Georgia's national title run in 2021 was in no way a plucky underdog story. There was no upstart here, no blessed run of close wins. It was, first and foremost, simple regression to the mean. The universe had proved incredibly effective at coming up with creative new ways to keep a ring off Georgia's proverbial finger, and it finally ran out of ideas.
From 1981 to 2020, this was one of the most steadily successful programs in the country. The Dawgs' average percentile rating in SP+ in those 40 years was 84.8%, ninth best in FBS. Each of the eight teams above them -- Ohio State, Florida, Florida State, Alabama, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma -- won national titles.
The eight directly below them -- USC, Penn State, Notre Dame, Auburn, Tennessee, Texas, LSU, Clemson -- also won at least one. But Georgia, which rode freshman Herschel Walker and a string of tight wins to the 1980 championship, had come up dry ever since.
It came close in the years that followed 1980's run, and with demonstrably better teams on paper. It lost only two regular-season games from 1981 to '83, but fell to eventual national champion Clemson early in 1981 and lost a No. 1 vs. No. 2 Sugar Bowl to Penn State in 1982.
Georgia came close in 1992. After slipping to something closer to top-15 status in Vince Dooley's final years as head coach, it charged back under Ray Goff and, with Garrison Hearst carrying the load, came within five points of an unbeaten record.
It came really close in the Mark Richt era.
The program slipped toward mediocrity for much of both Goff's and successor Jim Donnan's tenures, but when Richt, the right-hand man of the most successful coach of the era (Florida State's Bobby Bowden) took over, the rebound began quickly. In 2002, Richt's second season in charge, the Dawgs rolled to the SEC title. But they fell seven points short of a perfect record thanks to a 20-13 loss to Florida that included a pick-six and a devastating, late dropped pass by Terrence Edwards.
They were the best team in the country in the late stages of the wacky 2007 season, but they had already been eliminated from the national title picture by two early losses. They began 2008 ranked first in the country but got stomped by Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide early in the year. After a brief slide, they charged back with a loaded 2012 team and led Saban's Tide in the fourth quarter of the SEC championship game, but they fell 5 yards short when, trailing in the final seconds, Chris Conley caught a deflected pass but got tackled in bounds. The clock ran out on both the game and, eventually, the Richt era.
Driven crazy by Saban's success, like much of the SEC, Georgia fired Richt despite 50 wins over his last five seasons. It hired Kirby Smart, the right-hand man of the most successful coach of the era (Saban) -- sound familiar? -- and kept right on coming close. Smart won an SEC title in his second season just like Richt, and over his first five seasons he went 52-14 with four top-10 finishes; Richt had gone 52-13 with a matching four top-10s.
In the 2017 national title game, Georgia came closer than it ever had during this long drought. After winning the greatest game of the CFP era -- 54-48 over Oklahoma in overtime in the Rose Bowl -- the Dawgs took a 13-0 halftime lead against Saban and Bama, and while the Tide charged back to force overtime with backup quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, Georgia got a 51-yard field goal from Rodrigo Blankenship and immediately sacked Tagovailoa for a huge loss. But Tagovailoa responded with a 41-yard touchdown pass to DeVonta Smith. Bama won again, and the Dawgs had to wait four more years to return to the CFP.
On Monday night against Saban's Tide yet again, the wait ended with a 33-18 Georgia win. And it took a village to end it.
It took a ferocious pass rush.
Defense has, perhaps not surprisingly, been the calling card of the Smart era. Saban's former defensive coordinator had crafted a unit that ranked first in defensive SP+ in both 2019 and 2020 and seemingly took a huge step forward this season. Only one team all season gained more than 400 yards or scored more than 18 points on the Dawgs, who headed into the SEC championship game against Alabama allowing just 6.9 points per contest. But Bama and Bryce Young absolutely rocked Georgia, gaining 394 yards and scoring 31 points in a 16-minute surge that gave the Tide a comfortable lead and an eventual 41-24 win.
Though the Bulldogs blitzed Young pretty well for much of that game, they never could bring him down. They finished the game with zero sacks, and anytime they didn't blitz, Young torched them. In the rematch, they were determined not to let that happen. Georgia sacked Young four times and constantly forced him to rush his reads. He threw for 369 yards, but it took 57 passes to do it.
Jordan Davis walloped Young on the fourth play of the game, and it nearly resulted in a scoop-and-score before replay determined Young had thrown an incompletion rather than fumbling. But the tone was set. Even when Alabama moved the ball, negative plays forced them to settle for field goal after field goal and bought Georgia time to figure out how to move the football against an almost equally great Bama D.
It took Stetson Bennett taking a breath.
In Monday's preview, I wrote about how Bennett, the storied former walk-on who twice took over the job when JT Daniels got hurt and refused to give it up this time, was just about the best front-runner in the country. Over the past two seasons, he ranked sixth overall in raw QBR when Georgia was ahead, but when tied or behind after halftime, he ranked 139th out of 152.
