ATLANTA – So it turns out that conference championships between two playoff-bound teams still have a whole lot of meaning… especially if one of those teams looks a lot different after the game than they did before.
Nearly a year ago, the college football world learned that sometimes going undefeated isn’t good enough to make the playoffs, if you lose your starting quarterback along the way. Georgia is not undefeated, not even close, and the Bulldogs also lost Carson Beck, their starting quarterback, in the SEC Championship. How will Beck’s injury impact Georgia’s playoff chances moving forward?
Georgia eliminated the need for a CFP Selection Committee ruling by winning the SEC Championship 22-19 in OT over error-prone Texas. While it’s unlikely that Georgia will fall out of a No. 2 ranking, it’s possible thanks to its strong schedule. And it’s still an open question as to how injured Beck is.
Beck was injured on the final play of the first half, a chaotic sack and fumble that nearly ended as a Texas touchdown. Beck remained on the field for several seconds after taking the sack.
At the end of halftime, three Georgia quarterbacks began warming up on the sideline, and none of them were Beck. Backup Gunner Stockton got the nod and he immediately led a motivated Georgia offense to the first touchdown scored by either team that afternoon. Later in the third quarter, Stockton drove Georgia deep into Texas territory and came away with a field goal.
Texas, in turn, faced two foes on Saturday: Georgia, and its own repeated fouls and penalties. Texas penalties kept Georgia in the game for the first half, negating two interceptions and a made field goal. Mistakes in Texas, including two missed field goals, gave hope to the Georgia sideline and motivation to the largely pro-Georgia crowd in Atlanta.
And then came the fourth quarter, and these two teams remembered they were playing for the championship of the mighty Southeastern Conference. Texas struck first, tying the score at 13 on a Quinn Ewers dart to DeAndre Moore for 41 yards and a touchdown.
On the very next drive, Georgia executed a flawless, gutsy fake punt on fourth-and-5, napping the Longhorn defense with a nine-yard end-around run. Twice on the drive, Georgia fumbled the ball, and twice recovered its own fumble. Georgia controlled the ball for 9:22 of the fourth quarter, covering 72 yards in 16 plays, but couldn’t quite penetrate the ball and had to settle for a go-ahead field goal to make the score 16-13.
So that put the ball in Ewers’ hands with 4:32 to go and the SEC Championship on the line… and Ewers promptly threw the ball right into the hands of Georgia’s Daylen Everette. That was Everette’s second interception of Ewers that afternoon and gave Stockton a chance to bleed the clock.
But then Stockton’s inexperience showed, with devastating consequences. After a broken play, he threw a pass toward the Texas sideline that ended up in the hands of Texas’ Jahdae Barron. That gave Ewers another chance to prove himself. He came through on a fourth-and-4 conversion with just over a minute left, and his end zone pass to Ryan Wingo set up a critical pass interference call on Georgia, putting the ball at the Georgia 14 with 35. seconds remaining.
Ewers couldn’t put the ball in the end zone, meaning Texas’ fate would depend on the foot of kicker Bert Auburn, who had already missed twice. His 36-yard attempt flew true, tying the game at 16 with 18 seconds left.
In overtime, Texas got the ball first. Ewers failed on pass after pass in the end zone, and once again the Longhorns had to settle for a field goal attempt. Once again, Auburn converted, this time from 27 yards out, to give the Longhorns a 19-16 lead.
That put the ball back in Stockton’s hands. After leading the Bulldogs to the Texas 12, he took off and ran with the ball himself, taking a vicious, helmet-loosening hit from Texas’ Andrew Mukuba at the 4-yard line. One play later, Trevor Etienne drilled his way into the end zone for a 22-19 Georgia win. (Beck came onto the field to deliver the ball on the winning play, but was noticeably uncomfortable.)
The question facing Georgia now is how injured Beck is and what effect that could have on the perception of the Bulldogs. Injuries and speculation shouldn’t impact a school’s seeding… but as 2023 has shown, injuries can undo an entire season’s work in the eyes of the CFP selection committee.
Last year, Florida State finished the regular season undefeated and won the ACC Championship despite losing quarterback Jordan Travis to a season-ending injury along the way. In selecting the members of the four-team bracket, the College Football Playoff selection committee decided that Travis’ absence made Florida State a significantly worse team and instead chose Alabama as the fourth seed.
Georgia did not experience an immediate drop in quality after Beck left the game; indeed, the Bulldogs looked much sharper in the third quarter around Stockton than they did in the entire first half around Beck. But the interception late in the fourth quarter was a brutal blow that allowed Texas to tie the game and force overtime. Fortunately for Georgia and Stockton – and unlike last week’s win against Georgia Tech – the Bulldogs needed just one overtime period to erase that mistake and claim the SEC title.
