Georgia Football: The magic of championship signs and coincidences

So about this time last year, I wrote an article on Georgia football, talking about the superstitious beliefs in my family and sharing some of the superstitions of some Dawg fans on Twitter.

I joked about how it’s not really about whether or not we think superstitions really work but about how they bring us together and make us feel like we’re a part of the team.

And believe it or not, this past season, those superstitions paid off for many people, including me, as our beloved Bulldogs finally won that beautiful trophy we’ve been hoping for so long.

Georgia football fans waited a while, but these are the signs and coincidences of a national championship.

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Ryan, who gets a new pair of Georgia shoes every season, decided to break tradition and “unretire” his 2017 shoes. And as he said, “They had faired pretty well…but they did just a little bit better this season.”

They did so well that his wife bought him a Georgia Bulldogs and Atlanta Braves championship shirt in November. But staying true to superstition, he hid it until January so as not to jinx anything and ensure that he could wear the shirt.

Jacob pointed out that Georgia went undefeated, minus that one game in the SEC championship, once this cardboard standup was created and sat in Sanford Stadium in 2020.

The fact that the guy on the cutout is a Georgia Tech fan who lost a bet makes it even better.

Still, another fan burned his black Georgia jersey from 2008, the week before the national championship — talk about a sacrifice to the football gods. The Dawgs had lost every game he’d ever worn it, so he decided it was time to be done and light it up for the good of the team. However, we do wonder what took him so long.

Bubba West wore the same outfit to every game this season except for the SEC championship game. Even though his winning gameday look consisted of shorts and short sleeves, he still wore it when it was 8 degrees in Indianapolis, helping ensure a Dawg victory. Now, that’s elite for sure.

But in the world of college football, where sports and physical prowess also mix with superstitious beliefs, there exists what we call signs.

You know them because, as fans, we’ve all had them at one point or another. You spilled BBQ sauce on your gameday shirt before kickoff? Bad sign. Your team has already lost. Perfect weather for kickoff, and one of your songs comes on the radio? Good sign. Victory is nigh.

And this past season was no different for Georgia fans, with signs encompassing almost everything imaginable.

For some fans, it was just simply a feeling. Others said that beating Clemson was the sign for them that this team was elite and could go all the way.

Shari Sykes said her sign was Jordan Davis announcing he was returning in the spring and the other players that announced their returns after him. She said, “It felt a little like 2017 with Chubb, Michel, Carter, and Bellamy. Then when the season started, it just felt different.”

DawgsRush on Twitter had such a strong feeling about this season that he went to the Georgia/Tennessee game, his first game since 1982 when the Dawgs played BYU and Steve Young.

Aaron Cooper said he also knew when he saw Georgia win in Knoxville with his dad. It was his dad’s first time back since 1980, and Cooper said, “As I saw the chemistry of the Georgia team in person, I knew this team was special.”

Others knew that once we lost the SEC Championship, we would win the national title. But some fans also had particular signs.

The specific signs from Georgia football fans

For Erin, all her signs centered around a cardinal. Before the national championship in 2018, she saw a cardinal in her backyard. That was not a good sign, as we all know. But before the SEC Championship this past season, a cardinal flew into her back window, and she found it dead on her back porch.

She thought the game’s outcome might be different this time, but sadly that was not the case. However, Erin said, “I did not see any cardinals, dead or alive, the day of the national championship! I took it as a good sign!”

But just in case it wasn’t, she made sure to complete a giant Georgia puzzle she had finished for the Orange Bowl the week before, taking it apart and building it again.

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Bonnie Watson said her sign was her friend Angela Pitts posting a story of a goat randomly showing up in her backyard while she was rewatching the Orange Bowl. She documented the entire story on Twitter, and it was so much fun.

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Kars said some of her signs were that her favorite band was playing in Indianapolis before the championship, and Lucas Oil Stadium was home to her favorite Dawg — Rodrigo Blankenship.

However, she said her biggest sign was becoming a student at Georgia. She had told her grandfather in 2020 that she didn’t think Georgia would win the national championship until she was a student. While she got accepted for the spring semester, her grandfather, unfortunately, passed away in July before the 2021 season.

But Kars said that her grandfather “had the best seats in the house” watching the Dawgs win the title the same day that she started her first day as a student at Georgia — January 10th.

Some fans had unmistakable signs in the form of a fortune cookie. One fan ate at P.F. Chang’s in Indianapolis, and their fortune read, “The small wins will soon become big successes.”

Two other fans also ordered Chinese food and had even more obvious fortunes before the national championship: “Your sports team will be successful this year.” You can’t get any more successful than winning a championship for the first time in 41 years.

For Kasie Granner, she knew the Dawgs would win the moment she pulled up to Lucas Oil Stadium and saw the mail office was right across the street with “a whole fleet of mail trucks” outside. It was definitely a positive sign after Georgia’s own Mailman, Stetson Bennett, helped deliver that golden trophy home to Athens.

Even my family had some signs of our own. Like many people, I had a really strong gut feeling that just continued to grow once players returned and we beat Clemson. I actually told my mom about this time last year that I thought this was the year we would finally win it all.

I also said that I hoped Stetson Bennett would play a role in winning it after all he had done for the university, even if it was just for a crucial half or one game. I certainly didn’t see him playing the majority of the season.

But, last summer, my parents did order a new red couch for my mom’s Georgia office. When the fabric samples came in, we debated for a little bit about which sample was closest to Georgia Red. No one wants to order a red couch, only for it to arrive in Alabama Crimson or South Carolina Garnet.

I instantly knew which sample I liked best, and thought was the closest one. After holding it up against an assortment of Georgia items around the house, we determined that the one I liked was closest, flipped it over, and found out it was called “Bennett Red.” Coincidence? I think not!

And then, a few weeks before the season started, my mom ordered a little wooden snowman decoration that was on sale for Christmas in July. It came in about a week or so before the matchup against Clemson, and I kid you not — that wooden snowman came with a little name tag that read “Herschel.” And that was it— a little bit of Christmas magic in the heat of August.

We were done, and we were hopeful. We prepared our hearts and soaked up every single moment of the year, hoping that this was indeed it — that the signs were right.

And now? Well, now we’re defending national champs. Were they really signs? Or just fateful coincidences? It’s no different than superstitions really and whether or not you believe they affect the outcome of a game where you don’t even take the field. But I choose to believe that they were really signs.

Pointing and guiding us to that exhilarating moment where we watched the Dawgs win it all while simultaneously saying, “Slow down. Take it in. Enjoy every moment. Because you’re watching history unfold.”