Leading up the 2012 SEC Championship game, Mark Richt was asked if he could replicate the same national championship-level success he enjoyed at Florida State.

“That was the plan coming in,” Richt said before Georgia played Alabama. “I definitely wanted to play for the national championship and win it here at Georgia. It hasn’t happened yet and we do have that opportunity. I guess this is as close as we’ve got at this point this deep in the season.”

The agonizing 32-28 defeat for Georgia is most remembered for the tipped pass from QB Aaron Murray to WR Chris Conley where Conley was tackled at the 5-yard-line as time expired. But it’s perhaps more painful for Georgia faithful because the Bulldogs built a 21-10 lead thanks to a blocked field goal-turned touchdown by LB Alec Ogletree.

In the back-and-forth battle, Alabama coach Nick Saban explained that RBs Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon combined for 145 rushing yards in the third quarter alone because of Georgia’s defense.

“We did a great job of running the ball in the second half,” Saban said. “And the reason we did was we couldn’t handle the pass rush.”

The loss was particularly damaging for Richt because it extended a drought of SEC championships that began after the 2005 clincher against LSU. And the then-No. 3 Bulldogs would have likely played Notre Dame, which Alabama trounced in the BCS National Championship game, 42-14.

It proved to be the beginning of the end of the Richt era as Georgia couldn’t beat out Missouri each of the next two seasons, or even South Carolina during a third-place SEC East finish 2013. Coming on the heels of the 2011 Georgia Dome loss to LSU, it would have mirrored the momentum Georgia built early in the Richt era with two titles and three SEC Championship game appearances from 2002-05. A win would have meant that the decade-long SEC title drought, a main talking point for Richt’s critics, would have never happened.

Richt was fired despite winning his last four games at Georgia to finish 9-3. He was 145-51 in 15 seasons.

A foreshadowing quote before the 2012 SEC title game from DB Damian Swann all but spelled out the argument of Richt’s most vocal critics. It highlighted the hardware deficiency for Georgia when compared to recent SEC and/or national champions Alabama, Auburn, Florida and LSU.

“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t,” Swann said. “We have the players. We recruit the same guys that everybody else is recruiting.”