Episode Description
Ty and Dan react to Georgia’s dominant 65-7 win over TCU in the College Football Playoff National Championship. What does the win mean for Stetson Bennett’s legacy? Does the loss take any of the shine off of TCU’s storybook season? And, what happens next?
Welcome back to The Solid Verbal, boys and girls.
My name is Ty Hildenbrandt, that fine gentleman over there.
The one, the only, always the incomparable Dan Rubenstein.
He flew back in from L.A. to get back into the heart of the Midwest.
I rushed.
Yeah.
Chicago, Illinois.
I flew in late yesterday to get to my home here in eastern Pennsylvania to watch the national championship between Georgia and TCU.
And Dan, Georgia won 65-7 in this game. I thought they were going to hit 70. They had time to hit 70 if that was something they were interested in. Alas, they hit the over themselves. 65-7, your final. Sir, how you doing this fine evening?
I’m all right. And look, I booked this flight thinking I was going to rush home to cover, in some way
remotely with you, a competitive national championship game. And to everybody going into this game who said, “Look, Georgia is going to win this game going away,” hey, nobody thought 65-7. If you were that person who thought that, of which there were many people, you were probably 45-17, you know, 38-13, something like that. We’re like, well, not really all that competitive. This was it was embarrassing. It was embarrassing in how simple. It’s not simple to play that level. I mean, even if you have the players that Georgia has,
the high level players who are coached excellently and develop excellently that it was a run through in certain respects that I don’t know. I don’t have stats in front of me. Stats at this point are not that important, you know, whether it’s nine yards per play, 11 yards per play, eight and a half yards per play.
Yeah.
It was easy. It was not “you have to respect how Georgia did this or did that.” It was “even though it’s hard, it was easy.” If that makes any sense, because whether it was the running game, whether it was Brock Bowers, whether it’s actually good, as I’ve been ringing this bell now for years, Stetson Bennett making plays that it’s weird that nobody else in the sport can consistently make as many winning plays as Stetson Bennett can. They I mean, they had their national championship game last week. And it was almost like this was the Pro Bowl, right? That this is just the walkthrough in a warm climate of just like enjoying the spoils of your efforts.
Yeah.
Well, again, 65-7, the final score, we ended our live stream early and ran out of content. I don’t know how Fowler and Herbstreit did it. I guess they’re paid more to do it than you and I. But yeah, it was tough going there down the stretch as Georgia still maintained the upper hand, despite having such a huge lead. Look, if you’re tuning in for the first time, if maybe you just found us, I don’t know, it’s late in the season. It’s the last game of the season.
Hit subscribe, hit follow, whatever your podcasting platform gives you the option to do. We will be with you all off season long, talking all things college football. We, of course, have recruiting. We, of course, have more transfers that I’m sure will be afoot. If any of the previous couple of seasons has been a guide, there will be plenty of college football news to discuss here in the offseason. So make sure you stick with us.
Maybe you’re watching along on YouTube. Hit the subscribe button so that you don’t miss any of our video content as well. Why don’t we dive in? Why don’t we talk about this?
Yeah, whatever you want, Ty.
Yeah, I mean, I hate to do this, but
[GUESS WHO JUST GOT MURDERED]
I don’t want to grave dance here.
I know TCU fans were certainly happy to be in this game.
They felt they had a chance.
Sure.
We did our show, our live show in LA, which was a huge success.
Thank you so much to everybody who came out to The Troubadour.
It was a once in a lifetime experience for us.
We had Marshall Newhouse, TCU grad, former NFL lineman,
11 year NFL veteran up on stage with us talking through a little bit.
You’ll hear that show on Thursday, a little bit about why he thought
TCU had a chance in this game.
Right.
And the whole notion of playing with house money of being here,
despite the fact that nobody expected them to get to this championship game.
That, in and of itself, was a national championship for TCU.
The fact that they made it this far in Sonny Dykes’s first year.
