Breaking Down the Storylines from Conference Championship Saturday

In part one of a two part episode, Nate talks about Georgia's big win against Alabama, Indiana's historic turnaround, and answers whether Texas Tech is a legit contender.

Transcript

 This is sports takes with Nate skates. No spin, just straight sports. Welcome to another episode of the show. I'm your host, Nate. And after a huge weekend in college football, the first thing that I want to say to all of you listeners is, how bout them dogs got a huge win over the Alabama Crimson Tide. Finally got that monkey off our back. And boy do I feel lighter. So let's get into it. Because of how big this college football weekend was, I'm going to split this episode into two smaller parts where I talk about that SEC Championship game, as well as the other conference championship games that happened this weekend. And we'll also talk about the College Football Playoff committee's final rankings, what I think they got right, what I think they got wrong. They finally fixed the issue with Miami, but they created a few more issues along the way that we're going to talk about. We'll also talk about Notre Dame's decision to opt out of their bowl game, and what I think that will do to their program going forward. So let's talk about that Georgia Alabama game. If you're a Georgia fan like me, you had a little bit of a divided thought going into this game when we lost to Alabama earlier in the season. My thought was we have to beat Alabama if we do not beat Alabama. Even if this team wins a national championship, it will be it will be marred. There will be an asterisk by it, like Ohio State's issue with Michigan. If we could not beat Alabama, all you were going to hear was, oh yeah, well, you didn't beat Alabama. So to me, this season needed a rematch with Alabama. And I had hoped to get that. And boy, did the dogs deliver on Saturday. I mean, we're talking a we're talking a beat down from start to finish. This game was never in doubt. And you can go back to that game during the regular season. Yes Alabama got out in front early. They they kind of dominated the first quarter of that game. After that it it was neck and neck game. People forget that really Georgia had an opportunity to tie that game late, and Kirby decided to go ahead and try to go for the win, go for the touchdown, didn't kick the field goal, and so that was a three point loss. This was not a three point loss. This was utter domination. And you saw that from the opening kickoff to the end of the game. And where the you see the domination the most to me was this defense was all over Ty Simpson. This defense was all over Alabama's running game. Al Alabama was held to negative three rushing yards. I saw a tweet from SEC Network's Cole Cubelic talking about this, the history of it. So Alabama has been playing college football for a very long time, uh, back into the 1890s. Guess how many times that Alabama has been held to negative rushing yards? Twice. Two times. One time was the 1968 Gator Bowl against Missouri, the other time Saturday. So that was a historically great performance from the Georgia defense. And you saw that at all levels. The front seven, the defensive backs, everybody was rolling. Watching that game, Georgia's defense just had Ty Simpson the offense so out of rhythm they looked so out of sync. I actually watched that came with my mom. And she even picked up on wow. Alabama's offense looks really bad. And you know why they looked really bad? Because Georgia's defense made them look really bad. Georgia was the aggressor on Saturday. That was really clear that Georgia wanted this game more than the Crimson Tide, which doesn't make a lot of sense because this game should have meant more regarding the College Football Playoff for Alabama, who was kind of on the chopping block for the rankings. Georgia was in. They didn't need to win that game to go to the College Football Playoff, but it meant something to those guys. And Kirby Smart talked about that. He he admitted that. The guys on the team were were tired of hearing about you can't beat Alabama and they wanted to shut people up. And they did. They did. And you saw C.J. Allen, Georgia's star middle linebacker, mentioned after the game in an interview that it it did. They weren't going to lie that it meant a little bit extra to them to beat Alabama and and again, get that monkey off your back. I mean, Georgia did so in the 2021 national championship game, but then followed that up by losing the 2023 SEC Championship to Alabama, getting knocked out of the playoff, having the heartbreaking crushing loss in 2024 and the regular season to and Kaitlyn to Boars first year and then losing at home, losing that great home winning streak to Alabama. Again this year it it had to be done. You couldn't just have the one win in the national championship game four years ago. You have to get this monkey off your back. And and Georgia did that Saturday. And I