Rarely has an SEC Championship game meant more, yet less at the same time.
No. 14 Georgia will square off against No. 1 LSU at the Georgia Dome on Saturday. And what is known for certain is that one team or the other will leave with the league championship trophy held aloft.
What is less clear, however, is what it might mean for the BCS championship scenario. By virtue of being so dominant against one of college football’s more formidable schedules, the Tigers (12-0, 8-0 SEC) are said to have their ticket already punched for the BCS title game regardless of what happens in Saturday’s game.
Even Georgia coach Mark Richt acknowledges that a convincing victory by his own Bulldogs (10-2, 7-1) would not likely do anything to change LSU’s fate. Not with the Tigers already holding wins against Alabama, Oregon and West Virginia.
“If you go by how the BCS is set up, and if you look at all the one-loss teams and who they played, I think they’d be a shoo-in to play,” Richt said during a news conference Friday at the Georgia Dome.
“I know that’s not what they’re focusing on, because you don’t go 12-0 unless you focus on every game. ... But when the question is asked hypothetically, if we won do I think they should be in the [BCS] game, yes I do.”
Winning the SEC is motivation enough, both teams say. It’s hard to qualify for this game and harder still to win it.
Now in its 20th year, the SEC Championship game seems to have found a permanent home in Atlanta and the Georgia Dome. LSU and Georgia each is playing in it for the fourth time, all since 2001.
The Tigers will be going for their 11th SEC title and first since 2007. The Bulldogs are going for their 13th championship and first since 2005. So these opportunities are few and far between.
“We’re not focused on the national championship game at the present time,” LSU offensive guard Will Blackwell. “We’re just worried about bringing home another SEC Championship to LSU.”
Said Richt: “There is no bigger priority than this game to us. I mean, this is what we gear everything for, all the hours we work, all the things that we do, are about trying to get to this game. The Southeastern Conference is an awesome conference in that, if you win this league, you know you’ve done something special and everybody knows you’ve done something special.”
Twice Georgia and LSU have gone head-to-head in this game, with each team winning once. The Bulldogs won 34-14 over a heavily favored LSU team in 2005 and the heavily favored Tigers won 34-13 in 2003.
This year, the Tigers are two-touchdown favorites and nobody is giving the Bulldogs much of a chance. To even keep it close would be a surprise to most people.
“We’ve had everybody telling us we can’t do it since we lost those first two games,” Georgia linebacker Christian Robinson said. “I think we’ve shown we can hang. So we’ll take the challenge, not in a cocky way, but we can hang. So we’ll be ready.”
The Bulldogs think like they match up better with LSU than most teams do. The Tigers make their living running straight at opponents and playing a stifling brand of defense. The average 216 yards per game behind a bevy of 220-pound backs led by sophomore Spencer Ware. Meanwhile, they are No. 2 in the nation in total defense, No. 2 in scoring and lead the nation in turnover margin.
“They’re not trying to be fancy,” Richt said. “They’re just lining up and saying we’re going to physically line up and whip your tail. They’re very, very strong up front on both sides of the ball.”
But Georgia is no slouch in that department either. The Bulldogs rank sixth in the nation against the run and are particularly stout up the middle. They feature a pair of 350-pound nose guards in John Jenkins and Kwame Geathers and a couple of 240-pound linebackers in Jarvis Jones and Alec Ogletree. The Bulldogs feel like they can stand up to LSU’s rush and force them to put the game on the back of quarterback Jordan Jefferson.
Georgia defensive line coach Rodney Garner said he told his charges “It’s going to be a test of wills. We’ve got to out-will them. It’s going to be like an old-fashioned bar fight. They’re going to throw you out, and you’ve got to get back up and go back in.”
Moving the football could prove more problematic for the Bulldogs. With star freshman tailback Isaiah Crowell sidelined the past two weeks with an injured ankle and his durability and focus under intense scrutiny, Georgia’s ability to generate a running game is a big question mark.
If they can do that and keep quarterback Aaron Murray mostly upright, they stand a chance. The sophomore comes in as the highest-rated passer the Tigers have faced, and he has been red hot of late. He has thrown for 14 touchdowns and just two interceptions in the Bulldogs’ past four games.
“This is something you want,” Murray said. “You want to be able to play in big games like this and be able to play against the best. That’s the reason all these guys committed to Georgia. We wanted to play in big games like this, and here’s our opportunity.”
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