CARLTON REESE: A Georgia Champion Is Hard To Stomach. But The Bulldogs Played Like A Team Possessed.

Stetson Bennett must be given credit, even if it makes Gator fans cringe. (CBS Sports Photo)

'...there is a silver lining to this, even for Gator fans who all experienced the ipecac go down watching a Bulldog celebration: A fifth-year walk-on quarterback with a 5-star backing him up beat a Heisman Trophy quarterback.'

By CARLTON REESE

GatorBait Columnist

Full disclosure: I thought Michigan was going to pound Georgia. When the Bulldogs completely dismantled the Wolverines they no longer looked like an inferior opponent to Alabama.

Going into Monday night’s title game, it seemed eerily similar to Jan. 2, 1997, the night Florida won its first national championship by avenging its only loss of the season to Florida State. After that game in which the Gators clearly demonstrated its 24-21 loss the Seminoles a month earlier was a mirage, FSU head coach Bobby Bowden said, “Now you know why I didn’t want to play them again.”

That could likely have been Nick Saban’s comment after Georgia prevented him from bagging his eighth national championship.

Something tells me Alabama didn’t get Georgia’s best the night of the SEC Championship game and that may have actually been critical to the Bulldogs’ drive toward their first national championship since Lindsay Scott broke our hearts.

In the SEC title matchup, Georgia played like a team that believed it was more than just destined, but entitled to wear the ring. When the Tide humiliated them that night in Atlanta, the Bulldogs became a better football team. A loss was coming; it was only a matter of if that loss would come in Atlanta or in the one-and-done situation of the playoffs.

If Georgia wins the SEC Championship, Michigan rolls in the semis – I firmly believe this. College football is played by kids, and matters such as emotion, passion, confidence and overconfidence carry the game.

In the pros it comes down to execution and nothing more – this is why the college game is still the most compelling of all. Against Michigan then again in the rematch with Alabama, Georgia played like a team that knew it could lose if it didn’t bring its best, and that made all the difference in the world.

Georgia is the best team in college football for 2021 and there is a silver lining to this, even for Gator fans who all experienced the ipecac go down watching a Bulldog celebration: A fifth-year walk-on quarterback with a 5-star backing him up beat a Heisman Trophy quarterback. As much as we believe college football is determined by quarterbacks and coaches, Georgia showed the world that the team with the game’s second-best coach and the second-best quarterback can win because it simply had the better team.

As much as this hurts, watching those putrid red helmets with that fat ‘G’ on the side prance around as the No.1 team in the land, I have to give credit where it is due. This victory has been several years in the making – Kirby Smart, ahem, has built a dominant force not through his coaching acumen or his brilliance as a strategist, but simply by out-recruiting everyone else.

It was once said that coach Don Shula could take his players and whip you with yours, then take your players and whip you with his – anyone who says this about Kirby Smart will no longer be protected by the First Amendment. As amazing as it sounds, Georgia had better players than Alabama, including at the quarterback position where Stetson Bennet was still hearing the jeers from Dawg fans midway through the third quarter and Bryce Young played like he was wearing a blue No.5 jersey.

Georgia should probably have won a championship before this one, but it didn’t and that’s how it almost always happens – rarely does a team show up from the depths of mediocrity and blast a grand slam in its first opportunity. Florida had teams good enough to win the title in 1994 and 1995, but endured the suffering necessary to make the 1996 championship a possibility.

The Bulldogs suffered through some close calls when they may have had the best team, but those dividend checks were finally cashed in later. It was their turn and there is no denying this.

As a Florida man, no, I am not happy at all about this. With three national championships in the last 25 years, Gator Nation has enjoyed membership in a small club of which Georgia I hoped would never gain admission. Now, the leg humpers are national champions and we haven’t won one in over a decade. No more mocking; instead, we’re looking at a program that has now earned yet another recruiting advantage over us.

And that’s where Billy Napier comes to the rescue. At this moment in time, UF fans crowing about how their new coach is “getting it done” must seem laughable to Georgia fans. In 2009 (not that long ago, mind you), Florida beat Georgia 41-17 and the Bulldogs seemed little more than an afterthought to a Gators program that always had the better players and the better coach for close to 20 straight years. Georgia owning Florida and sitting on top of the college football world seemed like a science fiction tale, nothing that could happen in my lifetime.

Yet, here we are: Georgia is No.1; Florida is on its sixth head coach in 19 seasons and fourth in the last 11.

Let’s face it, when Kirby Smart started at Georgia, opponents weren’t exactly running for cover. He seems on the verge of tears every time he talks, even on his birthday. In 2016, his first as Georgia’s head coach, he struck no fear, but ever since he has been Bobby Bowden – he has had his team in the championship conversation every year and looks like he’s going to continue that momentum for a long time.

That’s what Napier is facing: All of sudden, Florida’s biggest rival is the best program in the country. No one says it will be easy, and it may even be impossible, but hills are meant to be climbed. Georgia climbed the hill upon which Florida sat atop for almost 30 years and finally made it.

Call me Pollyanna, but something tells me Gator Nation won’t have to watch a 30-year climb to plant its flag where the Dawgs now reside.

Tennessee arduously climbed that hill and finally reached the top in 1998. Several years later the Vols had become a punchline. That title in 1998 was a fluke, though, while Georgia’s in 2021 is the Real McCoy, so don’t count on Georgia fading under the weight of its own hubris the way Tennessee did.

As for Florida, well, it’s now up to Mr. Napier who in the language of big-time college football is yet to prove a thing, but somehow has instilled confidence in the Gator faithful. With very little evidence, Napier seems to be the right guy for the job, and at the moment that job is catching Georgia.

Today is Georgia’s day. Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.