SEC Championship Game
Saturday December 3
1st ranked LSU vs. 17th ranked Georgia
Here we are: the final game of the season. It all comes down to this. If people still played marbles and knew the rules, a writer more apt for using clichés than myself might deem this game as being for all the marbles. It cannot possibly get any bigger than this. The most prolific conference in America pitting its East champion against its West champion for the right to call itself the best in the SEC. This game means...uh, hmm. Well, you see, to be honest, nationally speaking, this game means very little. Just don’t tell anyone.
For this game to mean anything at all above conference pride and trophy engraving, LSU must lose. If LSU wins, nothing changes. They will be on their way to the BCS National Championship as the number one team in the nation. Their undefeated season will be on the line in a rematch of their November fifth tilt against Alabama. Some people will find this deeply infuriating. LSU has already beaten Alabama. Why would they need to do it again to gain the crown? They would clamber for a different matchup, a cry that would fall on deaf ears.
A Georgia loss would halter quite an impressive run but wouldn’t totally ruin their season. Mark Richt has already done more than enough to save his job after their 0-2 stumble to start the season. An SEC Championship game loss would send Georgia to one of the second tier bowl games. Current College Sports Madness projections pit it as the Outback Bowl as things stand now. It would be a fine ending to a surprisingly efficient and nice season for the Bulldogs and no one is expecting the alternative.
So if LSU wins, a matchup against Alabama in the nation title game is guaranteed. The problem comes if LSU loses. You see, if the Tigers fall to Georgia, they are most certainly still going to play against Alabama in the national title game. Besides the folks in Athens, Georgia and the minority of LSU fans who actually care about hoisting a conference title trophy, no one will really cares about the outcome here because the primary result will be the same.
An LSU loss would make them 12-1 with monstrous wins over Oregon, West Virginia, Auburn, Arkansas and that all important Alabama game. Who has a better resume than that? In fact, if LSU loses to this highly ranked, highly regarded Georgia team, they might not even drop out of the number one spot. They currently rank first unanimously in all the human polls as well as in the computers. How can anyone drop a one loss LSU team below a one loss Alabama team if the head to head game still remains in the Tigers’ favor? It seems more than likely an SEC Championship defeat does little harm to LSU other than lightens their trophy case by one.
Of course the game matters just a bit to Georgia. A win would place them in a BCS bowl and set up an interesting turn of events. In all likelihood, three SEC schools would then make BCS bowls, going against a commonly assumed rule. Most people are under the assumption that no more than two schools from the same conference can make BCS bowls in any given year. However, there is apparently a caveat to that which I myself was not aware of until just a few short weeks ago. If two schools finish first and second in the nation and neither wins their conference, they can play for the BCS championship while their third conference peer plays in whatever other BCS bowl is awarded to them. Thus, Georgia could play in the Fiesta Bowl or Sugar Bowl while LSU still goes on to face Alabama for the title.
In summation, Georgia has a great quarterback, surprisingly good defense and probably no shot at winning this game. But even if they come out victorious, it really concerns no one outside of their own locker room.
Week 14 Football Game Breakdowns