The fact that some of the veterans on this team got a taste
of a game of this magnitude on the playoff stage.
All of these things I think are gravy for the TCU program.
The problem was… severely overmatched in this game, severely overmatched in this game.
It was not a Michigan situation, Dan.
It was not a situation where they got a few breaks early and went up big early
and took Georgia out of its game early and made them adjust.
Right.
That’s what happened in Michigan in that game.
And it worked really, really well.
It did not happen at all in this game against Georgia.
Georgia went up early.
TCU got one touchdown.
But then from that point forward, completely shut out, completely shut out.
Georgia just kept getting stronger.
They maintained possession.
They were creating more havoc plays.
They were stopping more on defense.
Obviously winning the turnover battle, four to nil, pretty much every stat
you can possibly imagine any which way you might want to dice and slice
and figure out a path forward for TCU.
All of those things were shut down by what felt like
midway through the second quarter.
This game was over almost before it started.
They did it against LSU.
They did it against Tennessee.
They did it against Oregon.
Quality teams, teams who otherwise prove themselves to be quality.
They did it against the SEC West champion in LSU.
They did it against, at the time, the most lethal offense in America.
They completely squashed them.
That game was in Athens, of course.
They did it to open the season against the team.
A team who would acquit itself really well and have an extraordinarily efficient offense
in a different conference, of course.
And this is who Georgia is.
And much like my reaction after that Oregon game to open the season,
Georgia’s season was bookended by playing against teams who did not belong in the same stadium.
Okay? I’m saying that about the team that I cherish, that I root for.
And I’m saying that about a team in TCU that I enjoyed watching all season long,
who was exciting, who played exciting football, who finished games in exciting fashion.
When you look at their schedule, they didn’t belong in
what’s it, SoFi Stadium, right?
They just, they did not, they were not playing the same sport for lack of a better way of putting it.
So what Georgia was able to do wire-to-wire and your favorite phrase,
“limb-from-limb” against TCU.
That’s a Dan phrase, but I’m happy to take credit for it.
Oh, okay. You can take it, too.
Georgia’s practices against their scout team, the third string freshmen
have to be more challenging than some of the defenses, some of the teams they played this year.
And so that they were so casually excellent when they were up for the game,
whatever you want to say about the Kentucky game or the Missouri game or whatever,
the first half of Kent State, I guess, if you go back that far,
Georgia is just playing a different sport than 127 teams.
It’s Ohio State, it’s Alabama, it’s Georgia, and that’s kind of it.
It’s not Michigan, right? And so there was nothing TCU could have done in this game differently.
And Georgia’s just not going to make the mistakes that Michigan made last week.
Georgia’s not going to make the mistake of not closing TCU out when certain Big 12 teams
had the chance to do so. They’re not going to make the mistake of a team like Texas who fully came
defensively to beat TCU and couldn’t mount anything on offense.
They’re so much more complete than anybody TCU faces.
And I don’t know if that’s an SEC thing. I don’t know if that’s just a Big 12 thing at the moment
with where the conference is, with Oklahoma turning over the way it has,
with Texas unable to get back to where it sees itself.
But there is something about, and this is a broader topic than this game,
but there was no measuring stick for TCU to prepare for a game like this.
Whereas Georgia has its own practices, they have Alabama,
they have teams as talented as LSU generally is, as Auburn generally is,
and TCU doesn’t have a schedule in that stratosphere from a pure talent perspective.
They just don’t.
The margin of victory for Georgia is second only to the Vanderbilt game.
They beat Vanderbilt 55-0 way back when in Week 7,
obviously the Georgia-Oregon game, which you mentioned in Week 1 was a bit of a massacre
as well, 49-3, but 65-7, there was a moment in time where this looked like it was
going to get to 70. Georgia had the ball with about 7 minutes and 53 seconds left.
They were moving the ball at will. And if they wanted to hit 70, if they wanted to hit 80,
they probably could have in this game with the way that it went. They just met no resistance
from the TCU defense and with the TCU offense unable to really move the football with any great
ability, it just limited the whole thing.
