In today’s preview, I posted that the Dawgs probably wouldn’t win on the order of 65-7. They didn’t. They topped last year’s record setting margin.
Getting this team ready to play against a depleted opponent is one of the best coaching jobs of Kirby Smart’s career. It would have been so easy to just go through the motions, but they had too much pride in themselves to mail it in.
Way to go out, guys! Couldn’t be more proud of you.
Filed under Georgia Football
How do you even begin to preview a game like today’s? On the one side, you’ve got a disappointed FSU squad that has seen an absurd number of opt outs, especially on the offensive side of the ball. The school has been more focused on finding a way to leave their conference than the opportunity to finish the season undefeated.
And on the other, you’ve got a Georgia team that has as much reason to sulk about being bounced from the CFP, but instead appears to arrive at the game today with all hands on deck, other than those who have entered the transfer portal. Even the noteworthy injured players have traveled.
The Bulldogs enter Saturday’s Capital One Orange Bowl against Florida State with no players who have publicly opted out of the game, and Smart said that’s a credit to the team’s leadership.
“The leaders of the team spearheaded that,” Smart said Friday. “I stayed out of it. I met with each player who was draft-eligible and the seniors, and I was very honest. Then they had to make a decision with their family. But they want to go out on top. They don’t want their last Georgia outing to be the SEC championship.”
Smart said the decisions to play in the bowl game were “kind of contagious,” where after one or two players announced their intention, everyone else got on board.
I can’t think of a bigger tribute to the culture Smart has built around this Georgia program than that.
The biggest contrast on the field comes at quarterback. Georgia, as it has all season, will start Carson Beck, who stands ninth nationally in passer rating. Florida State counters with true freshman Brock Glenn, who has one start under his belt, in the ACC championship game against Louisville. It didn’t go well, although his team won: 8-21, 55 yards, 0 TDs, 60.1 passer rating. That’s an enormous gap, one that is hard to figure out a way to offset, if you’re FSU. It obviously doesn’t help that most of the ‘Noles’ skill position talent won’t be there to help bail him out.
In short, this promises to be lopsided, albeit probably not on the order of 65-7, mainly because I expect Smart to see to it that everybody who can play gets to.
It’s a little bittersweet, sure, because of the hopes and expectations we all had going into this season, but 13-1 is nothing to sneer at, especially because it means this year’s senior class will leave school with the highest victory total in Georgia history.
So, sit back, enjoy the game. Watch the guys who won’t be back next year and get an early idea of the talent that will be back to lead what will hopefully be another good CFP run.
Comments, as always, are welcomed.
Filed under Georgia Football
Seth Emerson ($$) suggests it might be.
Florida State, though, deserved it way more. It deserved to be talking about its important Playoff matchup, rather than asked to recount that painful moment earlier in the month.
But here they are. It’s still a nice week. It may be a nice game. But it’s not what it could have been.
“You’ve still gotta take it with a grain of salt and go from there,” said Washington, the FSU defensive lineman. “It’s not the Playoff. But you can’t get that back. Keep moving forward with the people you have.”
It doesn’t take a tremendous leap of logic to think that if FSU were preparing to play in the first round of the CFP, it would be doing so with a roster not depleted by opt outs that simply weren’t motivated enough to risk injury in the Orange Bowl. But that’s a pretty easy take in the case of the ‘Noles’ special circumstances, being an undefeated conference champion being snubbed by the selection committee.
What about the more likely possibility going forward — players with real NFL futures playing on multiple-loss teams that eke into the CFP field, likely to get mowed down early by a powerhouse, highly seeded program? Or, players that are justifiably concerned about the increased injury risk from playing more games?
At their core, bowl games are exhibitions in which players are not directly compensated for their participation. For those transferring or preserving their bodies for the NFL Draft process, sitting out makes perfect sense. The 12-team playoff will change the math, however, by bringing the possibility of four extra games. College football players may now suit up for 17 games, equal to an NFL regular season.
The choice now shifts from deciding whether to play just one exhibition game to risking generational NFL money to play as many as four additional games in pursuit of a national championship.
Interestingly, Kirby Smart dismisses that possibility, but look where he’s coming from when he says that.
“I find it hard to believe [a player would sit out],” Georgia coach Kirby Smart told CBS Sports before the season. “The culture in the SEC, I don’t think [suggests] it will happen. That $30 million that is on the line, that could cost them another $15 million if a team [thinks] they’re not going to play through the contract.”
As we see from the Orange Bowl itself, college football cultures vary.
In the end, I suspect this will go the same way as it did in bowl games for so long. Players played and then watched the likes of Fournette and McCaffrey skip there bowl games without any NFL ramifications. With that, the dam broke. Someone will eventually take the first step and skip a playoff game, and if the NFL simply yawns, there will be others to follow.
If you really don’t want opt outs, the only way to guarantee that is by contractual obligation and we know the schools aren’t ready to cross that bridge yet.
Filed under BCS/Playoffs
Last game of the regular season has a hype video, y’all.
Regroup, close it out and finish on a 30-1 run. Ain’t nothing shabby about that, fellas.
Filed under Georgia Football
Get The Picture 