huckaby

Darrell Huckaby is a syndicated columnist and author of six books including two about Georgia football. Read Huck’s Wit and Wisdom every Wednesday and Sunday. Subscribe at darrellhuckaby.net.

12.31.23

Dawgs on Top--Dawgs WAY on Top

Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.”

Y’all probably thought William Shakespeare wrote that. Or maybe Bobby Poss. But neither of those sages, wise as they both might be, penned those words. Those words were written by a guy named John Greenleaf Whittier way back in the 19th century.

I don’t know what inspired the words but he hit the bull right in the butt as far as the 2023 season for the Georgia Bulldog football season goes. The College Football Playoff committee is made up of buffoons if they couldn’t see that the scholar-athletes representing the University of Georgia belonged in their end of the season tournament.

If Georgia ain’t one of the best four teams in college football I’ll kiss your Aunt Gladys’s boyfriend’s bohunkus—on the fifty yard-line in Sanford Stadium and give you three days to get up a crowd.

Georgia showed out Saturday night. Georgia really showed out.

Those who were healthy enough to play, played. And they played all in. They were fit and focused and got after Florida State’s asses from could to couldn’t. They showed that Kirby Smart has built a culture in Athens that is just different than any culture anywhere. And, yes. I am including Tuscaloosa, Alabama in my evaluation.

It’s just different at Georgia. And you will never convince me that Georgia isn’t the best team in college football this year. I know we lost to Alabama, but that should not have eliminated us from the playoff. There have been tons of teams who lost one game and went on to make the playoff. What there hasn’t been is a case where a team was deemed the best in the land all year and then demoted to sixth after losing their conference championship game by a field goal. After a possible ten-point swing at the end of the half because of an egregious mistake by the officials.

Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.”

We can talk about what might have been. Which team in the playoff would want to play the healthy Georgia team that took the field in Miami last night?

I can answer that for you. Not a single one. Georgia is the best team in the country and I cannot wait for the next 35 weeks to pass so we can start proving it all over again.

Now about the game. I know I couldn’t have been the only person who got tired of hearing about who all FSU didn’t have. The game was between the people who showed up. Florida State’s players were on scholarship, too. Someone whined that they only had 53 scholarship players available. Don’t NFL teams play whole seasons with that many players on their rosters? They couldn’t put but eleven on the field at one time. 53 seems like a gracious plenty to me.

They could have had every player who ever played for Florida State, going back to Charlie Ward, and they weren’t going to beat Kirby Smart’s team Saturday night.

I loved watching Georgia run the ball. Kendall Milton, speaking of what might have been, has shown what all the hype was about. He was finally healthy for four straight weeks and he balled out. And so did Daijuan Edwards. And Roderick Robinson. And Cash Jones. And the O-line.

372 yards rushing on 45 carries, in case you aren’t looking at a stat sheet. That’s 8.3 yards per carry. Milton 2 TDs. Edwards 2 TDS. They toted the rock only 16 times between them and gained 166 yards. Run the damn ball, indeed.

Carson Beck will begin next season as the premiere quarterback in the country, the Alabama phenom notwithstanding.

Just another typical game. 13 of 18 for 203 yards and 2 TDs. Oh, yeah. That was just in one half.

Ladd McConkey. Wow!

The entire defense. When you hold a team to 63 yards rushing, barely 200 yards total offense and one field goal—with four takeaways--the whole defensive unit has done their job. FSU punted 6 times. They could have been awarded nine points per punt and they still would have lost.

And how ‘bout that one play where Mike Bobo’s son snapped the ball to Will Muschamp’s son, who completed a pass to Stetson Bennett’s brother? That was just cool.

One more thing. I was glad that Kirby let so many kids play so soon in the game. Our previously number three QB started the second half, for goodness’ sake. And I was glad that when he let them play, he let them play—and not just run up the middle.

The same people who were whining all night about FSU’s opt-outs were also whining that Kirby was “running up the score.” Reminder. It was Mike Norvell’s job to keep Georgia from scoring, not Kirby Smart’s.

We should be playing in New Orleans Monday night. We aren’t. We should all be putting on our boots and cowboy hats and be heading to Houston next week. We aren’t.

But we ARE the best team and best program and best coach and best culture in college football. We are living in the glory days of Georgia football and a 3-point loss in the SEC Championship game did not change that, as our team proved Saturday night.

I say it’s great to be a Georgia Bulldog.

Look for me everywhere this off season. I will always be the good-looking guy in the red shirt.

Darrell Huckaby

DHuck008@gmail.com