That’s a 60 yard broken play, right?
That was it. That was the only play pretty much the entire game.
That was the night’s offense.
That was it. That was it.
Quentin Johnston, we talked a lot about Quentin Johnston going
into this football game, one catch for three yards. The book was out on Quentin Johnston. Kirby
Smart knew it. We knew it. Kendre Miller didn’t play in this game. They’re running back for TCU.
Emari Demercado did play, 4.2 yards per carry, but it wasn’t any kind of game changing effort.
Obviously, if you look at the score, you know as much. And I mentioned it earlier, the turnover
margin. 4-0. 4-0 in favor of Georgia, started right away. And honestly,
what would the score of this game been without those four turnovers getting punts instead of
fumbles there or interceptions there? It doesn’t matter.
It’s, it’s the exact same game.
So I think if you’re a TCU fan, the takeaway is this. To get to this game, I still believe
you’re playing with house money. I still believe there is an element of this. You’re happy
to be there. This is a big deal for this program with a new coach. You can use this as a recruiting
tool. You can tell kids out on the road, “Hey, we are a few playmakers away from really giving
this thing a serious shot.” We need you on campus. But the ceiling is very
high for TCU football in this new rendition now under Sonny Dykes. They’ve got great facilities.
There’s a lot to like about the state of TCU football. And I think a lot of reason to be
excited about where things stand there. But doesn’t it… doesn’t a result like this,
doesn’t it at a certain level, it, it enters your brain. It has to, if you’re,
if you’re saying it doesn’t, you’re lying. Doesn’t it enter your brain, the futility of being TCU?
I felt it as, as an Oregon fan, where it’s just like, no matter what TCU does these next five
years, seven years of Sonny Dykes, if Kirby Smart is at Georgia and locked in, if Ryan Day is at
Ohio State and locked in, if Nick Saban is at Alabama and locked in, maybe it’s 35-13, right?
There’s nothing TCU can do to meaningfully close that gap. And this is not me lamenting the realities
of the top of the sport. It’s me saying, let’s enjoy other parts of the sport a little bit more
when we have those opportunities in October and November, but you watch that game and it’s the
depth, it’s the waves, it’s the experience, it’s the comfort, it’s the intuition on both sides of
the ball where George is playing against air on a certain level, right? That Brock Bowers,
whether he’s lining up against Tennessee, TCU, Oregon, whoever, he’s just getting his.
There’s an inevitability about football at the top that when they’re not playing each other,
it’s just a shrug and that’s how it goes kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah. It is a shrug. I mean, Brock Bowers, 7 for one 52 and a touchdown,
Ladd McConkie, a name we hadn’t even mentioned. We weren’t sure what his status would be. He’s
been beat up since the SEC title game. 5 for 88 and two touchdowns. AD Mitchell caught one pass for a touchdown, 22 yarder.
Stetson Bennett, by the way,
we can get into Stetson Bennett and talk about what his legacy is, but
six total touchdowns. If you count the two that he ran for and the four that he threw.
But just to close the loop on all things TCU… look, to get to this point, to get to this game,
clearly, nobody expected it at the start of the season. It is certainly a testament to what
Sonny Dykes did very quickly to organize the troops. It is a testament to the veteran unit
that the Horned Frogs have on their side that helped get them here through thick and thin. It
was not easy. Right. Season. It was not easy. There were many chances to lose. And I think really
just by sheer like force of will, they were able to get into a situation like this to
get into this game. So kudos to them on a great season, but they were overmatched. They were
overmatched. They got completely dominated by a team that was better. And I can’t even say that
that’s a black eye for the TCU program. Nobody wants to lose 65-7, but it was a hell
of a year for TCU. And they went up against a team that was better and was prepared. And more
importantly was not bored. They were not bored to be in this situation. As we saw against what
Missouri, some of these other teams that Georgia played earlier in the year, when we questioned
where they were at as a program, are they losing steam? Are they vulnerable? They like,
they got better down the stretch. Whereas other teams maybe started to show some of their true
colors. Yeah. And, and we’re also here because Ohio State couldn’t play four quarters against
Michigan. Right. That certain things had to happen with these top flight teams,
these top flight programs who know how to build up to this point, but have trouble sustaining.
