Georgia dominates TCU in title game

INGLEWOOD (News4usonline) – Stetson Bennett and No. 1 Georgia left no doubt who is the best team in college football after throttling No. 3 TCU with a butt-whipping for the ages. Bennett ran for two touchdowns and passed for four more scores to lead the Bulldogs to a 65-7 win in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. 

“Stetson speaks for himself, the way he leads and prepares,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said of his quarterback. “His mental makeup is such of a quarterback that believes he can make every throw and what he did tonight was truly amazing. Probably had his best game of his career, in my opinion, with some of the checks he made, some of the decisions he made, just really elite.”

Bennett, who finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting for the 2022 college football season, was voted as the Offensive Player of the Game with his strong performance. Georgia becomes the first team in the modern era to win consecutive national titles. The Bulldogs upended Alabama to win it all in 2022. 

The Bulldogs dominated the action on both sides of the ball against TCU. Georgia’s offense rolled up 589 yards. Bennett accounted for 343 yards by himself. On defense, the Bulldogs grounded TCU’s running game to just 85 yards and held the Horned Frogs to 188 yards in total offense. TCU managed just nine first downs in the game. 

Coming into the game, Smart said he knew his offense had a good scheme, but he wasn’t quite sure if the team overall were ready for the moment.    

“I think preparation was really good,” said Smart. “I’ll be honest with you, I was a little concerned that we were tired. I had apprehension about a couple of the practices we had. And Stetson’s complaining to me about not having enough free time when we were in Athens. He didn’t want to come in as early. And I thought you’ve got one chance to be legendary. I’m not going to leave any regret out there. Did you not? 

“But I called some seniors in and I said, look, guys if you want me to cut back, I will. I don’t know from TCU’s perspective how things went. I did have a feeling that our offense had a really good plan. And as I watched the offense each day I said, we’ve got a good plan. If we execute this plan we’re going to attack these guys and we’re going to be really aggressive.” 

Now that the Bulldogs have claimed back-to-back national championship titles, all eyes will center on Bennett and his potential draft stock. Also trending is all the comparisons between   past Georgia quarterback greats and Bennett. After winning his second national title, Bennett was asked whether he belonged in the conversation as the greatest quarterback in Georgia history. 

The way he eludes defenders, Bennett sidestepped that question. Sort of.  

“I mean, there’s so many different variables that go in — scheme, players around you,” said Bennett. “I mean, you know, I’ve been along for three years. We brought back pretty much the entire core of our offense from last year, so we were all clicking. We had a really good offense. It makes me proud of what I’ve accomplished when I hear that because it means I’ve done some things right, but I don’t know if it’s accurate or not. I grew up watching [Aaron] Murray and [Matthew] Stafford and [DJ] Shock[ley] and [David] Greene. And who’s to say? Those dudes were all amazing.”