INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Talent won.
After 10 days of TCU playing the plucky underdog and the first college football Cinderella of the playoff era, the glass slipper got smashed into a million pieces by halftime. The national championship game looked like varsity against JV, starters against backups and yes, SEC against everybody else.
Georgia put an exclamation mark on an all-time great season with a 65-7 beatdown of Texas Christian on Monday night, the largest margin of victory ever in the national title game. That secured Georgia a 15-0 record, its third national championship and second straight title. It turned out the Bulldogs might as well have been handed the trophy in Atlanta after winning the Peach Bowl. That’s how easy this was.
After one sack of TCU quarterback Max Duggan deep in TCU’s own territory, Georgia’s Bear Alexander looked up at the sea of fans wearing purple behind the end zone and waved goodbye. There were still 42 seconds left in the first half.
It turned out, that was enough time for the Bulldogs to intercept Duggan for the second time, on the very next play, and add a 22-yard Adonai Mitchell touchdown catch to their jaw-dropping tally of first-half points, two plays later. That made it 38-7, setting up the second half as a 30-minute procession to red and black confetti and a trophy presentation.
Thanks for coming, Horned Frogs. Maybe next time.
As for the ’Dawgs, they’ve replaced Alabama as the standard in this sport, with coach Kirby Smart equaling his former boss Nick Saban’s feat of back-to-back titles, which the Crimson Tide won in 2011-’12. A year after toppling Alabama in the title game, Georgia romped to another championship, playing two close games all season and holding onto the top spot in the CFP rankings in every iteration but the first.
After becoming one of the sport’s most unlikely stories by leading Georgia to the national title last year, Stetson Bennett put the finishing touches on a legendary tale. The quarterback from Blackshear, Ga., threw for 304 yards and four touchdowns, running for two more in his final game with the Bulldogs. He is only the sixth quarterback in the history of the game to win back-to-back national titles as a starter. By far and away, he’s also the most unlikely — a former walk-on who once transferred to Jones Community College and had to prove himself time and again to Smart and offensive coordinator Todd Monken to earn the starting job.
On Monday, he couldn’t miss. Neither could Smart, nor Monken, nor anyone else covered in crimson. Georgia overpowered TCU at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Its pass-catchers, particularly tight end Brock Bowers and receiver Ladd McConkey, proved too much to handle. Its secondary, questioned after a rocky performance in the semifinal against Ohio State, blanketed Quentin Johnston and the rest of TCU’s receivers just about all night. Even Duggan, a Heisman finalist, couldn’t batter his way out of this one.
If TCU did have a moment to stay in the game, it came during the briefest possible first-quarter window. Already down 10-0, Derius Davis took advantage of a rare Georgia coverage breakdown to go 60 yards, setting up a 2-yard Duggan score.
For just a second, it looked like the ’Dawgs might be vulnerable. And then Bennett marched them straight down the field, with McConkey catching balls of 11, 11 and 37 yards on a coverage-bust touchdown to key a four-play, 70-yard drive.
By the time halftime struck, Bennett had marched Georgia on three more touchdown drives of 92, 66 and 22 yards, all for touchdowns and all without TCU answers.
The Horned Frogs made their hay this season on coming back when all seemed lost, but that was in the Big 12. Here, against SEC speed and strength, there was no way, no how.
Cinderella stories are cute. But in the last four recruiting cycles, Georgia has ranked fourth, first, second and first, per 247Sports. Good luck beating that with grit and a can-do attitude.
Bennett was pulled with 13:25 to go in the fourth quarter, with Smart calling a timeout to set up a curtain call with Georgia leading by 45 points. A sea of red greeted him with a standing ovation.
Talent won, but it turned out that Bennett wrote the underdog story that TCU couldn’t.
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