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INGLEWOOD, California — A rainy day near Los Angeles seemed like an opportune time to head indoors for an art show, and 72,628 did exactly that Monday — whether they ended up liking it or not. They saw the grueling art of American football calibrated to one of its greatest levels in the 153 years since a bunch of thugs made it work on a seedy New Jersey field.
They saw Georgia, the current American Dynasty, take a meritorious group of Horned Frogs from TCU, beat them up 65-7 and turned them into something resembling prey. They watched Georgia win the first national championship repeat of the college football playoff era (and first overall standings in 10 years), becoming the fourth team ever to win 15-0 and in two seasons between which the NFL was late , 29: 1 April reached their service list raid. They saw collaborative greatness even if they didn’t see competitive drama.
Whether they watched or not, a sturdy bunch of Bulldogs sprinkled the field with the graceful plays and unglamorous stops necessary to make their college football one of the best forms ever. With their relative urgency nine days after their 42-41 escape from Ohio State in a Peach Bowl national semifinal, they were reminiscent of others who cemented their budding dynasties with romp, like Nebraska in the 1996 Fiesta Bowl (62-24) or Alabama in the 2013 BCS Championship Game (42-14). They also reinforced the paramount notion that the best American football comes from the Southeast, the region with eight consecutive national championships from four different universities.
How It Happened: The Bulldogs lost in quick succession
From the start, the Georgia players ran in the open prairies of their own creation and their own set of threats, from 25-year-old quarterback Stetson Bennett IV streaming in through the gaping space on a 21-yard touchdown run that scored opened , to Ladd McConkey, who caught a 37-yard touchdown pass from Bennett that McConkey ran on so unperturbed he looked kind of lonely, to tight end Brock Bowers, who made precise catches of precise throws to seven catches for 152 Piling up yards and a masterful touchdown in the third quarter.
Bennett finished 18 of 25 for 304 yards and four touchdowns through the air. He also rushed three times for 39 yards and two more points, earning his second straight offense MVP honor in the national title game.
“What he did tonight was really amazing,” said Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart. “Probably had his best game of his career.”
Bennett said: “It seems like for the last three or four months we’ve been trying to see if anyone could beat us and we’ve just run out of games.”
And then he finished: “No one could.”
TCU coach Sonny Dykes subsequently acknowledged what he was dealing with.
“We found a really good team,” said Dykes. “We did some atypical things and it hit us like a snowball.”
If you need Georgia to demonstrate they can rush across the field in a hurry, they could, with drives like four plays for 70 yards, five for 57, or four for 55. If you need it to show that it can trot effectively, it could do that with 11 plays for 92 yards or 11 plays for 66 yards.
Did you need it to show it could put the clamps on a big offensive? Yes, he could, harassing TCU’s gritty quarterback Max Duggan or limiting his biggest player, wide receiver Quentin Johnston, to a catch for three yards.
Splashy numbers popped up everywhere, from the 9.3 yards per game Georgia rushed while building a 38-7 halftime lead to Bennett’s passer rating, which skyrocketed and stayed above the 200 mark, in the latest proof for the long upward journey of a quarterback who once transferred from Georgia to a junior college in Mississippi and then came back while Georgia coaches never knew he would rise to such areas.
TCU (13-2), the most unexpected finalist of the nine-year College Football Playoffs era, had just a moment of hope that carried him through a season of hair-raising battles he won with his proven character. While it trailed 10-0, a passing play ran that Johnston sent over center and other wide receiver Derius Davis, who twirled outside. Georgia saw Johnston but lost Davis, who caught Duggan’s pass for a 60-yard gain and set up Duggan’s two-yard keeper.
Then Georgia won 11, 11, 11 and 37 on a 70-yard drive to McConkey’s open touchdown. Then Georgia walked those 92 yards in those 11 players to Bennett’s six-yard touchdown. Then Georgia went for 66 yards in 11 games for Kendall Milton’s one-yard touchdown. Then Georgia got an interception it didn’t need and went 22 yards in two strokes for Adonai Mitchell’s 22-yard catch from Bennett on a well-guarded affair with great precision, proving Georgia could do that easily, too.
Eventually, things drifted into a fourth quarter that allowed Bennett to stand on the sidelines and quietly welcome a second straight title, one much less nerve-wracking than the 33-18 resistance against Alabama last year that helped Georgia its longtime hurdle to overcome. Branson Robinson, a reserve running back, caught seven carries for 42 yards and scored on his sixth from one yard. That made it 59-7 and made it uncompetitive even by the standards of the college football playoffs their duds have known.
By then, Georgia would clearly advance to 81-15 in the seven-year tenure of Smart, the former Georgia defender who once coordinated the defense of another dynasty, Alabama. Georgia would make itself the dominant force in the sport, even if Bennett is finally on the way to another quarterback. And those who watched Georgia, especially those in Georgia Red and Black, would know they had seen a rare level in all the years of art.