Lang’s World: UGA is College Football’s Top Dawg. Again.
Lang WhitakerAs Georgia head coach Kirby Smart hoisted his second consecutive National Championship trophy into the misty Los Angeles air, and as oddly large confetti fluttered from the sky and landed atop Stetson Bennett IV, the greatest player in College Football Playoff history, I realized I needed to have a few words with my son. My throat was raspy from celebrating my Dawgs winning it all again.
“Listen,” I said, swiveling on the couch to face my ten-year-old boy, a smile plastered on his face as he watched the trophy presentations, “you need to understand that it doesn’t always happen like this.”
Because the good times have to end at some point. Sports isn’t about beginnings as much as it is about endings. If there’s any lesson we have learned as sports fans, it is to hope for the best but to simultaneously prepare for the worst. If UGA fans are lucky, perhaps we get a run of a few years where UGA manages to stay near the top of the college football charts. But the only team that has managed to sustain such a high level of success has been, of course, Alabama, where of course UGA coach Kirby Smart used to work. Did he bring some of Nick Saban’s magic dust to Athens with him?
It certainly looked like it last night, when UGA annihilated TCU, 65-7, for UGA’s second consecutive Natty. This was not only the largest win in National Championship history, but the biggest win in the history of bowl games. Stetson Bennett often looked like a little kid next to all of UGA’s five-star recruits, but Bennett turned out to be the greatest Georgia Bulldog of all-time, and one of the greatest college quarterbacks of all-time. A UGA program that was forever good but never great, has suddenly and definitively crossed that threshold. Getting to watch UGA take that step with my son sitting next to me was a moment I’ll never forget.
I vowed early on not to be one of those fathers who pushed their kids into liking the same things that I like. For years, even though I was working in and around the NBA, I never forced my son to pick up a basketball or watch a game with me. Then Ja Morant landed in Memphis and started defying gravity, and suddenly one day my son asked me to shoot some hoops with him. I nearly cried as I rebounded airballs for the next ten minutes.
Football was a bit of a tougher sell, but what got him over the hump was taking him to Athens for a game earlier this season. I showed him my old dorms, my favorite places to eat, the park bench on North Campus where I would cut class to sit and read the sports sections of the newspapers. Thanks to a well-placed friend, we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the UGA football facilities, which was even more incredible than you could imagine. Getting to run a 40-yard dash through the UGA football weight room may have helped him start becoming a fan, but then parking on campus on Saturday morning, watching the UGA band arrive, getting to Call the Dawgs, and feeling the excitement and energy of a gameday in person really blew his mind. The SEC’s marketing slogan of “It Just Means More” may be ridiculous and pithy to some, but sometimes on Saturdays in SEC towns, it really does feel like it just means more.
Last year, I watched alone in my man cave as UGA battled Alabama in the championship game. When Kelee Ringo picked off Bryce Young to seal UGA’s first title in forty years, the rest of my house was asleep, so I stood and silently danced in a circle, holding my arms to the sky and feeling elated. But keeping my mouth closed, lest I wake up my family.
Even with a bunch of UGA players exiting for the NFL after winning the title, plus a few others hitting the transfer portal, I suspected UGA would still be pretty good this season. I did not think Georgia would slice through the regular season undefeated and enter the playoffs as the number one team in the country. When UGA was down two touchdowns to Ohio State in the playoff semis and failed on a fourth down attempt in the fourth quarter, I flipped the game off. Well, I thought, I guess this is how it ends. Because it always ends, one way or another.
As it turned out, it wasn’t over. The Dawgs managed to come back, riding on the slim shoulders of Stetson, and somehow squeaked past Ohio State and then dismissed TCU. It was pretty anticlimactic last night as my son and I sat and waited for the clock to hit zero so we could scream and Call The Dawgs one last time.
UGA returning to the National Title game was unexpected and amazing, and winning the title wasn’t any less sweet because we’d won it all one season ago. Getting to root for your team as they make a championship run is usually a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Being able to experience it twice in a lifetime? How ‘bout them Dawgs.
Just enjoy it while you’ve got it. Because you never know when it will happen again.
Published on Jan 10, 2023
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