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Monday, November 12, 2007
Bulldogs need not fear LSU in title game
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Immediately after Georgia’s breakthrough in Jacksonville, a best-case scenario took root. Let Tennessee win the East, went the thinking, and get pounded in the SEC championship game by LSU. That would put the Tigers in the BCS title game and the Bulldogs, assuming they finished 10-2, in the Sugar Bowl.
Nice plan.
Needs revision.
There’s no longer cause to believe Georgia would get pounded by anyone anywhere. Would the Bulldogs be favored against LSU on Dec. 1? No. Were they favored against LSU in the same game in 2005? No. Georgia won by 20 points then. Georgia might well win again now.
Imagine the pressure that would fall on LSU, being ranked No. 1 but again having to play Georgia in a building named the Georgia Dome. Imagine the glee with which Mark Richt, who’s having the happiest season of his life, would embrace being the underdog but having a decided fan advantage in what’s supposed to be a neutral site. Imagine the enthusiasm his Bulldogs, who scored an aggregate 87 points against Auburn and Florida, would bring to such an appointment.
LSU manifestly isn’t unbeatable. It lost to Kentucky. (Georgia will not lose to Kentucky on Saturday.) The road to ruin is paved with comparative scores, but these are irresistible: The Tigers beat Florida and Auburn in Baton Rouge by a total of 10 points; Georgia beat the same teams, with only one of the games being staged in Athens, by 37 points.
The Tigers have had the nation’s best collection of talent for three seasons now, and they didn’t win a national championship or even an SEC title in 2005 or 2006. There’s massive weight on Les Miles to do as Nick Saban did, and there are moments when Miles makes you wonder if he knows what he’s doing. Like last season at Auburn, when his team didn’t throw the ball in the end zone on its final possession. Like this year against Auburn, when LSU allowed the clock to tick down to 0:01 before posting the winning points. (Don’t tell me Les planned it that way with a chronometer; he seemed as stunned as everyone else in the aftermath.)
If Georgia lacks a Glenn Dorsey, LSU lacks a Knowshon Moreno and a Matthew Stafford. The two Bulldogs are on the fast track to national celebrity, and their partnership could be the school’s most distinguished since Frank Sinkwich and Charley Trippi. Eric Zeier and Garrison Hearst amassed huge numbers, but their teams never won even a division title. Herschel Walker needed Buck Belue to complete the occasional pass — in the Sugar Bowl against Notre Dame, he completed exactly one pass — but their burden wasn’t equally apportioned.
Moreno and Stafford are forging a beautiful symbiosis. Stafford is throwing less to greater effect. Moreno is finding holes because defenses can’t jam the line for fear Stafford will throw long. That the Bulldogs beat Florida and Auburn for the first time in the same season since 1982 was startling; that their raging offense manhandled two ferocious defenses was astonishing. (Only in 1942, the Sinkwich/Trippi championship season, had Georgia scored more than 87 points in those two games, beating Florida 75-0 but losing to Auburn 27-13.)
If you’re LSU and you’re fully expected to win the national championship, would you want to play the hottest team in the country 75 miles from its campus? If you’re LSU, wouldn’t you be rooting hard for Tennessee to beat Vanderbilt and Kentucky and spare you that assignment?
No self-respecting Georgia fan should be pulling for the Vols. If the Bulldogs reach the SEC title game, they won’t embarrass themselves. Heck, they might even leave with a third SEC championship in six seasons, and wouldn’t that be something given the way this all began?
What was it Steve Spurrier said after South Carolina beat Georgia nine weeks ago? “It wasn’t like they were some big, powerful team.” Maybe the Bulldogs weren’t then, but they are now. They don’t need to duck LSU. LSU might need to duck them.
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