Rece Davis details what Georgia had to do to come up with a win over Alabama on the biggest stage.
To overcome that trend, he first had to overcome the most drastic set of nerves you'll ever see. On Georgia's first drive, Bennett scrambled into a dreadful 14-yard sack, dropped the football while scrambling around on the next play, took a needless delay-of-game penalty, then nearly threw a pick on third down. Georgia's first two drives went absolutely nowhere, and his first four pass attempts netted minus-5 yards including the sack. But he completed a lovely, 52-yard bomb to George Pickens late in the first quarter to set up a tying field goal, and Georgia was officially in the game.
It looked for a while, however, like the "tied/behind after halftime" jinx would continue. Bennett was just 2-for-5 for 14 yards and another sack in the third quarter, then lost a controversial fumble -- Christian Harris hit him as he was trying to throw the ball away, and it was awfully close to an incompletion -- early in the fourth. But with Georgia down 18-13 and the title hanging in the balance, Bennett rose to the occasion. He threw a gorgeous 40-yard touchdown pass to Adonai Mitchell to give the Dawgs the lead, then hit all-world tight end Brock Bowers for a 15-yard score with 3:33 left. The last two passes of his season were touchdowns.
It took some luck with injuries.
No need to leave this unacknowledged. It's part of the game. While the Dawgs had their own injury problems in 2021 -- Pickens, their 2020 receiving leader, tore his ACL in the spring and tight end Darnell Washington's season never got fully on track due to early injuries -- Georgia's receiving corps was fully operational in the title game. But Alabama came into the game without No. 2 receiver John Metchie III (ACL), then lost star Jameson Williams to a knee injury suffered at the end of a 40-yard catch in the second quarter. Freshman Agiye Hall was thrust into a major role, and while he caught passes of 28 and 24 yards, six other passes targeting him fell incomplete.
It took James Cook.
With two teams so closely matched in terms of depth and athleticism, it was hard for either to find a permanent matchup advantage. Bama got big plays from Williams and tight end Cameron Latu, and Georgia had the bombs to Pickens and eventually Mitchell. But we were still waiting for a game-breaking moment until Cook, a star of the semifinal win over Michigan, bounced left and raced 67 yards down the sideline. It set up Zamir White's 1-yard plunge, the game's first touchdown.
It took Nolan Smith and the fruits of Smart's relentless recruiting.
The Savannah-via-IMG Academy product was emblematic of the talent and depth with which Smart has managed to stock his depth chart through the years. Smith was the No. 2 recruit in the 2019 class but had to wait his turn to play a major role. And while stars Jordan Davis and Nakobe Dean both made their presence felt on Monday, Smith was incredible, recording seven tackles, two tackles for loss and a sack of Young that ended the game. Channing Tindall, a 2018 four-star, had eight tackles, 1.5 TFLs and a sack. William Poole, a 2017 four-star, broke up two passes. Kelee Ringo, a 2020 five-star, iced the win with a 79-yard pick-six.
Smart learned from Saban how to build a recruiting war machine, then beat Saban with one he built on his own.
It took plain old nastiness.
While Saban tweaked his offensive philosophy toward a more modern, spread-out attack in recent years (and to great effect), Smart insisted on maintaining the level of rushing and physicality predominant in Bama's first few title runs. Young's elusiveness, combined with the extreme playmaking ability of the likes of Williams and Metchie, were enough to beat Georgia a month ago, but Georgia won the rematch by simply being the meaner, tougher, more physical team.
Georgia backs rushed 21 times for 167 yards against the vaunted Bama defensive front, while Alabama backs carried three more times for 94 fewer yards. And with the game seemingly in the balance, Georgia ran the ball right down Alabama's throat. Up 19-18 midway through the fourth quarter, with everyone in the stadium knowing Georgia was going to run the ball, Cook and White rushed for 4, 7, 5, 7 and 7 yards before Bennett's touchdown pass to Bowers.
It took Kelee Ringo ignoring his coach.
In maybe the most charming moment of the entire game, Ringo picked off Young with a minute left. Smart yelled at Ringo to go down so they could run out the clock. Instead, Ringo took it back for a score as Smart laughed on the sideline. It was much more enjoyable than a kneel-down would have been.
You could forgive Georgia fans for believing in jinxes, for wondering if someone in red and black had made a deal with the devil: the 1980 national title in exchange for a soul and a long title drought. But on Monday night in Indianapolis, the Dawgs exorcised four decades' worth of demons. They won for the players and coaches who had come so close through the years -- the Garrison Hearsts and Chris Conleys and David Pollacks and Jarvis Joneses and Roquan Smiths and Champ Baileys and Hines Wards and Kevin Butlers and Eric Zeiers and Knowshon Morenos -- and they finally beat the final boss, Saban's Bama, by being a better version of the final boss.