Wasson: Texas-Georgia is only the latest Game of the Century for the new-look SEC
By David Wasson
Published:
What continues to make “The Simpsons” great, in this writer’s humble opinion, isn’t the lovable bumbling of Homer Simpson or the incorrigible childishness of Bart or even Marge’s superb blue beehive ‘do.
No, what makes “The Simpsons” great is the character of Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber “Monty” Burns, the owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. An evil, greedy, devious and wealthy entity most devoid of soul, Mr. Burns (voiced by the incomparable Harry Shearer) is the alpha antagonist that everyone loves to loathe.
I think of Monty Burns every time I think of Greg Sankey, replacing the Burns Estate with the Southeastern Conference headquarters but otherwise assigning the same “Excellent …” utterance along with steepled fingertips every time a sinister plan goes his way. Because when Sankey and Co. at the SEC dreamed their sweet dreams about a 16-team super conference, it was for weekends like what is ahead.
Specifically, the No. 1 vs. No. 5 matchup between top-ranked Texas and Georgia, a prime-time brawl in Austin with all kinds of ramifications on the line – yet simultaneously a game that either team can lose and still be in postseason contention.
“Excellent …”
You want a ducat to enter DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium? Be prepared for a mid-size sedan’s monthly note – which is precisely what Bulldogs fans will be shelling out for a chance to see Kirby Smart’s oft-arrested bunch attempt to take down Steve Sarkisian’s high-flying Longhorns in their first season in Sankey’s mega-masterpiece.
Regular season Top 5 showdowns used to be a little like unicorns. You’d see them every now and then back in the day, but usually they’d be reserved for whatever iteration of college football’s de facto national championship game. But now? They happen darn near every week – with Georgia-Texas being the third such game in as many weeks.
It isn’t like we didn’t see this coming when the SEC added Texas and Oklahoma to the fold to begin the 2024 season. The Longhorns and Sooners ain’t UAB and Charlotte, a’ight, and with them they bring oodles of talent and aura and championship banners.
It also helps that, top to (nearly) bottom, the rest of the conference is pretty good, too. Excepting Mississippi State – which dragged Georgia to the deep end of the pool last Saturday before finally succumbing – darn near anyone can beat anyone else. So even the most mundane matchups (Alabama-Vanderbilt) can make for must-see TV.
Still, it used to be more than 3 weeks between Games of the Century. Not so starting this season, as 2nd-ranked Georgia fell to then-No. 4 Alabama 41-34 in an instant classic. Georgia rebounded from the road loss to the Tide by dismissing Auburn and Mississippi State at home to set up this next one, and we all know what happened to Alabama.
Texas, meanwhile, is as good as advertised. Even losing starting quarterback Quinn Ewers to an oblique injury hardly slowed the Longhorns, as beloved backup Arch Manning flashed his familial skills during back-to-back starts until Ewers returned last week. And oh what a return it was, with Texas stomping a Red River-sized mudhole in arch-rival Oklahoma and walking it dry all over the Texas State Fair.
That 34-3 pasting was in neutral territory, which is not what Georgia will be entering Saturday night. The Longhorns are 114-33 at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium since 2000, and that includes some subpar years after their magical 56-4 run from 2000-09. At 100,119, Texas’ home field delivers the same kind of raucous energy that the SEC has in Kyle Field, Bryant-Denny Stadium and Neyland Stadium – and should be absolutely insane Saturday night.
Unlike most gigantic matchups like this, too, it has been literally impossible for either team to focus more than a nanosecond on it until game week officially arrived. Such is life in this new SEC, with brutal matchup after brutal matchup looming to trip up the unprepared or overmatched.
It truly makes anyone who took even a single college business class wonder aloud why CBS didn’t pony up to keep the SEC on its airwaves – instead letting all this superb football go to the ABC/ESPN conglomerate for a princely sum. Because not only will the eyes of Texas be upon the Longhorns and Bulldogs on Saturday night, but the entire country will be tuning in as well.
“Excellent …”
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