Can’t be said about Georgia, right? The step back Alabama has taken on defense
at times. The step back Ohio State’s taken in those tough, high-leverage moments at times,
whatever the hell Dabo Swinney’s trying or not trying to do at Clemson as the Tigers kind of
fade into the background of this conversation, right? USC’s complete ignorance of defense,
right? They may have had a championship offense this year and probably not. I don’t think the
line in the running game were there, but they did something on a championship level. They just
played defense on a MAC Championship level. So I just, it’s frustrating that we have a Georgia
team that it’s, it’s very simple for all of us to say, well, they have the best players and they’re
getting the best results. Yeah. Right. They did it with a walk-on who left to play junior college
at quarterback. All of their players get better and they’re the team who constantly fields
top five classes and turns them into NFL draft picks who win games going away. If it were just
easy enough to recruit great, talented four and five star players and turn them into championship
caliber teams year in and year out, we’d be having conversations about football and College Station.
We’d be like, well, if Stetson Bennet can do it, then obviously if that’s the, if that’s the
blueprint, then Haynes King or Max Johnson, these former blue chip guys, and not for, you know,
I don’t mean for Texas A&M to be taking the strays here. It is always fun though.
They would be neck and neck, right? They would be throwing it to Moose Muhammad and Evan Stewart
and handing it off to Devin Achane behind a blue chip line with all these five star defensive
linemen. And they would be just like a push pull from the West to the East and oh my God,
Alabama one year A&M, another year, Texas, another year. And the big, that’s not the reality. We have
to maybe begrudgingly as a community say, maybe Kirby Smart is an excellent coach. Maybe he
hires an excellent staff and maybe that’s why the best players want to go to there to learn how to
play football on a high level and not just, you know, become a top flight star player individually,
but not win 10 games every year. Like you actually have to be great at Georgia. And so
it’s a tough night for people who look at the sport and look at these top teams saying
like, well, you know, give Kirby Smart Cal, right? Kirby Smart would win a ton of games at Cal!
He would, I don’t know if he’s winning national championships, but like at a certain point,
you have to give these guys their due as being better and more excellent than everybody else.
And it’s not just a recruiting class thing. And that brings me to the next point that I was
going to set up for you because I know it’s something you’ve been actually quite passionate
about this season. Stetson Bennett, Stetson Bennett, the story of Stetson Bennett is one that
will, that will echo on in perpetuity in the halls of Georgia high school football or Georgia
university proper. It will be talked about in sports media circles for the rest of our natural
lives. But Stetson Bennett as a walk-on. Stetson Bennett as somebody who, as they said on the
broadcast, always wanted to be quarterback at Georgia. Stetson Bennett, who was counted out by
many folks, right? Counted out by many folks, even after he won the national championship,
folks out there didn’t necessarily want him back, wanted to try and move on Stetson Bennett. Twenty-five and
on campus and now wins his second national championship with the Georgia Bulldogs. Of course,
broke the drought last year, comes back this season, repeats. He accounted for six touchdowns
in this game four through the air, two with his legs on the ground. He was a master distributor
of the football, not just in this game, but all throughout the year. Obviously, it helped in this
one that the line kept him upright. There wasn’t much pressure to speak of on the TCU front. It
was pitch and catch out there. He could pick his spots. He did with aplomb, as they say,
to Brock Bowers to Ladd McConkie, AD Mitchell and some others, but you have been beating the drum
for a while. That’s Stetson Bennett as capital A, “Actually,” capital G, “Good.” Yeah. He’s really,
really good. I mean, he was invited to New York for a reason. He’s the best quarterback in Georgia
football history. All due respect to, you know, if you want to go back to Fran Tarkenton
in the fifties. Like, there are a lot of dudes who are taller and projected better as NFL quarterbacks.
