ATLANTA — Georgia has won a lot of big football games over the past two years. The joy of winning them is not getting old.
When Ohio State kicker Noah Ruggles sent a potential game-winning 50-yard field-goal kick wide left, the explosion of joy on the Georgia sideline rivaled anything this team has experienced during its run to the top of the sport.
“This,” said Georgia coach Kirby Smart, “was an emotional roller-coaster.”
And at the end of the ride, exactly one minute before the calendar turned to 2023, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium scoreboard read Georgia 42, Ohio State 41. The two heavyweights went 12 rounds and improbably matched the drama earlier in the day from the Fiesta Bowl. They traded haymakers for almost four hours, but in the end, only one team will be headed to Los Angeles to face TCU, and it is the team that has now won 15 consecutive games.
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"Really, I know you don't believe it, (but) my heart goes out to (Ohio State) because they played well enough to win," Smart said. "I would have liked to have seen a little cleaner game, and you've got to give them a lot of credit. They disrupted a lot of that. We didn't have a lot of turnovers. We didn't have self-inflicted wounds, and they didn't, either. Both teams played really well, and both defenses rose up and made stops. It was a very competitive, balanced game."
The biggest play of the game, aside from the missed field goal kick, was a play that never officially happened. Leading 38-27 in the fourth quarter, Ohio State had a fourth-and-1 at its 34. It ran a successful fake punt that was negated by a Smart timeout just before the snap. Smart recognized a fake was coming and felt Georgia was not lined up to stop it.
Kirby Smart and @tyschmit KNEW the fake punt was coming#PMSCFBESPN2 pic.twitter.com/SMMIJ34T0L
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) January 1, 2023
Its trickery thwarted, Ohio State punted, and Stetson Bennett threw a 76-yard touchdown to Arian Smith on the next play. A two-point conversion put Georgia three points behind, and the stage was set for a dramatic finish.
Georgia's hero was again Bennett, who added another chapter to one of college football’s most improbable stories. On a night when his opposite number, C.J. Stroud, was busy living up to the five-star expectations placed upon him after arriving at Ohio State, it was Bennett who rallied his team when things appeared lost. Georgia entered the fourth quarter trailing 38-24. Over three possessions, Bennett was 10 for 12 for 190 yards and two touchdowns. He led the Bulldogs to 18 points, every last one of which was needed.
His final throw found A.D. Mitchell from 10 yards out with 54 seconds left, a play that capped a 72-yard drive with the season on the line.
"We rep a lot of two-minutes," Bennett said. "We know what calls we're going to do. I know that they're going to be where they're going to be and they're going to win their matchups. So all I've got to do is give them the ball. So I'd say that slows my heart rate down."
To outlast Stroud on this night was remarkable, as the Ohio State sophomore answered his "big game" critics with a performance for the ages. He was 23 of 34 for 388 yards and four touchdowns. He was accurate even when under pressure, another area of criticism he has faced, and he made more plays with his legs than he usually does. The Buckeyes lost star wideout Marvin Harrison Jr. (five catches, 106 yards, two TDs) in the third quarter, but Stroud kept pushing the Buckeyes forward. He drove them into position to win the game in the final seconds.
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“What (Stroud) did and the way he competed in the second half with all those things coming at him, I just can't say enough. I'm so proud of the way he played,” said Ohio State coach Ryan Day. “On the biggest stage, he played one of his best games.”
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Georgia now stands one win away from being the first repeat national champion since Alabama in 2011-12. They will have to beat a TCU team that survived its own four-hour slugfest. The Horned Frogs beat Michigan 51-45 in a game that may be imitated but never duplicated. The Bulldogs will be a solid favorite at kickoff, but they showed just enough flaws against Ohio State to make TCU believe it can complete its stunning journey.
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There wasn’t much lookahead from Georgia after this draining win. The Bulldogs understood the battle they survived and gave Ohio State its due. Smart said that he would start preparing Sunday for the final game and give his players a chance to regroup before TCU preparation gets underway.
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"I want them to get away, remember what they are fighting for and come back rejuvenated and ready to go," he said. "This is what you do it for."
