002.
Georgia was dead and gone. But found a
way.
A dozen of the Bulldogs 14 victories have
come by 10 or more points. A knee-knocking
26-22 comeback at Missouri is the other
triumph decided by single digits. Georgia
has now won 32 times in its past 33 games.
There are two 16 game winning streaks
bookending the 2021 SEC Championship
Game loss to Alabama. The school record for
consecutive victories is 17, set between 1945
and 1947.
At 14-0, the reigning national champion
Bulldogs seek a repeat.
History is on TCU’s side here.
The last team to win back to back national
titles was Alabama in 2011 and (ouuuuch)
2012. It has not happened in the playoff
era, though there have been plenty of
opportunities.
Georgia is the sixth team since 2014 to win
the national championship and return to the
playoffs. The Bulldogs are the fifth of those
six to advance to the National Championship
Game. None have won to repeat.
Alabama won it all in 2015, then lost to
Clemson in the 2016 title game. Those Tigers
then fell to the Crimson Tide in the Sugar
Bowl in the semifinal in 2017. No need to
talk about that national title game. Bama
again fell to Clemson for the 2018 crown. The
(orange and blue) Tigers lost to LSU for the
2019 national title. Nick Saban led Alabama
to the national championship in 2020, and
the Tide would, famously in these parts, fall
to Georgia for the 2021 big trophy.
So close, so many times, with an incredible
fan base and support system, there is no way
a national championship has ever meant
more to a school than it did for Georgia in
2021.
In the afterglow of the ecstasy of the
ultimate victory, Smart this summer
promised that the Bulldogs wouldn’t be
hunted. Georgia would continue to be the
hunter.
It was certainly evident in the season
opener back on Labor Day weekend that
these Bulldogs of 2022 were out to make
their own history.
In the early ‘80s, Georgia came painfully
close to another national championship, but,
ranked second, fell to Pitt and Dan Marino
on New Year’s Day 1982, and at 11-0 and No.
1 in the land, lost to Penn State and Todd
Blacklege on 1/1/83.
Lots of tears and scars there.
When the field goal went wide on New
Year’s Eve, it felt a bit like maybe this time, in
this golden era, Marino didn’t hit the fourth
down touchdown pass to John Brown.
TCU (maybe the modern version of
Blackledge and Gregg Garrity doesn’t strike)
stands in the way, as the Bulldogs try to do
something that’s never been done before,
further enhancing this most glorious of
Georgia football eras. At 14-0, the reigning
national champions, cue the great Erk Russell,
need to do it “just one more time.”
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