But when it came to actually producing winning plays, I’m not, wins are not a quarterback stat,
right? This is a team stat, but he produced more winning plays more often than any Georgia
quarterback I can remember. Georgia’s largely been a very, very talented team in my lifetime,
not on this level, but Stetson Bennett did what other quarterbacks surrounded by
a crazy amount of blue chip talent. Whether you want to look at this year, the last five years,
the last 10 years, he’s successful because a higher percentage of his plays are winning plays
more often. And so Stetson Bennett is good. You want to look at his NFL? You want to look at,
no, doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. If you live in reality, if you live in this universe in which
we live, Stetson Bennett is excellent. He’s not tall enough. He’s not fast enough. His arm isn’t
strong enough, but he’s better. And it’s not just about Georgia quarterbacks. He’s better than just
about every modern quarterback who’s played college football because his results, and I’m not, again,
not talking about wins, his results, how often he is throwing successful passes and leading
successful teams with his own play is better than 99% of quarterbacks elsewhere. He plays against
tough teams and he makes tough plays. Stetson Bennett is, we fall back to the narrative
of him being like this system guy who’s just sort of a game manager or whatever.
I don’t know who I’m referring to when I say people refer to him as that. All I’m saying is
he makes plays. He makes plays more often. He’s really good. And because he was a walk-on,
because he was the JC guy, people look at him as that cute story because he wore, you know,
the postman’s hat, people like, “Oh, that’s, yeah, he’s, he’s a fun little story,” you know, came in,
but then JT Daniels took his place, but he was gritty enough to hang around. No, no, no. He’s
better. He’s better than all of them. He’s better than all of them at playing quarterback in college
football. And that’s incredible. And we just need to put this to rest that he is an excellent
quarterback surrounded by excellent people. 18 of 25 for three, oh four and four touchdowns.
It’s an average of 12.2 yards, which is, which is incredible. This is a good game.
If doing what he does is that easy, then others would do it. If you started Facebook,
then you would have started Facebook, right? It’s the same idea.
Yeah. Yeah. No interceptions, a clean game for, uh, for Stetson Bennett. Georgia as a team rushed
for about 255, 5 touchdowns on the ground. So they maintained their dominance in the line of scrimmage.
They’ve been doing that all season long and should come as no great surprise. But the fact
they did it in the manner that they did here helped them control the football game. If you
kind of get rid of that last drive in this football game, which was in effect the clock
killing drive, just to get this thing over with Georgia scored on something like all, but one of
their drives, 10 of 11 drives, something crazy in this football game. So it really was not a matter
of TCU just having any recourse to stop this Georgia offense. They were just very, very solid.
The one of the stats that I like to look at is Stop Rate. It’s a defensive stat, just measures
how often is defense getting off the field 4% for TCU, as opposed to like 75% on the Georgia side. So
therein lies something of the problem for the Horned Frogs in this matchup. Just couldn’t get
off the field. Georgia just had too much for them. Couldn’t get pressure on Stetson, Stetson Bennett.
Could not stop the rushing attack. Um, kind of a multi-system failure for TCU. Again, great. They
got here, but they were clearly overmatched in. Yeah. I mean, not great for us if we want a good
game. Like we did a stream. We did the stream for folks who listen to this show. You know, you,
you probably saw the tweets. You probably saw something or another that we did the
stream. We, we did the stream on Discord… verballers.com, where you can go and sign up for
the Patreon, f you’re ever so inclined. We did that about a half hour before we went live publicly
out on YouTube. And there were some concerns even at that point that the game was over. We were
only a bit into the first quarter and you could start to pick up the vibes like, okay. And kind
of say I’ve seen this play before, right? Right. We’ve seen this before. And then we went live and
then things came off the swivel. Not before we talked to Adam Amin, not before we talked to
our friend, Ari Wasserman, but, uh, yeah, we had to end it early because it just ran out of content.
