Georgia just put the Big Ten on notice. It’s coming for the trophy.
Alabama faces nervous playoff selection day. Georgia heads for CFP bye.
Gunner Stockton wins SEC Championship MVP with steady showing.
ATLANTA – Raylen Wilson smiled like winners do.
The Georgia linebacker had just pulled himself away from the locker room, where the Bulldogs celebrated their third SEC championship in the past four seasons with a 28-7 incineration of Alabama.
We’ll rely on Wilson to be our eyes and ears. What was it like inside that Georgia locker room?
“It’s lit in that locker room right now,” Wilson said, with a grin that told the story of this night.
Georgia’s on fire.
Georgia quiets ‘naysayers’ with thumping of Alabama
Kirby Smart spoke afterward of the “naysayers,” because Georgia’s coach never misses an opportunity to remind anyone who’ll listen that his Bulldogs swim against a current of doubters.
That rally cry rings true this year, though. Smart didn’t need to invent naysayers. They existed.
Georgia looked vulnerable while surviving in overtime at Tennessee in September. It looked more middling than menacing in a loss to Alabama two weeks later. Its defense looked helpless, even in victory, against Mississippi in October.
National championships aren’t played on Halloween. Teams are allowed to get better. This one has.
“It’s a special group,” said Cole Speer, whose blocked punt set up Georgia’s first touchdown. “This group stays together, sticks together.”
Talk about an all-three-phases statement.
Let’s just call it straight: This was a boot stomping and a total repudiation of Alabama.
Alabama heads for a nerve-racking selection day. The Tide worsened their positioning. Georgia heads for a first-round playoff bye.
I can’t tell you what the betting spread would be if Georgia stepped onto the field to face Ohio State or Indiana or Texas Tech, but I’ll tell you this: I saw four teams on conference championship weekend that looked like they could win a national championship. Georgia is one of them.
Kirby Smart’s defense had Alabama in a vise
Get a load of this: Alabama finished with negative-three rushing yards.
Negative. Three.
Not Charlotte. Not Austin Peay. Not Marshall.
Alabama.
That’s how it’s going for the Tide’s run game. That’s also how it’s going for Georgia’s run defense.
“I feel like (this game) just shows you what Georgia football is all about – defense, running the football and stopping the run,” Wilson said.
Add in a quarterback this team rallies around in Gunner Stockton, and Georgia has gradually developed into a complete team. Did you see Stockton’s touchdown pass to Dillon Bell in the second quarter? That thing had some serious smoke. Big-league stuff.
“We go as he goes,” Bell said of Stockton, the game’s most valuable player, an honor bestowed after Stockton’s three touchdown passes.
Think anyone misses Carson Beck in Georgia? Not a chance.
There’s going to be a lot of chatter in the days that follow about whether the SEC championship is a relic that ought to go on the chopping block. That idea will gain steam if Alabama is left out of the College Football bracket. Smart remains a believer in this game. His players didn’t mind the conquest, or what it signified.
“The SEC is the toughest conference in college football,” Bell said. “Winning that just shows how much hard work you put in from summertime to now.”
Ohio State safety Caleb Downs, who’s played in both the SEC and Big Ten, recently agreed in an interview with David Pollak with the assessment that the SEC is most consistently rugged conference.
The SEC hasn’t produced the nation’s best team the past two seasons, though, raising questions about whether the conference’s dominance is slipping in the NIL era. Will the SEC regain the throne this season? I’m still not convinced it will, but you at least could make that case with some conviction after this Georgia performance.
The naysayers are being replaced by believers.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.