Bulldogs make case for playoffs
ATLANTA — Kirby Smart took the customary drenching with an ear-to-ear smile. He bounced up and down on the sideline with as much exuberance as his players. And when the coach waved his visor to the red-and-black faithful, he knew better than anyone how much this meant after a long, long wait.
Rebounding emphatically from a blowout loss at Auburn just three weeks earlier, the No. 6 Bulldogs doled out a whipping of their own Saturday. And what a time for some revenge, with the SEC championship and almost surely a trip to the College Football Playoff going to the winner.
Roquan Smith gobbled up two crucial turnovers, freshman Jake Fromm threw two touchdown passes and Georgia cruised to a 28-7 victory over the No. 4 Tigers in an SEC title game that was a reversal of the previous meeting between the teams.
“It’s great to bring it back to Georgia,” said Smart, who played defensive back for the Bulldogs in the 1990s. “The Bulldog Nation is certainly starved.”
Smart needed only two seasons to return his alma mater to national prominence, though he certainly learned a thing or two about what it took to get there in his previous job as Nick Saban’s defensive coordinator at Alabama.
“It’s hard to do,” Smart said. “This one feels the same way.”
Georgia (12-1, No. 6 CFP) claimed its first SEC title since 2005. Of course, there’s a bigger prize for the taking.
The Bulldogs haven’t won a national title since 1980, a drought that has grown more irritating to Georgia fans as schools all around them — Alabama, Auburn, Florida, LSU, Tennessee, Clemson, Florida State — finished No. 1 since.
“It’s been an incredible journey,” said Fromm, who took over as the starter when Jacob Eason was injured in the season opener and never relinquished the job. “I never thought it would shake out this way.”
Auburn (10-3, No. 2 CFP) didn’t see it coming, either.
The Tigers rolled into Atlanta as the hottest team in the country, their five-game winning streak including victories over Georgia and then-No. 1 Alabama. But Auburn was were stymied by its mistakes, which included a blocked field goal, and it had no answer for a Georgia team eager to make up for its embarrassing 40-17 defeat on the Plains.
“They flipped the script on us from the last game,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said.