Well, that was disappointing. We said at the half that Ole Miss would come out swinging, and they did. Georgia on the other hand never really left the halftime locker room, and so the Bulldogs’ season ends with a 39-34 loss to Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl. The Bulldogs had won 75 games in […]
Well, that was disappointing. We said at the half that Ole Miss would come out swinging, and they did. Georgia on the other hand never really left the halftime locker room, and so the Bulldogs’ season ends with a 39-34 loss to Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl.
The Bulldogs had won 75 games in a row in which they led going into the 4th quarter. That streak is over. There was plenty of blame to go around. Daylen Everette, whose electric first half fumble return threatened to blow the lid off the game, played the second half like a blind man with hip bursitis. The offensive line, which had opened up some solid holes in the ground game in the first half, got repeatedly stoned at the point of contact in the run game and run the heck over in the passing game when it mattered most. Heck, Peyton Woodring missed a field goal, one which it turns out could have sent the game to overtime had he hit it.
Just about everything that Georgia has done right to win game this season they did wrong at the worst possible time. So they’re on a plane back to Athens with a lot of unexpected free time this January. The real coup de grace may have been the head-scratching time management on Georgia’s last offensive drive. The Bulldogs had first and goal inside the ten with a chance to take the lead but lost four yards on first down, stopped the clock by trying to throw into the end zone on third down, and as a result left Ole Miss 0:56 to get into position for kicker Lucas Carneiro. It was more time than was needed, even with no timeouts. A better approach would have been to keep the ball in Gunner Stockton’s hands, and at worst kick the field goal with under :20 seconds on the clock. But alas, we left enough time for Trinidad Chambliss to drop one final beautiful ball over Demelo Jones’s head. The rest, as they say, is Ole Miss football history.
More than the errors in execution, morthan anything, Ole Miss, and specifically Trinidad Chambliss, made the plays that mattered when they needed them. Georgia’s defense simply had no answer for Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss. Coming out of the locker room he completed 13 passes in a row, including a series of improbable off-script conversions. He finished the game 30 of 46 for 362 yards and a pair of touchdown passes. Unfortunately the quarterback who played utterly out of his mind in this Ole Miss/Georgia matchup was not the one who did so back in October. But if it’s any consolation, I doubt he can do that two weeks in a row, so we’ll probably get to watch Carson Beck play for a national championship. That’s fun, right?
Gunner Stockton on the other hand went ice cold in the second half. I suspect we may find out that Stockton played the second half of this game with a concussion and/or other injuries. In addition to this shot that was absolutely targeting, Stockton at one point also had Ole Miss defending openly gouging at his eyes. Really just the sort of thing you expect from America’a backup school, but Georgia did little or nothing to overcome it. Gunner ended the night 18 of 31 for 206 yards, a touchdown through the air and two on the ground. It wasn’t his best statistical outing of the year, but it would have been enough to win this one had the Bulldog defense reciprocated his effort.
This one was also a great reminder that in the 12 team playoff era getting through the gauntlet of top tier opponents to win a national title is harder than ever. Fans of programs like Georgia and Ohio State are just going to have to come to terms with that. No team still playing has won a national title in the last 24 years (if at all). If you wanted more teams to have access to the title, well, you got it. The College Football Playoff is designed to keep fans’ eyeballs on screens for an additional two weeks of games. If the “best team in college football” is the one hoisting the trophy at the end that’s purely accidental.
But on this night the best team in the building is the one that will be heading to face the Miami Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl. The Bulldogs can turn their focus to 2026, a year in which (transfer portal willing) they should return a host of starters and key contributors on both sides of the ball. This season didn’t end where or how we wanted it to. But we are again the champions of the SEC, and again beat every one of our traditional rivals. That qualifies as a good football season in my book, one in which the things that matter most went our way.
It’s fine to be disappointed with how this season ended. But as a reminder, it’s not fine to be disrespectful to your fellow fans and commenters. So let’s all act the way Mama raised us to, remember the good times, and be glad we’re not coached by Kalen DeBoer. Because that would be much worse.
Go ‘Dawgs!!!
Category: General Sports
