What'd we learn from the National Championship Game?
Georgia gives TCU an epic shellacking and the narratives about college football and its future start flying.
It was one of those games.
Like the 2020 game between Alabama and Ohio State, or if you can remember back to the 2004 Final between USC and Oklahoma, where one team is clicking on all cylinders and the other is totally overmatched.
I drew up hesitant at the last minute after TCU befuddled Michigan with their unique defense but ultimately it made a good deal of sense that the team who narrowly won several Big 12 games and lost the Championship to Kansas State (subsequently murdered by Alabama) would be unable to keep up with Georgia.
TCU can take a lot of moral victories from this season and build some momentum BUT their ability to recruit off “we’re a national contender” took a serious blow with the lopsided nature of this game and they will ultimately finish the season without any titles. No division title because the Big 12 doesn’t have divisions, no Big 12 title because they lost to Kansas State, no National Title obviously. It’ll be interesting to see what comes next for them.
The announcing crew suggested they’d be a favorite in the Big 12 next season (no) before noting the tremendous amount of roster turnover heading their way and soft-pedaling to “they’ll be a factor in their own conference.” The Big 12 conference is going to be really interesting next year with OU and Texas around for one more year while Cincinnati, BYU, Houston, and UCF join the party.
Georgia has real momentum heading into next season. I’m sure they’re about to lose a ton more players to the NFL, including their quarterback, but they are in pretty firm “reload” mode. Back-up quarterback Carson Beck will enter next year as a redshirt junior, primed to run the system, and many of their O-linemen will be back along with Brock Bowers and some incoming portal receivers. They could very well be better next season.
Here were a few takeaways I had from the game.
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