There’s nothing to talk about with this game. Did you think at all about alternate paths,
alternate universes? Like I mentioned with like, if Ohio State doesn’t, you know, fold as a mentally
tiny team in the second half of that Michigan game at home, uh, do you think about, you know,
if TCU loses or doesn’t get that, that kick through against Baylor, okay, they’re going to lose twice
and they end up in another game, but they still end the season on a high note, presumably, you
know, maybe winning a bowl game or losing to Alabama in a more respectable way or something
like that. I guess maybe in that world, Alabama makes the playoff, but, um, it’s a shame that
TCU for as good a season as they had, this is the stain on it that sure they lose at the gun to
Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship Game, but Kansas State was a good team. TCU was a good team.
They played each other close once before and it just made sense that, you know, that game would
be a close one that comes down to the wire and that we have TCU going out with this unbelievably
quiet whimper after such a fun year that it’s just the way the playoff is going to be sometimes that
people are going to back into it and we know going in that like, well, they had to come back
against Texas Tech in Kansas and they’re probably not a team befitting of, uh, a reputation of
giving somebody a really hard time, but then they beat Michigan and they erase that narrative,
even if they kind of take advantage of unusual opportunities, let’s call it against Michigan.
I mean, the pick sixes is some something they generate. That’s something that’s, that’s good
football, but it’s, it’s a tough way to finish out such a glorious year for the frogs that
changes the narrative a bit. I’m not necessarily prone to going back and playing the what if game.
I, I am happy we got to see Ohio State versus Georgia. Definitely. That, that was a game that
you, you know, this, I mean, we talked about at the beginning of the year, that was a game that I
wanted to see all along. I wanted to see what would happen in that game and we got our money’s
worth in that game. It was, that was a really good game and nobody saw TCU coming, but the fact
that we got Michigan TCU in and of itself was pretty cool. That was a cool upset story for the
folks out there who aren’t Michigan fans or aren’t Ohio State fans or aren’t Georgia fans,
just people who wanted to see an upset and wanted a team to root for. So I think on that level was
a success. The fact that we got two good games on New Year’s Eve was, was really cool. And that was
a boon in some sense for the playoff, not playing the games on New Year’s Eve, but we can save that
discussion for another day. The fact that we got this game, yes, on some level, embarrassing for
TCU. If you’re a fan, these are the easier ones to deal with because it was over very quickly.
Yeah. It wasn’t a gut punch that you got at the, at the gun, right? Like Ohio State did against
Georgia. This was, this was a quick death. So as a fan, you kinda, I think you had a chance to
process this thing in real time. And by the time the final gun sounded, you were, you were okay.
I hope you were okay. There’s also no great shame in losing badly to Georgia because there are many
teams that have lost badly to Georgia, maybe not on this stage, but I don’t think that’s a huge
black eye for the program because the real win for TCU is the fact that they got here at all.
The fact that they got here at all is, is the big win for the program. That’s something they can
use to build moving forward. If you win, that’s gravy. That’s incredible. That’s the story of the
year, but getting to this game in the manner that they did, it was an exciting season. They’ve got
a lot to be proud of. It’s undeniably awful for college football though, right? If this
is the night of the year for the sport and you’re giving me 65-7, because the national
championship is not the Super Bowl. It’s not a cultural event. They want it to be. They’re
trying to make it that, but it’s not. They’re trying to make it that they’re trying to make
the Super Bowl, the sport into the, some sort of hybrid between the Super Bowl and the NCAA
tournament, right? Where it’s like this pseudo small bespoke tournament and you get a Monday
night thing, you know, you have the Oscars forever and ever on Monday night, you have a Super Bowl on
Sunday. They’re trying to make this Monday night thing and New Year’s thing, a thing to not just
college football fans, right? That they’re going to these big NFL stadiums and these big cities.
And they’re like, this is the college football national championship. And then you deliver this.
