From David Hale’s enjoyable piece on Jake Fromm:
It’s been 39 years since Georgia celebrated a national championship, back when Walker was a freshman and Jimmy Carter was president and the Bulldogs’ QB needed to complete just one pass to go down in the history books. In the four decades since, the fan base fumed as Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer dominated at Florida. Cam Newton won a natty for rival Auburn. Heck, even Georgia Tech‘s got one since UGA last celebrated college football supremacy. The Georgia faithful suffered through Ray Goff, lived and died with Mark Richt, watched as David Greene and Matthew Stafford and Aaron Murray came and went without winning it all.
To be a Georgia fan is to smell success like the faint stink of stale beer and cigarettes on your clothes after a long night on Clayton Street. It’s a hazy memory of happier times, supplanted by a pounding headache and nausea.
Only someone who’s been a Georgia beat writer could get us like that.
Get The Picture 
Man, it’s dusty in here….
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He pretty much nails it.
I don’t get the NATS reference though, I wasn’t even born the last time Tech won one…
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Don’t worry. Colorado was the true MNC that year, 5th down and all. National Championships are not won in the Citrus Bowl.
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Yeah, I was just confused as to how Tech’s 1952 MNC got into the conversation…
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Haha! Good one, I missed that. Sort of slow today (or most days).
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But that’s just a reminder that Colorado…COLORADO…has one since we got one.
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And Brigham Young FWIW
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That one is as fraudulent as Tech’s. At least the BCS fixed things enough to keep Boise State and UCF from topping a poll for a MNC.
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What, Holiday Bowl is not good bowl for you…! (:
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BYU won in 1984 in the Holiday Bowl. Being 1984, Big Brother had to fix that.
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Because it’s NATS. I’m surprised he didn’t mention Clemson, as I often wonder how Lewis Grizzard would be opining these days.
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I was 9 during the 1980 season. My life in a nutshell.
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Tied some memorable buzzes on THAT year!
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I had just turned 12 on December 30. I hear you. I thought, “This is what sports fandom is supposed to be like. Herschel is only a Freshman. I could get used to this.”
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Same age
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Ditto. Got Sr. and I were hauling a pickup load of hay from our farm to my uncle’s, we were on 15 just North of Jefferson. I yelled “Holy Shit” and Pop says “Holy shit is right!”. Then he let loose with as happy a stream of profanity as you will ever hear and was whacking me on the shoulder hard enough to hurt.
Top 10 favorite Dad memory. I actually didn’t see the play until years later.
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I was 9 in 1999 when I started cheering for the Braves. It’s been all downhill from there.
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It was unbelievable. My memory: I grew up in a suburb of Atlanta. Late in the fourth quarter of the Florida game, I gave up in disgust and walked away from the television. I went outside and got ready to mow the lawn. As I was pouring gas into the lawn mower, I heard people inside every house in the neighborhood erupt in cheering. I immediately knew what had happened by the intensity of the cheering. Like Munson said, “I gave up…you did too.”
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Cool story…..you probably heard me screaming too, only I was about 150 miles away.
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Yep. I experienced something like that only one other time in my life. I lived in an apartment in Norcross in 1992. When Sid Bream scored, I could hear what sounded like the entire complex erupt at once in shouting, cheering, car horns honking…
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HA!…..same here. Seemed like it too 3 years to reach home plate. But in fairness to him, he was moving faster than he normally did.
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Yea, ‘Ol Bream could have been timed in the 40 with a sun-dial.
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Lived on campus then and it went berserk.
The other cool experience was the previous year, when the Braves won the division the day we played Clemson. Both sets of fans went crazy tailgating before the night football game. Honestly thought I was at Doak Campbell as there was a lot of chopping and chanting.
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Not to get on a Richt Roll here, but Jake is already one of my all time favorite dawgs, and I have the firing of Mark Richt to thank for that. Jake would have been just another in a long line of Georgia natives who wound up winning championships at programs other than UGA had we kept Richt.
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Eason would be entering his senior year under CMR (and Shotty). OR we’d have Brady Hockman as QB, who had verbally committed.
I guess Fromm would be a backup at bama or would’ve entered the portal and wound up who knows where.
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Schitty FIFY
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Oh my god if that isn’t the most accurate Georgia fan depiction ever. I still think David Hale was one of the more talented beat writers we’ve had.
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If we don’t win a national championship on Jake’s watch, I guarantee you it won’t be his fault.
He is a DGD regardless of what happens in the next 17 months. By the way, I think the reason Fields left is that he already knows Jake plans to stay for his senior year.
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Probably a pretty good bet. Hope he does and it pays off for him….and us.
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That’s the best thing I’ve read about the Georgia program in years! Hell, since Hale with covering the team. He truly gets it, and It’s just a great piece. The depressing thing is that he only mentioned a few “What If” moments. There are so many more. I guess those were just during his time covering them team.
