Georgia Football: Why should we even care about the Orange Bowl?

Georgia football is taking on Florida State in the Orange Bowl on Saturday at 4:00 P.M. Now, all Georgia and almost all Florida State fans will probably be watching the game. I am also sure that there will be a national audience with no dog in the fight who will also be watching. For many of them, the game's outcome will determine why the loser of this game should have been excluded from the playoffs, which is wrong. 

Even though this game is a New Year 6 Bowl game and is supposed to be more prestigious than the Holiday Bowl, it is the same. These Bowl games mean absolutely nothing; they are nothing more than glorified scrimmages. You can disagree with me all day long, but actions by the TV Networks, players, and coaches support my theory. 

ESPN does little to nothing to promote non-CFP games. Every ad on ESPN or college football is about the flawed 4 team playoff. If you go on ESPN cable or the website, there are four stories on the CFP for every story about the other bowl games. I remember the BCS bowls were massive, but now they are rendered useless. I remember when Georgia played Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl in 2007 and the hype around that game. If that happened today, not a single person would discuss it on TV. 

Coaches are leaving programs as they prepare for their Bowl games, and the ones that are fired are somewhere in Mexico drinking a Margarita on the beach. Players are opting out, and some are opting out with a slim chance of being selected in the NFL Draft; looking at you, Joe Milton. Yes, I know I already wrote about how the transfer portal has killed the game we all love, but opt-outs in bowl games were the trend in 2015, and we should’ve known then that it would lead us here. 

Will I watch Georgia play football? Of course, I watched them play UT-Martin and did not leave until the halfway point of the 4th quarter. So, anytime Georgia plays, I will be watching. But I have already moved on to the next season, which does not start for another nine months. 

So, no matter the outcome of this game, it should not encapsulate the season these two programs have had. The lazy narrative of “See thats why x should have been left out” is just that lazy. This game has no bearing on what happened in the 2023 season. Georgia deserved to get into the playoffs because it is one of the four best teams in college football, and Florida State deserved to get into the playoffs because they were among the four most deserving. 

The CFP is full of old men in a room playing College Football politics. That is why these two teams in the Orange Bowl are not in the playoffs. Are we really sure the 12-team playoff going to save us? I would like to go back to 2007; things in the college football world still made some sense. I still miss the BCS. 

I will still yell at the TV and clap when the Dawgs do something good. But should they win or lose, I probably will feel no emotion toward victory or defeat. I will be watching to see some of these players last time in the red and black. I’ll get to see Brock Bowers one more time on the Georgia sideline, and I will get to see Sedrick Van Pran snap the ball one last time at Georgia. I will be emotional about that, not about the outcome of the game.  

I know I started this blog with negativity, but I will end it on a positive note. The guys who are playing for the last time for Georgia are some Damn Good Dawgs, and what they did during their time in Athens will never be forgotten. For that reason alone, we should care about this game.