What the Eagles' Super Bowl Win Reminded Us About UGA Football and Bama
ATHENS - The Golden Era of UGA and Alabama football was on full display at the Super Bowl Sunday night. Two of college football’s biggest brands reminded fans of just what talented rolled through the two programs during a special stretch of time for both teams over the last ten seasons.
Landon Dickerson, Eli Ricks, Tyler Steen, Byron Young, Cameron Latu, Jalen Hurts, Jalen Carter, Lewis Cine, Jordan Davis, Nolan Smith and Nakobe Dean - 13 players on the Eagles’ roster played for either Nick Saban or Kirby Smartt and battled in one of two national title games or two SEC title games between the two programs since the end of the 2017 season.
It is clear the Eagles’ Super Bowl championship Sunday night is a lesson in why the line on scrimmage matters so much. The Chiefs all but shut down former Penn State star Saquon Barkley, but the Eagles’ defensive line permitted no hope for Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs, loaded with the best quarterback of this generation, couldn’t get past midfield. The Chiefs, looking for the first “threepeat” in NFL history, did not score in the first half.
The Chiefs, one-point favorites, never stood a chance. Why? Philly’s grimy combination of Bama and UGA.
The Super Bowl reminded us of what great times these two programs have had in the very recent past. Alabama and Georgia have won four national titles since facing each other in that game for the first time at the end of the 2017 season. They have played in three SEC Championship Games, and are responsible for winning all but one conference title since 2014 (LSU, 2019).
No matter the hubbub from the Big Ten this winter, it has been Alabama and UGA that have dominated the sport for the last decade. Two wins in a row for the Big Ten? Georgia just did that by themselves...
And yet it can be easy to forget that Hurts didn’t end his college career with the Tide. After rallying Alabama to the 2018 SEC Championship - against Georgia of course - Hurts left T Town and went to Oklahoma. He was 26-2 as the starting quarterback, but his start against the Dawgs in the national title game of the 2017 season was his final start for Alabama.
He hardly functioned. Hurts was 3 of 8 for 21 yards passing with 47 yards rushing on six carries. Alabama was down 13-0, and Saban made a switch at the hald - the legend, as it were, of Tua Tagovailoa was born.
That’s the thing about the Super Bowl as well - the Eagles’ roster has two players - DeVonta Smith and Kelee Ringo - who made college football history with game-winning plays in national title games.
Tagovailoa, facing a 2nd and 26, connected with DeVonta Smith (a former UGA commit) to take a walk-off win in the national title game. It was a shocking end to the season - perhaps the greatest ending to a college national championship game ever.
Hurts’ time at Alabama was over with that improbable throw. But that might have been the best thing for Hurts. Imagine personal tragedy providing a path to team triumph. Hurts left as a graduate transfer for Oklahoma; became a Heisman finalist; and was drafted by the Eagles with the No. 53 overall pick in 2020.
Hurts was always prepared. When Tagovailoa was ineffective and hurt against the Dawgs a year later, he saved Alabama’s season with a come-from-behind win over Georgia to send Bama to the CFP. When it was time to leave Alabama, Hurst didn’t need the NCAA’s Transfer Portal (which didn’t exist at the time), he was able to transfer because he had graduated. When Carson Wentz was benched, Hurts was ready to take over.
Quite clearly always working to be in position to win - Hurts has made Dennis Rodman’s pre-rebound positioning look like child’s play. Four seasons of being told what he couldn’t do - Hurts won it all.
It must be a bag of mixed emotions for the Tree Killer wing of the Alabama fanbase - happy that a former Alabama quarterback won it all… only to realize they were all too eager to run him out of town when he didn’t win it all for them. Is Jalen Hurts still considered an Alabama quarterback?
(Trigger yourselves eslewhere...)
By the time Hurts was starting for the Eagles, Davis, Dean, Ringo, Cine, Carter and Smith had heard enough talk of what they could not do, too. A thrashing at the hands of Saban’s Alabama in the 2021 SEC Championship Game.
It felt like Georgia would never win it all. Alabama would always be in the way.
Then the national title game in the frigid Hoth system... also known as Indianapolis. Much like the finale of the 2017 season, offense was at a premium when Bama and UGA faced one another for all the marbles. Dean’s apparent fumble return for touchdown - which happened after Davis walloped Tide QB Bryce Young at the start of the game - was ruled an incompletion by the replay officials.
It makes sense now looking back and considering what the Eagles did to Mahomes and the high-flying Chiefs, but Alabama and Georgia could hardly move the ball on one another. Punts and field goals were the name of the game.
Only after Carter blocked Will Reichard’s 48-yard FG attempt did the offenses awake. James Cook ripped off a 67-yard run to set up a score. Alabama answered with a FG before Stetson Bennett’s fumble set up Bama’s only touchdown of the game.
Down 18-13, UGA answered with four throws in a row before Bennett found AD Mitchell in the end zone. Georgia had taken the lead for good. Brock Bowers added another touchdown after Jordan Davis’ tackle for a loss forced an Alabama three-and-out punt.
Then the play that all but erased 2nd and 26 from the minds of Georgia fans. Ringo’s pick six - running three quarters of the field to the end zone with the Redcoats, who were hardly able to compose themselves in time to play Glory! Glory!
The final two plays of that game were a Nakobe Dean tackle and a Nolan Smith sack.
We know the past, but it is hard to know if the two programs are still in their so-called Golden Eras. That seems to be teetering in Tuscaloosa. Then again, Georgia just lost to Notre Dame.
Gross.
Will either win a national title in the future with their current head coaches? Will the two programs meet again in a national title game, or has that time passed? Are we only going to remember these recent moments like Clemson fans talk of their series with Georgia in the 1980s - as an all out fight that has seen its time come and gone followed by years of nothingness?
What will the future hold for the two most successful programs in college football over the last ten years? We can’t know. We do know that these former Dawgs and Pachyderms are expert at winning it all, so grease up them light poles Philly - this probably isn’t the last time this is happening.