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Yeah, I feel seen. Hale definitely gets it.
As much as the national title drought stings, though, I wouldn’t trade places with Tech for anything, not the way we’ve dominated them basically ever since they left the SEC. Nor would I trade places with Auburn, where chaos is so institutionalized that you can win a NC and still fear going 5-7 (or worse) within a couple years.
And as nice as it would be to win two titles in three years, if we had to sully our program with the likes of Urban Meyer to achieve it, I don’t think I’d be willing to make that Faustian bargain. (Ask me again if we haven’t made it back to the title game in five years, though…)
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Envy? Jealous? Not me.
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Not to mention Clemmons, Bammer and the Vowels. Being a Dawg fan ain’t for the faint-hearted.
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Dooley sold his soul to the devil in Jacksonville in 1980 to get that win. Until the devil gets his due he will continue to torment Georgia fans with near misses.
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I sure do miss David Hale covering the dogs.
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Always a player short. An healthy Jimmy Payne against Penn State would have been enough to stop Curt Warner that day. Nearly every wr we had was out against UF in 02. Who knows what would have happened if DJ shockley had played against UF in 05. A couple more DL’s against bama in the SECC in 12 would have made a difference. Lately it is a play short. A play would have beaten Bama in 17. Opportunities like that only come once every 40 years for UGA.
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Things are looking up on the roster front.
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Sorry for being that guy, but more time has passed since the 1980 MNC than passed from the 1942 MNC to the 1980 MNC.
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Great article but I’m not as accepting as some here about the premise of failure by the Dawgs since 1980. There is a little too much Ricky Booby “If you ain’t first, you’re last” mentality going on in this thread. Sure, Georgia might have won multiple natties since 1980 but came up short. The one I personally found most frustrating was the 1982 season when the Dawgs still had Herschel Walker and somehow managed to lose to State Penn in the Sugar Bowl. There were others too, the most recent being of course 2017 when the refs stole the game for Bama. But if you go back and look there really have been many times the Dawgs had arguably the best team in the nation at the end of the season and got screwed out of even playing for the natty. The truth is we have been RIGHT THERE so many times I can’t count them all. 2007 at the end Georgia had the best team in the nation–period. 2012, if Conley bats down the ball the next play is likely a TD pass and Georgia would have done the same thing to ND in the BCSNCG as Bama did. Among the best Georgia teams I ever saw was the 1971 11-1 team–never got consideration for the championship. The 1959 10-1 SEC Champion Georgia team QBd by Fran Tarkenton. In 1976 the Dawgs could have won it all if they beat Pitt (they got stomped) in the Sugar Bowl. The 1992 Eric Zeier led 10-2 team that lost to UT by 3 and Florida by 2. The truth is the Dawgs have been close a lot–as many times as any team in the country except Bama and therein lies the problem. We are in the same conference as Bama and under the current format we likely will have to beat Bama (probably twice) to win it all. I looked it up: Since 1980 16 teams have won a natty, the same ones winning multiple times for the most part. Bama, Florida, Miami, Nebraska–those have eaten up most championships. So don’t be remorseful peeps. There are over 125 teams in the FBS and most never even sniff a title of any kind. Georgia has won 3 SEC Championships and so many SEC East titles in the last 30 years I lost count–and has been in the hunt for the national title plenty of times. To me winning the SEC Championship is the main thing anyway–becoming champion of the best conference in the nation.
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Haha, perfect!
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Ricky Bobby! It’s you!
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Be sure to listen to the song that plays after Ricky Bobby’s BS. ☺️
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I was just giving you a hard time Mayor. I personally think we can have a great season without a natty, just once in my life though I’d like one of those seasons to end without a “but.”
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Listen to the song after the Ricky Bobby video anyway—-priceless!!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGEIMCWob3U This is it.
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“IF ONLY!!!”, the battle cry of Bulldog nation since 1980.
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Well said, Mayor. And I agree with you, the 1982 team losing to PennState still really stings. I was convinced we were the best team in the country.
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SEC East “titles”? So those are championships now? Who are you, John Schuerholz?
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Look on the wall in the Georgia locker room—they are listed. Does that answer your question?
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People always assume we would’ve gone out and blasted Notre Dame if we’d gotten past Bama, but I’m not entirely sure. No doubt we would have been the better team, but that 2012 Georgia squad also got embarrassed by SC earlier in the year. There’s probably a 90-something percent chance that we go out there and run ND off the field, but there’s also that small chance that we just don’t show up to the game in one of those “most Georgia thing ever” moments. It sure would’ve been nice to find out though.
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He forgot don Nan, ‘I eat grits’, Quincy Carter, and losing to Tech 3 years in a row.
Dark, dark days.
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Bill C put out a bunch of lists of the top teams by average S&P+ rankings and UGA was in the top 10 of nearly every list no matter the date range.
That UGA hasnt managed to win a national title since 1980 is probably harder than winning a national title.
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