You deliver this bright shining example of the fact that there are five and a half teams
who can win a game like this any given year. And sometimes a team like LSU with 17 high NFL
caliber receivers and an accidental number one overall pick quarterback can stumble into this
game. But it’s also been a team that can recruit on a pretty impressive level consistently.
And then you deliver this though. And the reality of the sport existing for six,
five and a half, eight, seven, three, whatever your number is teams in a way that is not the
reality for 97.2%. It’s not a great look for the sport that is, and I don’t care if it’s,
I don’t care if it’s a bad look for mainstream sports fans. I don’t care that much, but the
intent of the sports is to build around. Not competition, not geographic and cultural
traditions. TV. We want TV, TV, TV, TV, TV, TV, TV, TV. And then you build up to this TV moment.
Fox is grabbing everything for the Big 10. Disney’s grabbing everything for the SEC.
Let’s build up to this big TV sports. And then you give us garbage, garbage.
That nobody wants to watch for longer than eight minutes. Good job, everybody.
It really fell flat. Great job. We had Ari on the stream in, I guess the,
he was our second guest. So the early part of the second half or around halftime. And he was like,
yeah, I can go write my column early. Yeah, of course. I can go write my column early
because we all knew what was going to be the conclusion of this. Yeah, it’s not great for
college football. No. If you’re a fan, you want, you want close games. As Andy Staples said on
the preview show we did in the moving van, we never had three good playoff games, let alone two.
So it felt far fetched to him that maybe this would be a close one that we would be blessed
with another like really close, awesome matchup. It’s not great if you’re a casual fan out there
that doesn’t have a rooting interest and only watch. By the way, casual fans are important.
I know people use that term in a derisive way. I think those references are pretty
shortsighted and dumb. Yeah. I mean, guess what? You need people to watch your sport and pay for
your sport if you want your sport to grow. Well, and my point with that is just that those are
the people that you’re in some sense trying to win over that you want to be. If you’re,
if you’re of the belief that college football is going to be this TV sport,
that’s going to make a ton of money and TV, TV, TV. Yeah, thank you. If you’re of that belief,
you need those folks to like take more of an interest in college football, watch more of
college football. You see 65-7. They’re not going to watch a whole lot of it. We watched
it only because we had to. There were people who were dropping in and off the stream that
they had better things to do tonight. So it’s not good for the sport. It’s definitely not
an advertisement for watching more college football. If you’re not inclined to watch a ton
of it anyway, but 65-7. Well, it’s the other thing is too. And I don’t think it’s just
going to extend to sports fans who are moderately interested in college football, but it’s going
to extend to college football fans too. I’m happy to be wrong about this, Ty. There is going to be
a certain period of novelty to 12 teams in a playoff. And then after three years, two years,
four years, you’re going to tune in to see, all right, who’s in the playoff this year and be like,
Oh, Wisconsin-Alabama. I wonder what’s going to happen? Georgia-Washington. I wonder what’s
going to happen? You know, Ohio State-Oregon, or I guess Oregon did beat Ohio State. So that’s a
bad example. But it’s that kind of thing where it’s just like, Oh, it’s cool that we have all
these games in January and more teams get a chance at it. And then you’re going to see a
semi-final or a quarterfinal and you’re going to remember, Oh yeah, TCU-Georgia. Oh, right.
And so that’s the problem. That’s the problem that the sport wants to be something that it
isn’t. It’s a conversation for another day, but this was probably the brightest 4K-est example
of it yet. Well, again, 65-7 was your final score. Um, Stetson Bennett, the, the most
outstanding player in this game, six total touchdowns. His legacy is going to be just
bronzed forever. Yeah. Legend. He’s an icon. Guy’s a legend. And we joke about the car dealerships
and being undersized and being a walk on and wearing the postman hat. But all those things
aside within a college football sense, he’s had a great run here over two years as have
the Georgia Bulldogs. Congratulations to them, to Kirby Smart, to all the Georgia fans out there.
