The Chicken Curse and Other Things That are Not Real
ATHENS - Often, when teams are overwhelming favorites to win games, fans of that team try to figure out what can go wrong. That’s what being a fan is all about.
Georgia fans excel in this arena.
This weekend in Columbia - a place that has seen plenty of horrors for UGA, but no more than anywhere else - Georgia can take a stranglehold on the SEC East… in the second game of the season.
“Stranglehold” is a strong word. But with games against Mississippi State, LSU, UGA and Missouri on the schedule, the Gators are not likely to run the table. The same should be said for the Chickens. It’s relatively unlikely that’s the case for the Dawgs, too. Winning seven conference games in the SEC isn’t easy to do, and doing that likely will win the East in 2018.
COLUMBIA, SC - Georgia DL Tyler Clark pressures South Carolina QB Perry Orth during Georgia's 28-14 win over South Carolina during a game delayed by Hurricane Matthew at Williams-Brice Stadium on October 9, 2016. (Wes Muilenburg/Dawg Post)
That’s why this weekend’s trip to Columbia is a huge opportunity for this program. No. 3 Georgia is a solid 10-point favorite to beat the Chickens - mathematically (not some made-up ESPN thingy) 80% of teams favored by ten points by casinos win those games straight up. In addition, Georgia has beaten Carolina by double digits the last three times it has played. It is coming off a run to the national title game and an SEC championship.
And yet the usual nervousness is setting in with fans. I get it. I’ve been around for a while. This is the first real game of the year. This is the first time this particular team has played in hostile situation. Nick, Sony and Roqaun are gone.
That nervousness, however, should not be setting in with the program itself. If Georgia is what we all think it is - and I mean no disrespect to Will Muschamp and the Chickens when I say this - this should be a routine game where a top team handles a good team on the road. Not a blowout; not an upset; a solid win.
Anything else and you start to recalibrate.
But Stockholm syndrome sufferers that they are, Georgia fans can’t help but flash back to every horrible event that’s ever happened in Columbia… AS IF THEY ARE SOMEHOW WORSE OR MORE CONSEQUENTIAL THAN BEATINGS IN JACKSONVILLE, KNOXVILLE, AUBURN, OR ATLANTA.
Trust me, they aren’t.
COLUMBIA, SC - Georgia RB Brian Herrien during Georgia's 28-14 win over South Carolina during a game delayed by Hurricane Matthew at Williams-Brice Stadium on October 9, 2016. (Wes Muilenburg/Dawg Post)
Losses in Columbia have, if you go back through time, mattered little to not much. Remember that time when Georgia couldn’t play for the SEC championship in 2012 after South Carolina blew the Dawgs out in 2012?
Me, either.
Perhaps the 1996 or 2000 UGA teams were destined to get to nine wins rather than five and eight respectively if they had just stopped the turnover parade in both of those losses (and they were hardly blowouts). Those were bad to mediocre teams losing to bad to mediocre teams on the road, which happens in college football each week.
In addition: Close road wins are not at all the same as road losses.
A review of the trips to Columbia since the Chickens entered the arena of the SEC:
1992 - No. 14 UGA beats the Cocks 28-6
1994 - UGA beats Carolina 24-21
1996 - Carolina beats UGA 23-14
1998 - No. 15 UGA beats Carolina 17-3
2000 - Carolina beats No. 9 UGA 21-10
2002 - No. 9 UGA beats the Cocks 13-7
2004 - No. 3 UGA beats Carolina 20-16
2006 - No. 12 Georgia beats USC 18-0
2008 - No. 2 UGA beats Carolina 14-7
2010 - No. 24 USC beats No. 22 Georgia 17-6
2012 - No. 6 South Carolina beats No. 5 Georgia 35-7
2014 - No. 24 South Carolina beats No. 6 UGA 38-35
2016 - Georgia beats South Carolina 28-14
Do you see a pattern? Because I really don’t. I see that Georgia is 8-5, and when Georgia is clearly the better team it wins with an exception here and there (2014). Other than that the better team has won. Because that’s what usually happens in sports - the better team wins.
But let’s say Carolina pulls the upset (they’ve got around a 20% chance to do so - about one in five). Has Columbia really been more difficult to play than Knoxville or Auburn? Or is it that Georgia fans look down more on Carolina, and expect more from their team against the lowly Chickens? Was the 2012 loss in Columbia really worse than Georgia’s meltdowns in Knoxville in 2009 and 2015? Was that loss in 2012 worse than the way Auburn blew the Dawgs out last fall?
No.
Is there any place full of more boogiemen than Jacksonville these last two decades for the Dawgs? And look at what good the boogiemen did to the Gators last Halloween. Also, no one does self pity like the Cocks. Have you ever heard of the Chicken Curse? Its not a real thing, either, but they believe in it.
So save your pity nervousness for some other time - say, like, in Atlanta for bigger and better moments. Win or lose this game, Georgia’s season has just started. You are making things up in your mind, and it isn’t healthy. Eyes on the prize. No one thing that happens in September wins or loses and championships.