Georgia Football- My National Championship Story
By Mike Stowe
If you’re still feeling a hangover from the loss to Alabama, Mike Stowe feels your pain. But he’s still excited about the future of the Georgia Football team right now.
It’s been almost 2 weeks now since the national championship loss against Alabama. I’m hearing a lot of “Time to move on” and “It’s just a game”. It’s not that simple for me. I hurt, as I know thousands of you do as well. Georgia Football is a way of life for me. Don’t they claim the best way to deal with pain is to talk about it? Ok. Let’s try that.
The game itself was an awesome experience. We watched at the Georgia Theater and it was absolutely rocking. A packed house watched as a young apprentice of Nick Saban named Kirby Smart fielded a team that held the Tide scoreless in the first half. We watched in awe as a local kid out of nearby Bowman, Ga. in Elbert County named Mecole Hardman put on a clinic in the biggest college football game in the world by scoring 2 TDs against a stout Alabama defense.
We watched the gutsy move of Nick Saban as he switched quarterbacks at halftime of the national championship game from a 2-year starter to a freshman who hadn’t started a game all year. The place absolutely erupted as Bama’s kicker missed a field goal at the end of the 4th quarter to give Dawgnation one more shot in OT to win its first natty since 1980. And then we watched in horror as the Tide’s freshman quarterback Tua Tagavailoa stuck a dagger in all of our hearts with an overtime touchdown pass to end the game and the season. It was one of the most intense, physically and mentally exhausting sports experiences of my life.
We were in the heart of it all that night ….downtown Athens. I saw people screaming in agony, people cussing (on tv, by the way….11 Alive had a street reporter there), and even people laying in the street after it happened. I felt bad for them. I felt bad too, but I had a lot of training for this moment being a lifelong Georgia sports fan. The 2012 SEC championship, the 28-3 Falcons Super Bowl, watching the Braves and Hawks lose over and over….all moments that gave me a little preparation for that fateful Monday night.