Georgia Bulldogs win rematch against Alabama Crimson Tide for first college football championship since 1980

INDIANAPOLIS – Georgia’s painful 41-year wait is over.

With 54 seconds left in AT&T’s college football national championship on Monday night, Georgia corner defender Kelee Ringo cut Alabama quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young back to 79 yards – the longest choice in six championship history. confirm No. 3 Bulldogs won 33-18 at Crimson Tide and program their first national championship since 1980.

The play caught Georgian quarterback Stetson Bennett, a former walker, in tears on the sidelines, and as soon as the clock ran out, Georgia’s assistant coaches and staff jumped into the elevators in the vibrating press box at Lucas Oil Stadium with one exclamation. , “Hell yeah!” as they roared, cheering together.

On the field, coach Kirby Smart said he hugged the neck of 89-year-old Vince Dooley – Georgia’s last coach before Smart, who won the national championship – and they were both in tears.

“I told the guys in the locker room, just take a picture of this because I’m thinking of an 80s championship picture and seeing all those players and Frank Rosin and Herschel Walkers and all these people who have taken their hands and said things,” Smart said. “Our friends have achieved it, something special, and as they say, they have become legendary, and I want it for them.”

Georgia fans lingered longer after the trophies were introduced and sang “Kir-by! Kir-by! Kir-by!” as players and coaches celebrate on the field in an explosion of glittering confetti.

“I hadn’t cried – I don’t know, for years – but it just came to me,” said Bennett, who survived the slow start to lead the Bulldogs in the fourth quarter and was named the offensive player. game. “That’s when you spend as much time on this thing as we do, blood, sweat, tears, it means something.”

While it was a familiar match where the two teams faced each other in the 2018 Championship and again in this year’s SEC Championship – both winning Alabama – the outcome was wildly different before the announced 68,311 audience. In the 2018 National Championship Series, Alabama won Georgia in overtime 26-23.

Some things make change.

“It was the group that cried in the locker room,” Smart said, referring to the 2018 team that included former players Nick Chubb, Richard LeCounte and D’Andre Swift. “This group made it suitable for them.”

Georgia ended the 2021 season with a record 14-1, the most victory in school history.

Alabama’s seven-win tube series – a series that began in 2008 – broke. Alabama coach Nick Saban is now 25-2 against his former assistants, and both losses will come this season – on Monday night in his Alabama-serving Georgia’s Smart and Texas A&M Jimbo Fisher, who was Saban’s striker, during the regular season. coordinator at LSU.

Saban said he congratulated Smart after the game.

“I love Kirby,” Saban said. “I think Kirby has great respect for us. He did a great job for us for a long time. If we had to lose the national championship, I’d rather lose one former assistant who certainly did a great job for us and has done a great job for his program and his team.

“I’m really proud of him. And I’m proud of the way he’s been able to coach his team and the consistency they’ve played all year.”

Despite critics complaining about the rematch, there was no shortage of drama or entertainment among enemies far too familiar. What started as a defensive slugfest without touchdowns in the first half – Georgia’s six points at halftime was the lowest this season – evolved into a presentation of big games where both teams switched touchdowns and lacked two-point conversions in the fourth quarter. . They performed a thriller that was 180 degrees different from their game a month ago in the SEC championship when Alabama took Georgia to the forefront and won 41-24.

Smart said that after the defeat in December, the Bulldogs practiced much more personal coverage and “simplified some things.” They didn’t want Bama’s top player Jameson Williams, who left the game in the first half due to a left knee injury, to beat them. They wanted to put more pressure on Young, which they did. They also wanted to leave the field in third place so they could stay fresh and “have a chance to hurry better.”

It worked.

“They changed some things,” Young said. “We knew we might get different looks. Some gazes took me a little just to get down. … And I have to deal with it faster, just make the right game for the team better than I did tonight. So they changed some things and I couldn’t implement “

Both quarter builders struggled especially at the beginning of the game. Bennett was fired a total of four times, Young three. Bennett, who was criticized after his two breaks in the SEC title game, improved as the game progressed and won an expensive brawl. He made 224 yards out of 17 of 26 passes, two touchdowns and no abductions.

“Five years ago, he gave passes like Baker Mayfield against a scout team,” Smart said. “A lot of guys on his scout team saw him play with his feet, his arm whip and the decision – making, and we were very impressed. But once again, when I thought it would go so far from that national championship, he was part of the. [in 2018] to this, man, what a story. “

Smart said he got up from the elevator on the 15th floor of the team hotel earlier this week and saw Dooley sitting on a bench locked out of his room.

“I thought God put him to watch him the night before his game, and he waited with his key to get to his room,” Smart said. “I just knew it meant something. It was a special, special victory.”