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3 takeaways following Alabama victory over Ohio State in 2021 National Championship
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3 takeaways following Alabama victory over Ohio State in 2021 National Championship
The Alabama Crimson Tide breezed to their seventh national title under Nick Saban, as DeVonta Smith, Mac Jones and Najee Harris secured a dominant 52-24 victory. The win caps a perfect season for the Crimson Tide. Alabama jumped out to a 35-17 halftime lead. That meant that the Georgia Bulldogs were the only team to
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We need to fix the playoff system. Notre dame and osu got a pass and both got destroyed. Texas A&M should have gotten a shot. Osu had half a team with all the covid 19 situations. Well hope we can win on before the world comes to an end....#2021orbust
This Alabama team certainly has to be in the discussion for best College team of all time. Their defense isn't as dominant as previous Alabama teams, but from an overall team performance perspective, I think they are the best ever.
So it is now official, the great justin fields didn't get his team any closer to a National Championship than Fromm and his team and Fromm even got closer, taking it into overtime. Fromm also deserved another shot in 2018 when we all know the Dawgs were the best team playing. ohio state and fields had no business in the playoffs this year.
Hopefully we never have to read about fields on a University of Georgia forum again.
@87dawg
"Hopefully we never have to read about fields on a University of Georgia forum again."
Sadly, it won't be. I have a friend whose kids went to school with Fields in Cobb County. Nothing Fields does or doesn't do will change the fact that Fields walks on water. UGA, in my friend's opinion, would have won three Nattys if Fields were QB. Fields also would've won the Heisman all those years. Facts don't matter.
Many are like my friend.
You can't be serious. Who cares who got the #4 invite and the opportunity to be destroyed by Alabama. The top four was Bama in a class by itself and everyone else. I've grown so tired of the Bama story year in and year out, but I have to give a tip of the cap to Jones, Harris, and Smith. They did everything the right way. UGA wants to find itself in a position of having stars skip the draft and stay for one more year to go after a title. They also did it with class. Never saw these guys in someone's grill running the risk of being flagged. Bama is a machine and I'm not certain that Saban isn't a robot. I'm hopeful the Dawgs can solve what looks like problems in the back end of our defense in 2021 to mount a challenge to the dynasty in Tuscaloosa. Go Dawgs!
87dawg...Thanks for writing that. Saved me the trouble. Count me as one of those that never has or never will wonder “what if or what could have been.” He QUIT the team! Go Dawgs!
I have never wondered what life with Fields would've been like. Georgia would've been better early in the year with Fields instead of Bennett. Could they have beaten Alabama, not likely. Could they have beaten Florida? The chances would've been better, but after Fields performance against Alabama, who can really think he's good enough to have made the difference.
I would pick the 2020 version of Jake Fromm over the 2020 version of Justin Fields. Fromm, at least has shown the ability to challenge a very good Alabama defense and keep his team in the game down to the very end. Fields couldn't do that.
Last nights NCG performance should put the fake news narrative of Kirby Smart mismanaging the QB position to bed.
Luckily, I forgot to watch the game LOL. I have no interest in watching any highlights.
A Bama loss would've been really nice to shut up those Bama fans (many whom have never even stepped foot in the state) as well as give Saban a possible reason to quit, BUT from a purely-Georgia-perspective this was a good thing. Our loss to Bama was now an inconsequential loss. Anyone who made fun of us can now be reminded that Ohio State demolished Clemson and Bama demolished Ohio State. It also means that even if we had made it to the NC game, we would've been outclassed.
Oh well. This season always will have an asterisk by it saying "COVID-19" and honestly, if we were to have one NC year I'm glad this year isn't it.
Now, we just need to figure out what Bama does right and what we are missing. According to 247 our 2020 class is Ranked #1, our 2019 Class is #2 but has more 5*s and our 2018 class is #1 by miles (SEVEN 5*s to Bama's 2 who is ranked all the way down to #5). So... how is it that Bama has the #1 OL, Heisman Winning WR, #1 RB and one of the top QBs??? I'm serious here. How is that possible? Even if you take out the QB in the equation (because Daniels has some very serious talent), we still couldn't match up to Bama. Devonta Smith was a 4* BUT stayed for his senior season. Harris was the #1 RB while Swift was #4... but Harris stayed for his senior year while Swift did not. Chrisitan Baramore was a 4*. Patrick Surtain was the #1 Corner while we have the #2 in Tyson Campbell.
Maybe it should be Fields asking, “what if”. No doubt we could have given Bama a more competitive game with Fields, but the big question is, “would Fields have done better with UGa”? We are the only team to lead Bama in the 3rd quarter this past season and that was with what would be (kinda sorta) our 6th or 7th best QB. Other former UGa QBs who were eligible to play this past season are: Fields, Eason, Fromm and Newman. Of course JT Daniels had not been cleared and D’Wan emerged as #1, but that lasted about 2 quarters. Thus, Stetson Bennett (former walk-on) led the way. So if Stetson could be very competitive leading our team against Bama in Tuscaloosa......how would Fields have faired? Maybe it’s Fields who lost out just as much or more than UGa. Could he have won a Heisman and/or National Championship at UGa? I guess we will never know.....nor will he. Go Dawgs!!!
Trueful takeaways....TOS is the best team in a less than mediocre conference, Justin Fields success was accentuated by that conference weakness so his decision to transfer was right on the money, The ACC was wildly overrated this year and should have never had two teams in the CFP. There are four SEC teams that I'd wager would beat TOS, Clemson and ND....Bama, Texas A&M, Georgia (current team) and Florida. The Dawgs march to the 2021 Natty begins September 4 when we defeat Clemson!