want to talk about what I thought were some key points in the game. The first of those came early in the first quarter, early in the game, and it was obviously the blocked punt by Cole Spear. I mean, that totally changed the beginning of the game. Georgia's offense had really kind of been struggling early in the game, and then you get that huge momentum shifting play and get great field position deep in Alabama territory. That play changed the way that game was going, and it was made by a player who, as Kirby noted, a lot of those types of guys are not going to be around in college football with the Nil transfer portal that incentivizes kids to leave early to try it somewhere else. Try it. Maybe somewhere easier. Try it somewhere. Maybe I can get a start quicker. Maybe I can make some money in Niall Cole Spear is a guy who is not getting a lot of play time at Georgia. He's not getting a lot of attention. I mean, listen to Cole Spears stats. He's been playing at Georgia since 2022. He has five catches for 56 yards, no touchdowns. But if you're a Georgia fan, if you watch the games, you've seen Cole Spear on special teams for a while and he is going day in and day out. He's working in practice. He's running on the scout team. He's going down there and making plays on special teams. And here he is not getting the highlight plays week in and week out. Just doing the work. And on Saturday he made a highlight play. He's on ESPN. People are talking about Cole Speer today. I'm talking about Cole Spear because he made a huge play, and he did that because he had stayed at Georgia and he has continued to work and he is in the trenches. He's in the special teams. Special teams is not fun for a lot of guys. Special teams is not where someone necessarily wants to spend their whole career. But spear is doing that. He is working. He is making a huge play for Georgia at a position that a lot of guys would say, I'm not doing that. I want some money. I want to start, I want to get in here and make some catches. That's what I want. But Cold Spear hustled and he made a huge play and it changed the game. The other moment of the game that really stuck out to me. So in the fourth quarter. Alabama starts to make a little bit of a comeback. And if you are a Georgia fan, you have seen Alabama do this to you in the past. We started to see the tone of the game started to shift and it looked like, uh oh. Is Alabama making a little run here? Are we, you know, are we about to do this again? And I looked on the sideline and they're showing C.J. Allen firing up his team. And when I saw that, I saw leadership. And if you have seen C.J. Allen play over the years, if you heard him in interviews, you know he's a leader. So with 822 left in the game, Alabama's got a key third and two from its own 12.5 yard line. And they throw it across the middle to Caleb Edwards. C.J. Allen takes the guy out of his cleats, just levels him. Makes Edwards drop the ball. That is a huge play. That is a huge play. So then Kalen DeBoer decides to go for it from his own 12.5 yard line down to scores. And my thinking during the game was, well, I guess he doesn't think he's going to get two possessions back. He thinks Georgia is going to run too much time off the clock. And I mean, that's a that's a legitimate thought. I wouldn't have gone for it on fourth and two from my own 12.5 yard line. If you don't get that, you're giving Georgia points. And I think he should have punted there. But I'm glad he didn't. So then Georgia turns around, punches it in. It's 28 to 7 and the game's over. Game's over 28 to 7. And that happened because C.J. Allen. Took Edwards out of his cleats. It happened because C.J. Allen said, no, we are not letting you come back again. This is not happening again. And guys like C.J. Allen sum up this Georgia football team so well. The week before the conference championship game, C.J. Allen came back from surgery on his knee. He had a meniscus repair. That is a surgery that Kirby said. Most of their guys don't come back from, for, you know, bare minimum two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. C.J. Allen came back from that surgery in 11 days because it meant so much to him to play in the Georgia Tech game again, to play in that rivalry. And so when I was watching the Georgia Tech game, I was thinking, yeesh, I don't know that I want C.J. Allen playing in this game. I want him healthy for the SEC Championship game. I want him healthy for the playoff. But it was important to him, so he he didn't take it easy. He played that game and then he came out on Saturday and dominated yet again because that's the kind of player he is. And it goes to the type of mentality that Kirby Smart has instilled in this team. And you see it from him. You see it from Gunner Stockton. A story about Gunner Stockton. Let's talk about physicality here. As Kirby likes to say. Heard a story from Malachi Starks, Georgia's former star safety. He was a first round draft