Georgia makes bid for CFP with win
ATLANTA – Kirby Smart took the customary drenching with an ear-toear 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 ago, the No. 6 Bulldogs doled out a whipping of their own on Saturday. And what a time for some revenge, with the Southeastern Conference 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 a pair of touchdown passes and Georgia cruised to a 28-7 victory over the No. 4 Tigers in an SEC title game that was a total reversal of the last 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) 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 only grown more and more irritating to Georgia fans as schools all around them — Alabama, Auburn, Florida, LSU, Tennessee, Clemson, Florida State — finished No. 1 in the years 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) didn’t see it coming, either.
The Tigers rolled into Atlanta as the hottest team in the country after impressive wins over Georgia and thenNo. 1 Alabama in its last three games. But the Tigers were stymied by their own mistakes, which also included a blocked field goal, and they 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.
Nick Chubb, Sony Michel and freshman D’Andre Swift provided a much more effective running game , which opened up things for the young quarterback. Fromm completed 16 of 22 passes for 183 yards, including a 2-yard touchdown to Isaac Nauta in the second quarter and a 6-yarder to Terry Godwin with just over 13 minutes remaining that essentially sealed Georgia’s victory.
The Bulldogs, who were No. 6 in the latest CFP standings, should move into the top four after their dominating performance. Auburn was ranked second in the CFP poll, only to have its hopes fade away with a lackluster offensive performance. The Tigers were up held to 259 yards after piling up 488 in their Nov. 11 romp.