“Of course, even if Fields was on the 2020 Georgia team, it would not have mattered.”
Maybe, maybe not. We led Alabama with 20 minutes left, in Tuscaloosa, when they still had a fully healthy Waddle, and while we were starting a former walk-on QB.
The only team in college football that Alabama is not leaps and bounds superior to in overall talent is Georgia.
I think we would have a pretty decent shot at beating them with Fields.
Couple of observations...
Glad that Alabama won. It would have been disappointing had an 8 win team win the natty when 15+ other team also had 8 wins - some with better wins than what OSU had during the regular season.
In the words of Colin Cowherd - "College football is a regional sport when it comes to winning championships". OSU was the last team to win a natty outside the south and that was years ago. Prior to that, it was years before anyone outside the SEC won it. Great for the folks south of the Mason Dixon line, but sad for college football overall.
Just watching Alabama play, it simply looks like they play on other level from UGA although the talent disparity is no longer there. Sarkisian crafted some creative plays to put the ball in the hands of the elite playmakers. UGA seems like it struggles to do just that. I say it all the time now... UGA has the talent now. Let's get it done!!!
Signing off until next season... Go Dawgs!!!!
Fact check.....fake news. Clemson won the natty in 2017.
Maybe this is more basic than often stated.....AL continues to succeed at this level because EVERY aspect of their team is balanced, modernized, and continually improving. While not needed as much this season, even their kicking game has improved.
It should be obvious that any team hoping to beat AL must be dominant on both sides of the ball every year. We have relied upon an outdated, less explosive offensive strategy since Kirby arrived until Daniels. We relied upon dominant defense to make a total effort. The concern now is that while the offense seems to be evolving, we face a 2021 rebuild on defense, with a gutted secondary. We seem to fluctuate back and forth between dominant units (one or the other), but it’s going to take both to win it all. AL always “reloads” year over year without a drop off, and we have not reached this level despite multiple # 1 classes. We also must find a way to reduce the number of post season opt outs that again, AL and some others didn’t seem to have much of. Saban leaves no stone unturned and we have to do the same. This is even more impressive given that AL has replaced its coordinators almost annually for the last several years.
Clemson is in the South.
So, some think that Fields walks on water and would have won 3 NAtties with UGA and some think he wasn't any better this year than Jake was for us at his best, or they'd just as soon have Stetson Bennet than Fields. LOL! Talk about a polarizing figure. He's either God or the devil.
No he's a mere mortal that will be the 2nd QB taken in the draft. He was a Heisman finalist last year and would have been this year if they had played more games. He led his team to back to back playoffs, throwing 6 TD's against a very good Clemson team. He took a hit in that game that would have broken Stetson in half but gutted it out throwing for 2-3 TD's after that hit. He sustained a hip pointer and bruised ribs and that stuff doesn't heal in 8 days. His 1st hit last night showed the pain he was playing through for his brothers. Their star RB goes out on the 1st play of the game and I believe(not sure) they had other players out with Covid.
It would have been nigh impossible to beat BAMA with Fields and Sermons at 100%.
BAMA is a machine like someone else said. Players change and go to the League. Coaches get promoted to Head-coaching gigs and they just reload and press play.
Kirby's response to all of that is "they get good players." Duh! I believe we do too. They also have the best coach who ever coached in the modern era. He is the engine that makes everything run efficiently. And I believe he just won his 6th Natty in the past 12-13 years.
Be nice as a UGA fan to wake up and say if we don't win the Natty this year , we'll get it next year and it's not a dream but a reality.
"Even if you take out the QB in the equation (because Daniels has some very serious talent), we still couldn't match up to Bama."
I think that's a questionable assessment. To point it out for the umpteenth time, we had a halftime lead with Bennett putting together a decent performance for 2 quarters. He struggled in the second half, and things fell apart. Replace walk-on talent with 5-star talent at the most important single position on the field, and that game looks pretty different. Maybe they still win, who knows. But I have a hard time imagining that it wouldn't put us on their level.
I agree with your point about the importance of getting upperclassmen to stay. I think it's sort of a rich-getting-richer situation. If you're winning titles, guys want to stick around to win more titles, and you win more titles; and repeat. I think that dam will likely break for Georgia if/when we get that first one...
It simply shows me AGAIN how far and above superior Nick Saban is from the entire coaching universe of college football...in recruiting, coaching, and development...and you can't help but be impressed by Bama's ability to simply reload their ranks - both players and coaches - and rarely skip a beat.
7 National Championships for Saban...good gosh. 13-0 with an entirely SEC schedule and playoff game domination blowouts against Notre Dame and Ohio State. There were none of the usual soft spots in the schedule, no opponents from the FCS or low-FBS levels. Alabama played 11 Southeastern Conference games, two more than usual, and faced all the best competition in the nation’s best league. Six teams other than ‘Bama finished .500 or better, and the Tide whipped them all. This is all the more remarkable when you consider that the Tide lost Waddle to a broken ankle on the first play of the fifth game of the season, and lost All-American center Landon Dickerson to a torn ACL in the SEC championship game. More impressive season in my eyes than LSU's run last year.
Many of these Bama star players were freshman in 2017 when the Dawgs came up just short of beating the Tide in the CFP National Championship. And look how many of the Bama players decided to forgo the NFL draft and come back for one more season. Just like the # of Dawgs who have committed to coming back next season, there was "unfinished business"...the question is will the Dawgs finish their business or fall short?
Now let us please move on from Justin Fields as he moved on from us.