pick of the Baltimore Ravens this past draft. He said he played against Gunnar Stockton for years and and Little League kids football, and he said that Connor Stockton hit him so hard that he almost quit football. He also said that Gunnar Stockton was the best safety I've ever played against in my life. The guy loves contact. The guy likes to hit and he's not shying away from contact. He likes to run the ball. He likes to get hit and the team has rallied around that. Kirby said this team loves contact and we love them and that type of team, a type of team that wants to practice, that wants to hit. Uh, they're going to be tough to beat. You are not going to intimidate Georgia. You are not going to make Georgia quit. Georgia is going to keep pounding and keep pounding until you quit. And you saw this earlier in the season. You saw it with the in the Ole Miss game. Georgia's defense really hadn't found its footing yet at that point in the season, and they're playing a great offense almost as a great offense. And Ole Miss scores on the first five possessions. After that, Georgia shut him down and the Georgia offense just kept pounding the rock just kept running down Ole Miss his throat. And I really felt like in that game, Ole Miss defense didn't want anymore in the fourth quarter. They didn't want anymore. And that's what Georgia does to teams. Georgia makes you say, okay, I'm done. And that's what kind of what they did on Saturday to who has been the biggest bully on the block for a long time, until Georgia became the biggest bully on the block. And this win for Georgia fans for Georgia players is huge. It's huge. And Kirby acknowledged that in the post-game interview, he said these fans have been through a lot of heartache and agony in these games. But not tonight, baby, not tonight. And that was beautiful. That was beautiful. We all, we all knew it. We all felt it. And to have that cathartic moment of we beat you down. Alabama was huge because we have suffered at the hands of Alabama quite enough for one lifetime. You know, I'm old enough to remember the 2012 SEC Championship Game, when Georgia has that heartbreaking, crushing loss to Alabama the last second and comes up just short, 3228, uh, could have had a trip to the national championship game where they very likely would have, uh, handled a overmatched Notre Dame team. In that game, Alabama had 350 rushing yards, 350 rushing yards, three rushing touchdowns. What a change. What a change in in culture. In team. And I know that's that's a different time. Uh, it was Nick Saban and not Caitlin DuBose. Offense. You had a different coach of Georgia and Mark Richt who did a great job in his long tenure there. But what a difference. You're no longer being physically beat up on by Alabama. You're beating Alabama up. And that is a beautiful thing to watch. And to come out on the right side of one of these matchups is is really nice. And one last point about this game before I shift to the Indiana Ohio State game. In the matchup during the regular season, one of the key storylines was that Alabama was dominant on third down on offense, particularly in the first quarter. First half, they were 12 of 19 on third down in that game. This game. Alabama was three for 14. On third down Georgia worked on that. Georgia got that corrected. And this was this was just a totally different game from start to finish. Now moving on to Indiana Ohio State the Big Ten championship game. This game was really a a sportswriters dream, not because it was an electric game on the field. There wasn't a lot of points, not a lot of going up and down the field, but because of the storyline. And if you're not familiar with Indiana football, it hasn't been pretty. No team wants to be known as the best at losing, but that's been who. Indiana football has been pretty much since their first loss in 1887. Uh, until this year, they had more losses than any college football team, any program ever. They had the worst winning percentage. And Corzine has completely changed that program immediately. He had built the James Madison program, kind of had two great years there, goes to Indiana last year and surprises everybody by taking Indiana to the College Football Playoff. And if you're like me, after the loss to Notre Dame, 2717, in the playoff last year, you may have said, hey, Indiana kind of benefited from a weak schedule, which they did. That's undeniable, that they had a weak schedule. But you might have cast some doubt on whether Indiana was legit or not. Well, this year they start the season. You know, three wins against some soft teams, but they grabbed everybody's attention when they beat then ranked number nine, ranked in Illinois 63 to 10. And that's when everybody said, oh, hold on, maybe Indiana really is good. And then later in the season you see them beat Oregon by ten points. Really kind of control that game. It takes them to this Big Ten championship now. Talk about David and Goliath. Not only