The four-team College Football Playoff era is coming to a tumultuous end as the college football world gets turned on its head this offseason. The SEC won’t look the same when we kick off next fall, and neither will the playoff next winter.
Georgia, maybe more than any other team, has defined the four-team era. With six CFP games since 2018 and back-to-back national championships, the Bulldogs have certainly dominated it lately.
As we bid farewell to the four-team CFP, let’s take a trip back down memory lane and rank every CFP game that Georgia has played. The playoff has produced some fantastic games between the best teams in the country, but which one involving Kirby Smart and the Dawgs was the best?
6. 2023 College Football Playoff National Championship
Sure, it was a great outcome for Georgia fans, but it was objectively the worst game of the College Football Playoff era. Georgia took a 10-0 lead and then the Bulldogs missed a tackle which let Derius Davis go 60 yards down to the 11-yard line. Max Duggan finished off the drive with a rushing touchdown, and for a second it looked like we had a game. We did not.
From that point on Georgia dominated every aspect of the football game and capped off one of the most dominant seasons in college football history. As it turned out, the semifinal game was the real national championship because TCU didn’t belong on the same field as the reigning champs.
Stetson Bennett only completed 18 passes and finished with 304 yards and four touchdowns. Brock Bowers was excellent with seven catches for 152 yards and a touchdown. We even got a little taste of Carson Beck to close it out.
5. 2021 Orange Bowl
Neither Kirby Smart nor Jim Harbaugh knew what to expect from their quarterback in his first College Football Playoff start. Stetson Bennett came through for Kirby, but Cade McNamara wasn’t ready for the moment.
Bennett threw for 313 yards and three touchdowns and Georgia’s defense dominated McNamara in the first half. Georgia has some history with a highly-touted freshman quarterback replacing the starter in the second half of a big game, but J.J. McCarthy couldn’t do a Tua impression.
The Bulldogs led 27-3 at halftime and McNamara finished 11/19 for 106 yards and two interceptions. McCarthy was better, but the game was out of reach when he managed to go 7-17 passing for 131 yards and a touchdown. Georgia gained 521 yards to Michigan’s 328.
4. 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship
By now, it was a lot of fresh faces on the sidelines from the 2018 national championship game that Alabama won, but these two teams were certainly familiar after Alabama beat Georgia in the SEC title game.
Bryce Young led Alabama on three scoring drives in the first half, but the difference was, Georgia held the Crimson Tide to field goals. There were no touchdowns scored in the first half and Alabama went into halftime with a 9-6 lead. In the second half, Georgia turned its drives into touchdowns while Alabama missed a field goal and made another in the third quarter. Bryce Young did eventually throw a touchdown to Cameron Latu to go up 18-13. Georgia responded.
At 19-18 with 3:33 left in the fourth quarter, Brock Bowers caught a 15-yard touchdown from Stetson Bennett to put the Bulldogs up 26-18. Bryce Young had a chance to respond and drove Alabama to the Georgia 44 before throwing a title-clinching, 79-yard pick-six to Kelee Ringo.
3. 2018 Rose Bowl
Georgia’s first appearance in the College Football Playoff came as the No. 3 seed, all the way across the country in Pasadena. They drew a tough hand, facing Baker Mayfield and it led to an absolute college football classic on New Year’s Day 2018.
Oklahoma led 31-17 at halftime and were up 31-14 before a last-second field goal brought Georgia within two touchdowns to end the half. Then, the Bulldogs leaned on their elite running back duo of Nick Chubb and Sony Michel. Chubb finished the game with 145 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries, and Michel was even better with 181 yards and three scores on just 11 carries.
Chubb scored his second touchdown with 55 seconds left to force the game into overtime and when Georgia got a stop in double-OT it set up a chance to advance to the National Championship with a score. They went with a direct snap to Sony Michel who did the rest.
2. 2022 Peach Bowl
For two years, Stetson Bennett was the biggest question mark surrounding Georgia’s loaded roster, but in the biggest game of that two year stretch, he put an exclamation point on his career. Bennett went toe-to-toe with CJ Stroud for four quarters, throwing for 398 yards and three touchdowns with just one pick, and he ran for another score. Stroud threw for 348 and four TDs with 34 rushing yards on 12 carries.
Down 38-24 entering the fourth quarter, Bennett led a field goal drive, and then threw a 76-yard touchdown pass to Arian Smith and converted the two-point try to make it 38-35. Stroud answered with a field goal drive, and Bennett came back with his third touchdown pass, this time to Adonai Mitchell from 10-yards out.
The game kicked off in 2022, but nearly ended in 2023. Ohio State missed a game-winning 50-yard field goal in Atlanta as the ball dropped in New York.
1. 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship
My sincerest apologies to any Georgia fan. I hate to bring up a devastating loss to Alabama, especially on the heels of… well another devastating loss to Alabama.
Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs have only lost one College Football Playoff game in their three trips, and it comes in at No. 1 on the list. It was an all-time classic, and while there wasn’t the level of scoring that we saw in the 2022 Peach Bowl, a walk-off game-winning touchdown in the College Football Playoff National Championship has to take the top spot.
Georgia led 13-0 at halftime, and then Alabama benched Jalen Hurts for Tua Tagovailoa and completely changed the game. Tua threw for 166 yards and three touchdowns including one to Calvin Ridley to tie it up late in the fourth quarter, and the game-winner to Devonta Smith in overtime.