It’s not where any of us planned to be at this point in the college football season. But there are certainly worse ways to ring in the new year.
it isn’t officially official yet due to ESPN’s continued wall-to-wall coverage. But under the prevailing bowl agreements, and on the heels of a disappointing loss in last night’s SEC Championship Game Kirby Smart’s squad will travel to Miami to take on the Florida State Seminoles in the Orange Bowl. The game will be played on December 30th in Hard Rock Stadium.
The Orange Bowl committee has to be viewed as the luckiest in all of Bowllandia, getting two teams who a sizeable portion of the viewing public thought should be in the College Football Playoff, each under precisely opposite rationales. Florida State comes in as the undefeated champion of the ACC, which, as ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips pointedly noted, should probably be enough to make the playoff:
Statement from Acc Commissioner Jim Phillips (who you’ll recall is one of the three people responsible for there not being a 12-team CFP this year) pic.twitter.com/kOldXXTjcu
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) December 3, 2023
Georgia on the other hand was the consensus #1 team through the entire regular season, passing the committee’s proverbial “eyeball test” as one of the four best teams in America.
Now both will be playing a game neither is very excited to be at. Both squads will likely have multiple players opting out of the bowl game to prepare for the NFL Draft. Bulldog fans, after two years of traveling around chasing national championships, are likely to be underwhelmed by a pre-New Years bowl, albeit one with a lot of cache and tradition in a fun destination.
We will obviously talk more about Florida State in the coming weeks. But suffice it to say that Georgia and Kirby Smart are going to need to come ready to play football. Even with backup Tate Rodemaker under center, the Seminoles have some serious offensive weapons. And as anyone who watched the ACC title game against Louisville last night knows, they have an elite defense as well. There is also very real possibility that Mike Norvell sells this game as a chance for his team to prove that they belonged in the playoff by knocking off college football’s current 800 pound gorilla. Until later…
Go ‘Dawgs!!!
This post first appeared on Dawg Sports, A Georgia Bulldogs Community, please read the originial post: here
