A 65-7 victory against the TCU Horned Frogs in the CFP National Championship capped off a perfect season for the Georgia Bulldogs. They became the first team in the CFP era to earn back-to-back National titles.
The last team to go back-to-back was the Alabama Crimson Tide from 2011 to 2012.
Georgia held TCU to nine first downs. The Frogs had 188 offensive yards while the dogs had 589 #NationalChampionship #CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/JWDzOft2tb
— Amanda Scurlock (@Amandtastic) January 10, 2023
Georgia senior quarterback Stetson Bennett showed off his skills with six touchdowns, two rushing and four passing. He completed 18 out of 25 passes for 304 yards.
“When you have a quarterback that can do the protections and check things and know what the defense is doing, yet still beat you with your feet, you’ve got a high-level quarterback,” said Georgia head coach Kirby Smart. “People have slept on Stetson Bennett for too long.”
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Bennett was also third on the team in rushing yards with 39. His efforts would earn him Offensive Player of the Game honors.
“It’s special,” Bennett said. “It seems like for the past three or four months we’ve been looking to see if somebody could beat us and we just ran out of games.”
The Bulldogs came from behind to defeat the Ohio State Buckeyes 42-41 during the Peach Bowl. That game was the smallest margin of victory the Bulldogs had since their 26-22 victory over the Missouri Tigers.
“As a kid, you always dream of moments like this and just to see those moments and accomplishments and things like that come true, it’s just a surreal feeling,” said sophomore defensive back Javon Bullard. “I’m extremely blessed to be in the position I am. I just thank God for it every day.”
Bullard committed a fumble recovery and two interceptions during the first half of the matchup. All the turnovers ended in scores for the Bulldogs.
“They didn’t really do anything special,” said TCU senior linebacker Dee Winters. “We just kind of beat ourselves up, kind of executed on our misalignments and kept scoring on those.”
Although Georgia held the TCU offense to 188 yards, Frogs senior running back Emari Demercado led all rushers with 59 net rushing yards from 14 carries. Winters made seven tackles in the National Championship.
TCU had 66 tackles instead of Georgia’s 45, but the Bulldogs committed 9.0 tackles for a loss of 51 yards; five of those tackles were sacks.
“We ran into a really good team and we did some very uncharacteristic things and it snowballed on us,” said TCU football head coach Sonny Dykes. “That hasn’t happened to us one time this year that were able to do it.”
