Most of us grew up watching Disney movies, many of which tell stories of the little guy navigating the impossible to achieve a dream. Even as adults we are romantic about stories of the underdog, the Davids versus Goliaths, the Cinderellas. We crave it. We so want to believe that they are true.
That’s what made some of us inexplicably predict that TCU would beat Georgia in Monday night’s national title game. People suspended reality, ignored the talent advantage, and looked away from the simple fact that TCU might have two players on their roster who would start for Georgia. To hell with reason. The unthinkable is more magical than the obvious.
TCU was Cinderella.
Georgia is the clock striking midnight.
Georgia 65. TCU 7.
There is good news for Disney lovers, however. There is still a feel-good story here. It’s just a shame many don’t see it because it’s on the Georgia side, the reigning national championship team loaded with five-star prospects. But there it is.
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📺: @espn #GoDawgs | #National Championship
— Georgia Football (@GeorgiaFootball) January 10, 2023
Last year, Georgia won its first national title since 1980, led by a quarterback who ranked outside the 247Sports Composite top 2,500 during his high school days. Stetson Bennett walked to Georgia, took the junior college route, then returned to Athens and worked his way up. He felt throughout last season that he was a bad half of football after being ripped off. Against all odds, Bennett led Georgia past the sport’s true villain – Alabama – to win the national title in a game that featured thrilling and realistic moments. It was a feel-good story, right?
Call it Cinderella 2. Or, Cinderella too.
Bennett came back this year and did it again. But look at the others who showed up for Georgia in the national title game. Bennett scored six touchdowns in the game, of course. But what about Ladd McConkey? He’s a former three-star wide receiver who ranked outside the top 1,000 for the Class of 2020. He contributed as a redshirt freshman receiver in 2021 before becoming the top wide receiver as a sophomore. On Monday night, he caught five passes for 88 yards and two touchdowns in the national championship game. What about receiver AD Mitchell? He ranked outside the top 350 in high school and scored a touchdown in that game.
May it forever crush the idea that only little guys develop talent. Kirby Smart is a recruiting genius who has built a loaded roster with 68 top prospects across 85 exchanges. But he and his staff are incredible talent evaluators, so much so that even the few non-blue chip players on their roster show up on college football’s biggest stage.
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Believe it or not, Georgia is also a development program. Most of that development comes with players who are just better right away, but development is development.
The main talking point all week has been how TCU has developed its talent. And there’s a lot of truth in that. What Sonny Dykes has done with this TCU team this year is just as impressive – maybe more? – than what Smart did with his. TCU is a program that is well set up for the future, especially considering how it has proven how quickly the right coach can turn a roster around in a year if they use the transfer portal effectively. Dykes has established himself as one of the top 10 coaches in college football this year. Honestly, that might not even be a debate.
But development? Here’s what Smart had to say about it during a media session on Saturday.
“Nobody knew who AD Mitchell was, what AD Mitchell had to offer,” Smart said. “AD Mitchell was more of a practice tape that he kept sending us. It’s a unique situation. He’s very different from Brock (Bowers). Brock was nationally recruited, very well “But every situation is different. Our footprint is really good. When you look at our last game MVPs, Stetson Bennett and Javon Bullard, neither of them were very heavily drafted. They’re players from the state, from very good high school players. Look at Ladd McConkey, he was an upstate kid. Wasn’t heavily recruited. Our footprint is what our footprint is. We’re looking for players that we think fit our culture. And that’s more important than where they’re from.
And what about these “development programs”?
“Don’t all programs recruit equally? The truth lies somewhere in the middle,” Smart said. “It’s a story that is broadcast. But I talk about it all the time to our players. Our best players on our team are not our highest rated players. We have four or five guys that weren’t (highly rated). They are very good footballers. TCU has a team full of very good football players. And I watch these guys play and how they play is so much more important than worrying about high school. We do not care?
“Our players respect the football players, and they respect the football players on our team, whether they are two or three stars.”
Smart will tell you that it doesn’t care about star ratings, and it does. He had the vision to take McConkey. He had the vision that helped Bennett reach his potential. But what he really cares about are good football players, which is why his roster is full of four- and five-star prospects. He may not look at recruitment profiles before deciding to offer, but these recruitment profiles are clear indications of ability.
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And we saw that ability from five-star prospects on Monday night. We’ve also seen it in Georgia’s three-star list.
Georgia is a monster. We all should have seen it coming because the teams with the best players win. That’s what ‘Stars Matter’ stands for.
It’s no disrespect to TCU, but the Horned Frogs — as amazing as they’ve been this year — enjoyed a hugely advantageous path to this stage. Typically, a team must win its conference championship game, a college football playoff semifinal, and the national title game to win it all. But TCU lost the Big 12 Championship Game and didn’t face a monster like Georgia in the first round. Michigan was also a very good football team this season, but nowhere near that Georgia team.
TCU is more like Washington or Cincinnati than Georgia. And the Horned Frogs were lucky not to have to face Alabama in the semifinals. This match, for most years, would have been the explosive semi-final we all watch before two titans square off in the national title match. In reality, the national title game was played on New Year’s Eve between two teams equipped from a talent standpoint to hang on to this game.
So, as TCU marched toward the sport’s biggest milestone, many of us put the facts aside and wanted to believe. TCU was four football quarters away from winning a national title.
In reality, TCU was so much further than that. The talent gap was too big for him to even be competitive.
We didn’t get the Disney movie this year, even though Disney owns ESPN.
But we had a movie.
Georgia is the new king of college football because they’re recruiting – and grows – tirelessly.
(Photo by Stetson Bennett: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
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