Georgia football advances to national championship game in a classic

In the second thriller of the night Saturday, Georgia football was able to beat Ohio State, 42-41 in a certified classic. For most of the night, the defense for the Bulldogs disappeared, as they allowed the most points for the season. In my opinion, the defensive line was the issue as it couldn’t get pressure against a very good Ohio State offensive line.

The scoring started midway through the first quarter with a TD from Ohio State after a missed field goal from Georgia. The Bulldogs were able to respond with a TD of their own behind Stetson Bennett’s passes. Ohio State continued the scoring fest by getting another TD through the work of C.J. Stroud. Despite the loss, Stroud had an amazing game.

After an interception from Bennett, the Buckeyes went back to work scoring another TD. Georgia quickly made sure this game didn’t get out of hand by scoring a TD on their next drive. After an Ohio State punt, the Bulldogs tied up the game with a TD, making it a 21-21 with 6 minutes left to play in the second quarter.

Ohio State would punt again after three plays and Georgia would get the ball back and march down the field. They would have to settle for three, taking a three-point lead. With less than 2 minutes left in the first half, Stroud went back to work going for a TD, making it a 28-24 game.

Georgia would get the ball to start the second half and struggle. The third quarter would be horrible for the Bulldogs, as they punted twice and missed a 52-yard field goal. Ohio State on the other hand would have a pretty good quarter, going for a TD and a 25-yard field goal to close out the third.

Marvin Harrison Jr. would go out of the game for Ohio State late in the third with a potential head injury but it seemed like Ohio State was in control of this game, even without Harrison Jr., who was having an amazing game up until his injury. The wide receiver had over 100 yards on 5 receptions. Addtionally, he had two touchdowns.

Georgia started out the fourth quarter by driving down the field into the red zone. They ended up getting to the goal line due to an amazing reach by Brock Bowers off a catch. They wouldn’t be able to get into the end zone and had to face fourth and goal. Rather than going for it on fourth, they decided to kick the field goal, turning it from a potential one-possession game to a two-possession game.

Effectively, the field goal did nothing at the time (it ended up being crucial obviously), but it seemed to give this Georgia football team a little bit of juice after not scoring at all in the third. Georgia’s defense would have its’ best possession of the game up to that point, forcing Ohio State to go three and out.

Kirby Smart made his best coaching decision of the season up to that point, calling a timeout as Ohio State ran a formation on the punt that seemed like a fake. The punt ended up being fake, but the timeout was ruled called before and Ohio State ended up punting the ball back to Georgia.

On a quick 75-yard play from Stetson Bennett to Arian Smith, the Bulldogs were back in it only down by three points with 8 minutes to go. Ohio State’s offense would drive down the field and get a field goal, but the Bulldogs still had a chance to win this game.

They would do just that on their next drive, as Bennett led the Bulldogs down the field for a TD and a one-point lead. While the Bulldogs had the lead, they gave C.J Stroud and the rest of the Buckeyes offense 54 seconds to go down the field to get into field goal range. Stroud would do exactly that, getting the Buckeyes to Georgia’s 32-yard line which was on the edge of field goal range.

Ohio State would miss the 50-yard kick and lose the game. In the interest of being kind, I am not gonna say who missed the kick for Ohio State. The player is just a kid and I feel very bad for him. A lot of what I can write about this is better summarized by Jordan Schultz’s tweet.

Georgia football defeats Ohio State to advance to national championship game

Georgia would go on to win the game, and will now play for a national title against TCU. Going into this game, I really didn’t expect this to be very close. While Ohio State had an amazing offense, I really thought Georgia’s defense would be enough, while the Bulldogs would take advantage of the Ohio State defense like Michigan did.

Georgia football’s defense in this one wasn’t very good (for their own expectations). While they have a lot of talent, and Ohio State has a lot of offensive talent, they just couldn’t get any pressure at all for most of the game. Addtionally, the passing defense got lit up.

Yes, when you have the weapons that Ohio State has, you will lose some battles but when you have players like Kelee Ringo in the secondary and you lose a lot of battles, that isn’t good. Kirby Smart said it best in a post-game interview and stated Georgia football wasn’t ready for TCU in the national championship game.

While that answer is often used by coaches, I felt that answer had a lot of actual weight and truth behind this time. The TCU offense is one of the best in the country, and the Bulldogs’ defense will need to be better than they were in this game if they want to end up going back-to-back.

I still honestly believe that this Georgia Bulldogs team is the best team in the country when they bring their A-game. Their defense is the best in the country when they bring their A-Game. While it wasn’t a case of them playing down to a lower-tier opponent, Georgia’s defense struggled in this game. If they want to win the National Championship, the Bulldogs will need to show their dominant defense once again.