Florida-Georgia Reflections: One More Night

It’s Florida-Georgia week.  Florida and Georgia are both ranked in the top 10, with Florida ranked ahead of Georgia but Georgia a slight favorite.  The game projects as a winner-take-all showdown for control of the SEC East.  So today we jump into the way-back machine and go back…back…back…

Actually not that far back.  Maroon 5 had reinvented themselves musically and was now dominating the pop charts.  Obama was in the process of wrapping up a second term.  The Hunger Games was very much a thing.  Twerking was just beginning to be a thing.  The Mayan apocalypse was on everyone’s minds because they might not have to go to work the next day.  Bobby Petrino fell of his motorcycle and got himself fired from Arkansas.

Yep, the year was 2012.  Florida and Georgia were both ranked in the top 10, with Florida ahead of Georgia.  Questions loomed over Georgia in the wake of a horrific loss to South Carolina three weeks prior (then just as now).  Florida would beat South Carolina to set up a winner-take-all showdown in Jacksonville.

Shawn Williams ripped his defensive teammates publicly for playing too soft five days prior to the game.  The defense responded by stepping up and turning in their best performance of the season to that point.  They forced six turnovers en route to a 17-9 win.

Florida quarterback Jeff Driskel fumbled twice in their first three plays.  Georgia recovered the second fumble, and it set up their first score, on a 10-yard touchdown run by Todd Gurley.  Driskel would lose another fumble, throw two interceptions, and get sacked five times.

At the end of the first half, with Florida threatening at the Georgia 5, Driskel was intercepted in the end zone by Bacarri Rambo.  The next drive also ended with an interception, this one by Damian Swann.  This set up a Marshall Morgan field goal that made it 10-6 Georgia.

A 50-yard Caleb Sturgis field goal drew Florida to within 10-9 in the fourth quarter.  Then Aaron Murray found Malcolm Mitchell for a 45-yard touchdown with 7:11 left in the game.  Georgia sealed it with a defensive play:  Florida receiver Jordan Reed was streaking toward a touchdown but Jarvis Jones caught him and knocked the ball out at the 5-yard line.  Sanders Commings recovered in the end zone, and that was that.

Now here we are in a similar spot, having absorbed a horrible loss to South Carolina just three weeks prior, facing a showdown with similar stakes and similar questions hanging over the team, though back then it was the defense but this year it is the offense, and specifically the offensive line, that is the area of concern.  One can only hope that this year’s team will rise to the challenge, just as that team did.

As a bonus feature, for your viewing pleasure I give you a big Maroon 5 hit from that year.

There Are No Words for This

Early Saturday morning, portions of the upper stories of the Hard Rock Hotel on Canal Street in downtown New Orleans, presently under construction, collapsed suddenly.

One worker was killed and over 18 were injured.  Two others remain missing.  Search and rescue efforts are ongoing.

All streets in the vicinity are closed and people are advised to stay away.  The structure has been deemed unsafe, unstable, and likely subject to further collapse.

This seems a perfectly apt description of the #3 (at least until the next poll comes out) Georgia Bulldogs in the wake of Saturday’s loss to South Carolina.

Words like “astounding”, “cataclysmic”, “stupefying”, and others I could list, fail to come even remotely close to describing this.

Georgia had been a 21-point favorite over South Carolina, an unranked opponent with a 2-3 record prior to Saturday’s game.

The last time Georgia lost outright on its home field to a 20-plus point underdog was on October 15, 1994.  Georgia fans over a certain age will remember this.  If you are too young to know what I am referring to, thank God for that.

Ray Goff was the coach then.  When you have to go all the way back to Ray Goff to find a point of reference, something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Georgia had four turnovers.  Jake Fromm was responsible for all four:  three interceptions and a fumbled snap.  The offensive line struggled horrifically, giving up three sacks.  They had only given up one sack all season prior to this.

Kirby Smart outsmarted himself (see what I did there?) when Georgia was in position to potentially escape with a win at the end of regulation.  He has an excruciatingly frustrating habit of doing that.  On this occasion, Fromm had just completed an epic 96-yard drive to tie the game in the final minutes of regulation.  He then brought Georgia into position for what would have been a 55-yard field goal attempt with eight seconds left.  But Kirby Smart wanted to get closer, so he had Fromm run another play.  This resulted in a 5-yard illegal shift penalty on an incompletion.  At this point, Kirby Smart decided that a Hail Mary would have a better chance of success than a 60-yard field goal attempt by Rodrigo Blankenship.  It didn’t work, and so to overtime we went.

Speaking of Blankenship, Georgia’s bespectacled hipster placekicker and viral hero, he was uncharacteristically off as well.  He missed a field goal attempt in the second overtime, thereby completing the upset for South Carolina.  He also had an attempt blocked at the end of the first half.  Prior to this he had been a perfect 11 for 11 on field goal attempts.

South Carolina players broke off portions of the celebrated Sanford Stadium hedges to take home as souvenirs to celebrate the victory.  Numerous Georgia fans criticized this action on social media, calling it disrespectful.  If the sanctity of the Sanford Stadium hedges is that big a deal, then next time try taking care of business against a three-touchdown underdog with a losing record.

Everything is still on the table, so they say, and to a certain extent that is true.  Georgia can win all the rest of their games and still make the playoff.  History is replete with examples of teams that suffered embarrassing midseason losses and went on to postseason excellence:  Ohio State in 2014, which won a national championship after absorbing a loss to a Virginia Tech team that would finish 7-6.  Clemson in 2016, which lost to Pitt and went on to beat Alabama in the national championship game that year.  Oklahoma in 2017, which lost at home to Iowa State and made the playoff anyway.

This has been a recurring theme at Georgia the last couple of seasons, in which a cataclysmic midseason loss proved to be a galvanizing event for a strong finish.  In 2017 Georgia was crushed at Auburn, then bounced back to win the SEC championship and make the playoff.  In 2018 Georgia bounced back from a crushing loss at LSU to make the SEC championship.

But right now, Georgia has a massive amount of egg on its face, which won’t wash off even if Georgia turns it around and makes it back to the SEC Championship and, hypothetically, manages to beat Alabama this time around.  I can totally see the playoff selection committee saying, “You lost to an unranked 21-point underdog with a losing record on your home field.  You are not playoff material.  Come on, Alabama.  Try again next year, Georgia.”

And even if Georgia makes the playoff and wins the national championship, this will be a national champion with egg all over its face, and a rival fan base pointing and laughing hysterically from the next state over.  And we will have nothing whatsoever to say in response.