are they the losing this program in history until northwestern surpassed them this year. They had lost 30 straight games to Ohio State. And to win that game is literally historic. You you won't see something like that hardly ever in your life as a college sports fan. And it usually takes years to build a program like this, especially when you're starting from where Indiana was starting when they took over Indiana. They had just finished the season three and nine. They were 1 in 8 in the Big Ten, last place in the Big Ten. He takes them to the College Football Playoff in his first season, then follows that up as if that wasn't enough by toppling Ohio State, the reigning national champion and current number one team, who I think a lot of people were kind of ready to crown as the champions. He topples them in the Big Ten championship game. That's a conference where a lot of people. I don't agree with this sentiment, but a lot of people would say the Big Ten is the best conference in college football. You have Indiana at one, Ohio State at two, and you've got Oregon at five. That's a really strong top of your conference. Indiana didn't just win that conference. They beat both of those teams on the way to do it. So what Signata in Indiana have done is mind blowing. I mean, it is incredible. And. And I mean to see the way that they reacted to it. I mean, you've got a lot of guys who are people are making fun of Fernando Mendoza's post-game interview. I thought it was amazing. I thought it was what college football is all about. The kid was ecstatic. He was pumped. His voice is cracking. He's smiling ear to ear. That's what I want to see from a college athlete. He wants it. Fernando Mendoza is not playing football because he wants an nil check. Fernando Mendoza is at Indiana winning a championship. Understanding that this is a huge moment and you know he gives glory to God doing it, and I thought it was hilarious just the way to watch his reaction. And I thought, you know, he kind of sounded like a a Hulk Hogan Junior to me. And I love that kind of interview. I don't need you to, you know, give me the coach speak and all that kind of stuff. Let let me see it. Let me see how you feel. And he, he says we're the flipping champs, you know. And I think that's great. Let the kid be happy. I don't know why people are making fun of him about it. And so I think a lot of people will be kind of rooting for Indiana going forward in this, in this playoff. And as far as the game goes, I'm not going to break down a lot of X's and O's in that game. I think we saw that maybe Ohio State's offense isn't what some people might have thought it was. I remarked in the game after Carnell Tate's touchdown, I was said, man. These are Ohio State wide receivers are just so good. They only scored ten points. I mean, you've got those wide receivers and you only scored ten. And part of that is Indiana's defense. Indiana's obviously got a really good defense. But you know I if I'm thinking about picking a national champion and I've got wide receivers like Carnell Tate and Jeremiah Smith, I'd like to see more points, more points than ten. And you know, obviously at the end you have as a college football final would say a college kicker situation. I did not dream that guy was going to miss that field goal. I'm not even I'm not going to bash him here. It just happens. It happens. It's like the yips in baseball. Things like that happen. And so really, no harm done in a lot of ways for Ohio State because they're in the College Football Playoff at ranked second. But that game, to me, it was a Big Ten game. I mean, you have defense. You have low scoring, you know close grinding it out kind of game. And for a lot of people that's probably not very interesting. Um, we're used to a lot of high flying offenses. But you know, it was a great game. And those are two really, really good teams. And I don't know how they're going to stack up against the SEC. The big 12. We're going to find out you know and. But either way, those are two really good teams. And they they earned what everybody thought about them during the regular season. The question will be, does the anemic offense come back to bite them? And I don't I don't think you're going to see that that poor and offensive performance because those are great defenses. Ohio State has a great defense. And you know, I think you're just going to have some games like that. And for Indiana you had guys coming up in big moments. And I know his stat line is not great, but Mendoza played in a way where I said, wow, this kid might win the Heisman. I mean, he already had that play earlier in the season against Penn State. The you know, Gus Johnson's losing it on the call. He's he's coming up big and in big moments. And that's that's the kind of thing that wins you the Heisman. It's not just stats. And I'm not saying I would necessarily give it to Mendoza. Obviously I don't have a vote in it, but I'm just saying he's the type