Playing Dirty: Georgia

Dec 2, 2022 - 5:02 PM

LSU" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8goyDrGcm19GP-yGxXNIYkbtxf8=/0x304:4000x2554/1920x1080/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71701288/1193649456.0.jpg" />

The past is the past. Doesn’t matter what happened last week. All that matters is the LSU Tigers are playing for an SEC Championship this Saturday and the only team in their way is the 12-0 Georgia Bulldogs.

Since LSU only plays them every few years, we don’t know too much about this team, so we have Macon Dawg of DawgSports here to answer our questions. Not questions about matchups or X’s and O’s, but the REAL questions we want answered.

1. Wow, y’all got some nerve. You guys won the national title and then decided to go out and STILL be good? Why didn’t y’all do the two-year post-title collapse where you fire the coach like we did? I thought that’s what we all agreed to do! Auburn did it ten years ago! But now you guys are just too good for the rest of us? Fine, I see how it is.

It’s important to remember in this context that Auburn is the anti-Georgia. The schools’ fan bases are essentially indistinguishable, Auburn is literally a rock’s throw down the road from the Georgia state line, and Auburn students have in common with Georgia students that they all wanted to go to college in Athens. I like to think of the Tigers as the Bizarro Superman version of Georgia.

Consistency is what Georgia does best. We are the most plaid button down and khakis ass fanbase in the SEC. Ray Goff was consistently bad. Jim Donnan was consistently good, but not as good as Florida or Tennessee. Mark Richt was consistently very good, though not quite as good as Nick Saban. And if we hold true to this universal law, Kirby Smart will have the Bulldogs performing at a boringly spectacular pace for a solid two decades. Our pastor would probably want us to apologize for that, and we will, but secretly we’re pretty giddy.

2. Look, you guys proved last year y’all don’t need to win an SEC Championship Game to win a national title. Why don’t y’all take a week off and rest up? There’s no need to get all physical and violent over this.

Honestly, we just wanna see what accent Brian Kelly pulls out this time. I’m betting soundly and unsurprisingly defeated Brian Kelly sounds like some sort of pastiche of drunk Yul Brynner and The Rock. I can’t wait.

3. Yeah Kirby Smart has won a lot of games, but he’s also never come within 20 points of beating LSU. What tips and tricks do you think he’s come up with over the last three years that can help him coach a game competitively against the Tigers?

Sure, a roster of five star recruits is nice. But I’m pretty sure what’s required to turn LSU into a delicious gumbo of defeat is turning the controls of your offense over to a 5 foot 10 future insurance salesman who is old enough to remember the Clinton administration.

4. Stetson Bennett IV is a good quarterback but do you think a guy who’s been playing football as long as he has can keep his body in peak physical condition for three more games? Can Georgia really get away with not giving him one or two DNP - Rest games like Tim Duncan from 2012-16?

Stet the Jet is still at that stage of development most of us were when we returned to college to play in the alumni vs. actives fraternity flag football game. He’s as fast as he was three years ago, it just takes a little something extra to help him recover.

As long as he has his Pappy he’ll be fine.

5. This will be the fifth time LSU and Georgia face off in the SEC Championship Game. We need to play each other six more times to surpass Alabama-Florida as the most common matchup. Can we please agree to do that and knock those two bozos out the top spot?

had a long discussion with someone earlier this week about why Georgia fans and LSU fans seem to get along so well. Part of it is that we balance each other out, and understand that the other is foreign to us but hey, the world turns on all different types.

For example, it always amazes me that the fan bases most often cited #online as being horrible hosts are Georgia and LSU. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. My one trip to Baton Rouge involved a drunk Cajun in purple overalls stepping out of the trees and telling me “hey, we gon kick yo f$&%# ass today!” He did this as he jabbed a finger into my chest. Before I could worry about what was about to happen he looked me dead in the eye and said “you hungry? Come on get something to eat.” I don’t know what was actually in that pot but it was awesome.

I think it also helps that when the Bayou Bengals and the Bulldogs have met on the field it has usually been when both teams were pretty good. It feels bad to lose poorly to arrival. It hurts in the short term to lose to a good football team you only see on occasion, but it’s bearable.

We also have years of that “enemy of my enemy” dynamic going on with Georgia perennially rooting for LSU to give Florida an SEC loss, and LSU rooting for Georgia to give Alabama what’s coming to them.

And the geographic separation doesn’t hurt. I’ve never had an LSU fan cut me off in Atlanta traffic, which is saying something, because I recently narrowly avoided injury at the hands of a yahoo with an SMU/Alabama “house divided” vanity tag. Unlike most LSU fans, I never want to meet that guy face-to-face. So yeah, let’s keep doing this with two good head coaches and two solid rosters for the foreseeable future. We’ll let y’all win one or two, we promise, just not this year.