Georgia now college football’s standard

Georgia has aspired to be Alabama.

Not just a national champion. The Bulldogs did that last year, going through the Crimson Tide to snap a 41-year title drought.

Georgia wants to set the standard in college football, the program that contends for national titles every season and wins them routinely.

The old cliche goes: They don’t rebuild they reload. Alabama has taken that to unprecedented levels over 15 years under Nick Saban, winning six national titles.

There is a long way for Georgia to go to match those accomplishments, but Kirby Smart’s top-ranked Bulldogs have never looked more like peak Alabama than against No. 2 Tennessee on Saturday.

Georgia dominated the biggest game of the season, easily dispatching the team that just three weeks ago knocked off the Crimson Tide.

As a wild day in college football played out, Alabama lost again, toppled by Brian Kelly and No. 15 LSU in a Death Valley overtime, and Clemson was dispatched from the ranks of the unbeaten in emphatic fashion at Notre Dame. It all only served to re-enforce: It’s Georgia’s world now.

“We’re more hungry than ever,” Georgia cornerback Kelee Ringo said.

The Bulldogs smothered the highest-scoring offense in the country. Hendon Hooker, Jalin Hyatt and the Volunteers were getting comparisons to LSU’s 2019 team with Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase since putting 52 on Alabama.

They scored one touchdown against defensive tackle Jalen Carter, cornerback Kelee Ringo and a Bulldogs’ defense that replaced five NFL first-round draft picks after last season and lost its best edge rusher, Nolan Smith, to an injury last week.

Tennessee coach Josh Heupel’s offense had become a marvel across college football, with receivers running wide open with stunning regularity.

The Bulldogs turned off the fireworks.

“I slept better as the week went on, because I felt good about the plan,” Smart said.

Yes, there has been a dropoff with Georgia’s defense. It has gone from all-time great to merely the best in the country.

Stetson Bennett, Brock Bowers, Ladd McConkey and the offense broke off big plays early to jump out to a 21-3 lead and then — much the way Alabama used to before it transformed into a quarterback and receiver factory — it bullied the Volunteers for almost three quarters.

It might be time to start taking Bennett more seriously as a Heisman contender.

The Bulldogs spend the next two weeks on the road, at Mississippi State and Kentucky. They look as if they will cruise into another SEC championship game with a playoff spot all but locked up, no matter the outcome.

It’s the time of the year when big-game results have to be looked at in the context of the CFP.

Tennessee was first last week. It won’t be Tuesday. Georgia will, as the committee catches up to the AP Top 25.

Victories against Alabama and LSU should keep the Vols in the conversation as other conference races are sorted out.

But Tennessee was so thoroughly manhandled, the idea that it might make the playoff over an unbeaten team from another Power Five conference can probably be put to rest.

Of course, not many of them are left.

As for Alabama, the Crimson Tide have lost twice before Thanksgiving for the first time since 2010. Forget the playoff.

Even with Bryce Young’s magic, the Tide will need a small miracle just to get back to the SEC championship game now that it is essentially two games behind LSU in the West.

“Tough loss, but there’s nobody that feels worse about it than our players,” Saban said.

Clemson clinched its Atlantic Coast Conference division and a spot in the championship game even before it took the field Saturday night.

Then Clemson got exposed as paper Tigers by the Irish.

“They just physically kicked our butt. Period. The end,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said.

For the third time in the CFP era, three of the top six teams lost on the same day.

Will all those losses provide a boost for unbeaten Michigan and TCU? Can Clemson recover? It has before from November losses.

All that jockeying is for others to worry about.

Not Georgia. Ten weeks into this college football season, the Bulldogs are without peer.