of guy who's coming up clutch, and we'll see if he keeps coming up. Clutch during the during the playoff. So, uh, moving on to the Texas Tech BYU champ big 12 championship game. BYU had an opportunity here to rectify a what we're going to call a a glaring problem on their resume was the 29 seven loss to Texas Tech earlier in the year, and Texas Tech was really, you know, the best team BYU had played you. They they had a great game, beat Utah, be there at good Arizona team but didn't have a real stamp on their resume. And the Texas Tech loss was hurting them. That's why they were ranked 11th coming into coming into the conference championship weekend. So this weekend they really needed to show up. And unfortunately, they're just a they were just overmatched against Texas Tech. Texas Tech is just a better football team than BYU is. And you know it was close early. You're watching the first half. It's kind of back and forth seeing a lot of interceptions. Not not a lot of offensive production there at first. And then in the second half it just gets away from them. I mean you have turnovers. You have Texas Tech? I mean, how many times do you watch Texas Tech and there's some kind of major defensive play and interception and you've you've got great players on Texas Tech. And that's something I'm not sure if the average football fan has has grasped yet is this is not Texas Tech from ten, 15 years ago. It's not Texas Tech from five years ago. Texas Tech isn't losing games 60 to 58 anymore. That that time is is past for Texas Tech. They've really spent aggressively in nil. That was a storyline coming into the season. You were like oh how? How good is Texas Tech going to be? Well, Texas Tech has proved all season long. They're legit now. Yes, they're in the big 12, which no one's gonna argue is the strongest conference in college football. But Texas Tech has been utterly dominant in that conference that they have won loss to a good Arizona State team. Arizona State was in the playoff last year. In that game, which they lost by four points. They didn't have their starting quarterback. The rest of their games. Texas Tech won 12 games by more than 20 points. I mean, they're just blowing teams out and you get a team like BYU, which, you know, maybe people are saying, how good are they? I, I was really suspicious of BYU most of the season when they had that big win against Utah. I thought, okay, okay. They're pretty good. They're good. They're just not Texas Tech good. That defense is real. And you've got guys like Jacob Rodriguez at linebacker, who just won the Bronko Nagurski Award as the nation's best defensive player. Texas Tech is trying to get him to Heisman you know scoring touchdowns. This is a good team. And you know these these they have they have dudes. And this is not the old days where you know the big 12 is just. Throwing the football around. This is a real good football team, and I'm not going out here and picking them for the national championship, but I think they're going to give people some problems in the playoff. And that number four ranking is legitimate. They have earned it. And they are. They are a really good football team. That's going to line up really well against some of these teams that we would think of as Blue Bloods. Y-you you just couldn't get it done. And, you know, I hate that for some teams in the conference championship weekend. But that loss knocked them out of contention for the playoff. There was no way they were going to get in. And you know, you heard BYU coach after the game say I just hope we're on the graphic. And that's kind of where you're at. We all knew BYU was going to be out after that game and then the ACC championship. Let's not forget that the ACC Championship. Thank you, ACC, for always bringing chaos to college football in that game. Because of the way the ACC's tiebreakers were working out and because of how big these conferences are now. Miami was not in the ACC championship game by far the best team probably in the ACC wasn't there. You had Virginia, who had a good season, but Virginia and Duke was your ACC championship matchups. Duke seven and five. We mentioned that on the show last time. I flipped over to that game, and Virginia is driving down the field at the end of the game down down to Duke and comes back. Awesome. Last second touchdown to tie the game. And it's crazy wild ending. We're going to overtime in the ACC Championship game. Kind of like last year. I mean the SMU Clemson game was bonkers last year in the conference championship game. Then you get into overtime and it gets even weirder. You end up with Virginia getting a penalty. They've got a score, you know, from the 40 yard line and they didn't get it done. And Duke wins. Duke wins the ACC championship. And so you've got an eight and five ACC champion not getting into the playoff. And so that sets up the chaos for the College Football Playoff rankings, which I'll talk about in part two of this episode.