(Photo: secsports.com)
Saturday Spotlight- SEC Championship
(5) Georgia Bulldogs at (2) Texas Longhorns
Georgia: At the beginning of the year, it appeared as if they would be a tough out once again. After all, they have established themselves as a powerhouse in our sport and since 2021, they’ve lost a total of three games, THREE and they all came against the Alabama Crimson Tide. Even this season, guess who their first loss came against? Alabama and I even said that the Tide has become their kryptonite, every football team has one, unfortunately. Even before their first loss this year, they struggled against the Kentucky Wildcats the week before and escaped with a one-point victory. The team that was considered unbeatable has shown they are human after all. After they were kicked in the teeth by the Ole Miss Rebels on November 9th, I was concerned about them because they were being exposed which leads me to my saying: “The bully doesn’t like to be bullied” and that couldn’t be more evident with the Georgia Bulldogs because when you give them a taste of their own medicine and punch them in the mouth, they struggle to recover. After that loss, they were able to regroup against the Tennessee Volunteers and closed the season out in an 8 overtime thriller against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in “Good Ole Clean Fashion Hate”. I’m not going to throw the towel on them just yet. Kirby Smart is still the best coach in the country and he’s a leader of young men who can get his group together when necessary. The championship pedigree will kick in when it needs to. Today, they play in their fourth consecutive conference title game.
Texas: I love what I saw from them last weekend in College Station. As a team that’s known to run up and down on defenses and beat you with speed, instead, they slowed the game down and turned it into a street fight which you all know I love and appreciate. Watching this game was reminiscent of their week two showdown against the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor because they had the same game plan and showed they were simply more man than the defending champs. Offensively, they got a strong performance from Quintrevion Wisner as he carried the football 33 times and ran for 186 yards and all they needed from Quinn Ewers was to control things which means make a throw when the opportunity presents itself, connect with your receivers, and don’t lose the football game, especially with the running game working for you. Gameplans such as that are what make Steve Sarkisian such a good coach. What’s been the calling card for the Texas Longhorns has been their defense! They have held their last four opponents under 20 points and they capped off their best performance with a hard-hitting performance last weekend against the Texas A&M Aggies as they kept their offense out of the endzone. This was a good football team last season and they’re even better this year if you ask me. When they have everything clicking for them, this is the best team in the nation. The Longhorns will make their SEC Championship debut today in Atlanta.
Georgia X-Factor: Cash Jones– Cash Rules Everything Around Me! With the attention that so many of the other weapons on this offense receive, this weapon is often forgotten. Cash is a dynamic pass-catching back that can work in space and creates the best mismatches all over the field. During the season, he was second amongst running backs in the SEC in receiving touchdowns and fifth in receiving yards. Cash has the third most receptions behind Arian Smith and Dominic Lovett. Watch number 32 today.
Texas X-Factor: Gunnar Helm– Tight Ends are still as vital to the offense as they always have been. Nowadays, they are used in a wide variety of ways such as on jet sweeps, wide on the perimeter, or even catching screen passes. Quinn Ewers has his pick of weapons to choose from on this offense and Gunnar has become his safety valve. This year, he’s become one of the best Tight Ends in the country. My first time recognizing him was against the Michigan Wolverines and how he carved up one of the best defenses in the nation. Gunnar plays with excellent concentration and is in the right spot at the right time.
Final Thoughts: I just had a feeling we’d see these two teams once again. At the beginning of the year, I stated the three best teams I had seen after three weeks were the Tennessee Volunteers, Georgia Bulldogs, and Texas Longhorns. When these two first met in October, the Bulldogs got back to playing their style of football which was a consistent running game and a punishing style of defense. The only thing that concerned me was Carson Beck’s three interceptions, but I respected how Kirby didn’t pull him from the game and allowed him to toughen it out. Texas was simply dominated in this game from the first whistle to the last. Now comes the rematch. A major key for Georgia today is a much cleaner offensive performance and I say this because there have been too many times where their offense has been nonexistent. A perfect example of this is when they played Alabama and Ole Miss. Luckily, they were able to climb back into the game against Georgia Tech last weekend. They must start strong to put the Longhorns’ defense under pressure because a slow first half against this Texas defense could be difficult to overcome. In the first meeting, the Longhorns held Beck to 175 yards passing and they turned him over three times, but the offense couldn’t capitalize on the takeaways. If Quinn and the offense can maneuver through the Georgia defense which can be had, the defense will handle the rest. Which version of Carson Beck shows up is the million-dollar question, So much is on the line here. The winner of this game would be the two seed and if Penn State can shock Oregon, Texas would become the one seed in the playoffs. If they lose, they’d be either a five or six-seed. If Georgia loses, they’d host a first-round game in the playoffs. As you can see, there’s a lot on the line here for both of these teams. I trust Quinn Ewers a lot more than I do Carson Beck and this is why I’m leaning with the Texas Longhorns to win their first-ever SEC title.
Prediction: Texas 24, Georgia 17
