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O’Gara: Why I can’t help but think of the even more historic feat Georgia could’ve been chasing in 2024
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As the SEC Championship Game nears, Georgia is in pursuit of history.
Assuming that the Dawgs are in the 12-team Playoff and not in jeopardy of falling out of the field with a disastrous showing in Atlanta on Saturday against Texas, remember what they are setting out to accomplish. Three titles in 4 years is no small feat. Nick Saban (2009, 2011 and 2012) and Tom Osborne (1994, 1995 and 1997) did it. You could argue that they’re considered 2 of the 3 or 4 best coaches in the sport’s history. Kirby Smart, I’d argue, can be on the Mount Rushmore of best coaches of all time if he joins that exclusive club, which is only 2 deep in the post-integration era of the sport.
But no, that’s not the history I’ll be thinking about Saturday.
Instead, I’ll be thinking about how this run could’ve been even more historic if not for one of the worst-timed losses in the history of college football. That is, when Georgia lost to Alabama in last year’s SEC Championship.
Call me crazy, but I can’t help but think about how close UGA was to pursuing its 4th consecutive national title. As in, the feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Michigan’s legendary 1901-04 run that consisted of sanctioned games against “Physicians & Surgeons” and powerhouse “American Medical.”
I’m not trying to rewrite history here. Also, I’m well aware that I’ve already written a variation of the word “history” 6 times. Check that. Seven times.
History (there’s reference No. 8) will remember that Georgia lost the 2023 SEC Championship in a field of 4 that was more exclusive than some years of the BCS. Sure, the 4-team Playoff offered more grace than the BCS era. But you can find less-accomplished national champs from the BCS era, or even before the time when we actually had an official national championship game. You know, back when we used to sit on pins and needles waiting for an AP Poll to drop.
If that loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship had occurred a year later, Georgia would’ve instead hosted a home Playoff game and likely been in line to eventually earn a matchup with mighty Michigan, which got smoked by the Dawgs in the Playoff semifinal 2 years earlier. Nobody is rewriting history and saying that Georgia would’ve won that hypothetical game against a significantly improved Michigan squad, but that was still during a time when Smart had a 3-year winning streak against non-Alabama teams. At the very least, UGA would’ve been the most feared matchup for Michigan.
But because UGA lost that game in 2023 instead of 2024, or really any other year of the 4-team Playoff era, we didn’t see that play out. There are plenty of BCS years in which Georgia would’ve still had a shot for a national title. A certain 2011 Alabama team got to avenge its LSU loss in the regular season. From 1998-2013, we had 32 teams compete in a BCS National Championship game. Here are all the examples of teams that lost at least 1 game and still got that invite:
- 1998 Florida State
- 2000 Florida State
- 2001 Nebraska
- 2003 LSU
- 2003 Oklahoma
- 2006 Florida
- 2007 LSU
- 2007 Ohio State
- 2008 Florida
- 2008 Oklahoma
- 2011 Alabama
- 2012 Alabama
- 2013 Auburn
That’s 13 of 32 teams that had a loss and got to play for a national title in the more “exclusive” era of crowning a champion.
I know what you’re thinking.
“Well, none of those teams had the grace of the 12-team Playoff era. Georgia might play for a national championship this year with 3 pre-Playoff losses.”
Fair point.
You know what else is a fair point? As recently as the 21st century, teams played as few as 11 games and could get a national title berth. If Georgia earns a national title berth in the 12-team Playoff, it’ll play a minimum of 16 games. You’d better believe there’s a touch more grace there.
And including Texas, 4 or 5 of those games will be against top-12 teams. That’s after a 12-team regular season in which Georgia already played 5 teams ranked No. 16 or better at the time of the matchup, 3 of which were on the road. That’s another thing to keep in mind with this Georgia run as it relates to the Nebraska and Alabama dynasties. In Nebraska’s 3 title seasons in 1994-95 and 1997, it had 13 games vs. AP Top 25 teams. In Alabama’s 3 title seasons in 2009 and 2011-12, it had 17 games vs. AP Top 25 teams.
In Georgia’s 2021-22 and 2024 seasons, it’ll have faced 21-22 AP Top 25 teams if it earns a national championship berth, depending on whether UGA earns a first-round bye on Saturday by winning the SEC Championship.
That’s why any sort of discounting of Georgia’s current run because of the expanded Playoff is silly. It also overlooks the historically poor timing of the 2023 Alabama loss, being one of the few years in which it was a barrier to entry for Georgia playing for a national championship. Shoot, if it were a few decades earlier, UGA wouldn’t have even had to play in an SEC Championship, and it could’ve just moved on to a bowl game, where it inevitably would’ve won and at least earned a share of the national title.
Blame Steve Spurrier for that.
(Kidding, obviously. The SEC Championship has been far more helpful than hurtful with getting teams from the conference into national championships, despite those initial fears.)
That’s not an excuse for Georgia. UGA knew what was at stake, and it lost the 1 game it couldn’t afford to lose. If it lost any of its regular-season games instead of that Alabama game, it would’ve been in the Playoff with a legitimate chance to become the first team to 3-peat since the great Ed Widseth, AKA “Big Ed,” led Minnesota to that feat in 1934-36.
A year ago, Georgia fans walked out of Mercedes-Benz Stadium knowing that pursuit was likely over. A year later, a different pursuit awaits. Go figure that this team couldn’t accomplish the feat that last year’s squad did. That is, start 12-0 for the third consecutive season. This year’s road to 12-0 was the toughest yet, and UGA succumbed to it. At the same time, it’s strange to say that unlike last year, Georgia’s season isn’t hanging in the balance with Saturday’s result.
It’s a different story than the 2017 team, which really deserves credit for setting Georgia on its current path of dominance. That year, UGA’s only Playoff path was avenging its regular-season loss against Auburn. Smart and the Dawgs did that (we don’t need to revisit the next time they played at Mercedes-Benz that season).
Members of that team, like Rose Bowl hero Sony Michel, were part of history by getting UGA its first national title berth since the Herschel Walker era. Michel also had a spectator view of watching this historic 4-year UGA run. Even as he talked to me about the history at stake for this year’s squad, he couldn’t help but reference 2023.
“They took one from us last year,” Michel said. “We’re due for one this year.”
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