We have a lot of Georgia fans that listen to the show. Yeah. Congrats to one and all on your second
consecutive championship. There’s a pretty good case to be made that Georgia’s number one going
into next season. Sure. But we can talk about next season in a few days. Officially at
time of recording here, we’re recording this late on Monday evening, January the 9th, every team
is now undefeated, Dan! Yes. Every team is now undefeated. As we head into the long cold months
that are the off season, there’s sure to be a ton of college football news and transfers and wackiness.
It’s just what the sport is. So if you like college football, if you love college football, the way Dan
and I do, make sure you hit follow, make sure you hit subscribe, whatever it is that your app of
choice tells you, gives you, allows you to make sure you hit that so that you don’t miss any of
our podcast episodes. Go out on YouTube, subscribe. You can watch episodes out there as well. Follow
along on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, anywhere you can find a social media
platform. Dan and I are doing our part to try and push and push and push and get new people into the
Verballerhood and to that point Verballers.com. We cannot thank enough our incredible community.
Yes. College football fans out at Verballers.com. They support us month after month after month
with their Patreon donations and subscriptions and more than anything, their passion for what we do
and for college football. We would not be here doing this late on a Monday evening without them,
without their support. And so I just want to give a shout out to everybody who has supported us
out there. Definitely. On Patreon, even if not on Patreon, the people who have listened
throughout the course of the season, it was a great season of college football. There will be
times for the post-mortem and we can go through and we can talk about who fell short of expectations,
who exceeded expectations, what is the broad arc of this season that will take with us
into 2023 and beyond. But for my money, a really, really fun season with a ton of wackiness,
a ton of stuff that makes college football the best sport in the world. And I’m just excited
that we got to do this for another year. This is a cool thing that we get to do. So thank you one
and all. Yeah. And I guess in the spirit of us doing a show in LA, trying to find and figuring
out who the one true champion is, I guess it makes sense to officially say that it’s the Jack
Rabbits of South Dakota State, people! Let’s go! Yeah. I mean, they almost beat Iowa, right?
They fully, comfortably beat North Dakota State. That was a big deal. That game, by the way,
huge, the big one, true champion, one true champion, go Jack Rabbits. All right. So here’s
the deal folks. Verballers.com continues on. Go on out, sign up, be part of our Discord,
be part of our Patreon community. We’re excited to keep the train rolling over there. We’ve got
all sorts of great ideas for the off season. Don’t forget to go on out, as I said earlier, to all of
our social media channels, make sure you follow us there. Don’t forget, of course, to tune in a
little bit later this week, we’re going to post that live show, the One True Champion show that
we did live at The Troubadour. Still can’t believe The Troubadour let us in. Great. But The Troubadour
people were super chill and very cool and accommodating and helpful and helped us make the One True Champion live show all that it could be. So we’re grateful for that. Here’s where Elton John performed for the first time in America. Here’s where Glenn Frey and Don Henley met at the bar and eventually became the Eagles. Here’s where Dan and Ty compared Alabama’s losses to Jonah Hill dropping an iced coffee, I guess. Yeah, it all fits. It all fits. So make sure
that you hang around and tune in for that show a little bit later on this week. It is late.
You and I are travel weary to say the least. We are a bit jetlagged, but it’s been real and it’s been fun. Congratulations to the Georgia Bulldogs, 65-7, defending champions, two-time national champions. We can talk all off season long about what it takes to get the three. If that’s a thing that you’re interested in.
For that guy over there, Dan Rubenstein. For myself, Ty Hildenbrandt, thank you so much for downloading, listening, supporting all this time. We will talk to y’all soon in the meantime, stay solid!
Peace.
And to all of those who listen, Ty for the entirety of this episode for one last time,
the 2022 and I guess somewhat 2023 season, punt, fumble, touchdown, punt, interception, interception, end of half, punt, punt, downs, downs, punt, and they didn’t even have the ball long enough for me to keep going.
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