It’s been nine days since that glorious night in Indianapolis. On the morning of January 10^th, several hours before kickoff, we rounded up predictions on that night’s game.

Some predictions were good, others not so much. Don’t mistake this as an accountability post; this is absolutely an “I told you so” article.

Here’s how the predictions fared:

Sports Illustrated’s staff is split down the middle for Georgia and Alabama. Pat Forde and Richard Johnson are leaning Georgia, while Ross Dellenger and John Garcia are opting for the Tide.

I always knew Forde and Johnson were smart – even if Johnson is a native of Gainesville, where they haven’t experienced a National Championship since 2008. Imagine waking up today and your team hadn’t won a natty since before Obama took over the Oval Office. Couldn’t be me.

Colin Cowherd always as something to say, and this time, Cowherd is saying there is no proof Georgia can be competitive against Alabama. I always enjoy when the talking heads with the hot takes are proven dead wrong.

Spoiler: Cowherd was proven dead wrong (as well as Stephen A. Smith). You can hear Cowherd’s horribly incorrect take in this epic video by Mitchell Smeak.

The staff of the Athletic, with notable names such as Stewart Mandel, Andy Staples, and Nicole Auerbach, believes Alabama will be national champions by a 5-4 split in vote.

Ari Wasserman, Bruce Feldman, Stewart Mandel, and Max Olson: we salute you for believing in the Dawgs. The other five, well, usually placing your faith in Nick Saban isn’t a bad thing, but in the words of Juba from Gladiator: “Not today”.

An all-SEC title game would not be complete without a prediction from Paul Finebaum. To no one’s surprise, Finebaum is taking Bama tonight. Tuesday’s Finebaum Show is going to be delightful with ecstatic callers from Georgia, Pawwwwlllllll.

Tuesday’s Finebaum Show was, in fact, delightful, including this call from Fred from Alabama. Salty Bama fans have made this win that much sweeter. Though Finebaum usually is very pro-Alabama, he is even more pro-SEC, so the Dawgs winning it all didn’t bother him.

The FiveThirtyEight model is giving the Dawgs a 55% chance of winning tonight’s game in Indy. Computers are supposed to be smarter than people, right??

The computers know, they always do.

Before Nick Saban, the thorn in Georgia’s side was Steve Spurrier. Well, the Ol’ Ball Coach believes the Dawgs will lift the trophy tonight. He may truly believe the Dawgs will get revenge much like his ’96 Gators did against FSU to win the title, however, he could be trolling the Dawgs yet again.

Well, would you look at this. We’ll never know if this was a troll by Spurrier or not, because he nailed this one.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Richard Sherman stated that he believes that the Tide will blow Georgia out again. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I do know for certain that, given the chance to win the game with the ball on the goal line, we will not run a slant.

Woof, talk about your all-time backfires… and also Sherman’s prediction was horrible as well. When the Dawgs had the ball on the one, we fed Zeus. We didn’t throw a pick to Malcolm Butler to lose the title.

In what is usually the kiss of death for a team, TNT’s Charles Barkley guaranteed that the Bulldogs would win the national championship tonight. While Barkley’s track record for making guarantees is mediocre at best, he did recently guarantee the Atlanta Braves would win the World Series. In the words of Carl Spackler, “So I got that going for me, which is nice”.

Chuck and correctly predicting sports success in the state of Georgia, the tag-team we didn’t know we needed in 2021.

Finally, Dawgsports’ Joey Hnath, aka me, myself, and I, has had enough. I was in attendance for the Blackout Game my freshman year in Athens. I was 15 rows up in the endzone where Chris Conley caught the tipped pass. I experienced the same heartbreak every Dawg fan did when backup quarterbacks defeated UGA twice in 2018. Seven straight times Bama has beaten UGA. But not tonight. Georgia comes out with a vengeance, playing a physical brand of football that was their trademark for 13 of the 14 games during the 2021 season. Our offense limits mistakes, our defense causes havoc, and Georgia exorcises every demon and finally reaches the pinnacle of the sport once again.

Well, Joey Hnath was spot on. This is clear evidence that I am much better at this prediction business than Colin Cowherd, Stephen A. Smith, and Richard Sherman. The Dawgs indeed played very physical, and the defense caused havoc, sacking Bryce Young four times and picking him off twice. The offense limited mistakes, only turning the ball over once on a fumble that was truly an incomplete pass. And, most importantly, every single demon was exorcised in style with Kelee Ringo’s pick six that sealed the national championship. This prediction was *chef’s kiss*.

It truly is great to be a Georgia Bulldogs. Congrats, Dawg Nation, we did it. GO DAWGS!!!