ATLANTA — So it turns out that conference championships between two playoff-bound teams still carry a lot of meaning … especially if one of those teams looks a lot different after the game than before.
Almost to the day a year ago, the college football world learned that sometimes being undefeated isn’t good enough to make the playoffs if you lose your starting quarterback in the process. Georgia isn’t undefeated, not even close, and the Bulldogs also lost Carson Beck, their starting quarterback, in the SEC Championship. How will Beck’s injury affect Georgia’s playoff chances going forward?
Georgia eliminated any need for a CFP selection committee decision by winning the SEC Championship 22-19 in OT over error-prone Texas. While Georgia is unlikely to fall out of the No. 2 spot due to its strength of schedule, it is possible. And it’s still an open question to what extent Beck is injured.
Beck was hurt on the final play of the first half, a messy sack and fumble that nearly ended up as a Texas touchdown. Beck remained lying on the field for several seconds after taking the sack.
Late in the half, three Georgia quarterbacks began warming up on the sideline, and none of them were Beck. Stockton, the backup gunner, got the nod and immediately led Georgia’s motivated offense to the team’s first touchdown of the afternoon. Later in the third quarter, Stockton again led the Bulldogs deep into Texas territory, and Georgia extended its lead to 13-6 with a field goal in the final seconds of the third quarter.
Texas, for its part, faced two foes Saturday: Georgia and its own repeated fouls and penalties. Texas penalties kept Georgia in the game in the first half, denying two interceptions and a field goal. Texas mistakes, including two missed field goals, gave Georgia’s sideline hope and the largely pro-Georgia crowd in Atlanta motivated.
And then the fourth quarter came and these two teams remembered that they were playing for the championship of the mighty Southeastern Conference. Texas struck first, evening the score at 13 on Quinn Ewers’ dart to DeAndre Moore for 41 yards and a touchdown.
On the very next drive, Georgia pulled off a flawless, gutsy fake punt on fourth-and-five, picking off a napping Longhorn defense for a nine-yard run. Georgia fumbled the ball twice and recovered it twice. Georgia controlled the ball for 9:22 of the fourth quarter, covering 72 yards in 16 plays, but couldn’t quite get the ball going and had to settle for a field goal to make it 16-13.
So the ball got into Ewers’ hands with 4:32 left and the SEC championship on the line … and Ewers immediately threw the ball right into the hands of Georgia’s Daylen Everette. That meant Everette caught Ewers in the afternoon and gave Stockton an opportunity to bleed clock.
But then Stockton’s inexperience showed to devastating effect. On a broken play, he picked off a pass toward the Texas sideline that ended up in the hands of Texas’ Jahdae Barron. This gave Ewers another chance to prove himself. He converted on a clutch 4th-and-4 with just over a minute left in the game, and his pass out of the end zone to Ryan Wing caused a critical pass interference on Georgia that sent the ball to the Georgia 14 with 35 seconds left.
Ewers couldn’t put the ball in the end zone, and that meant Texas’ fate would hinge on the boot of Bert Auburn, who had already missed twice. His 36-yard attempt sailed wide to tie the game at the 16 with 18 seconds left.
In overtime, Texas took the ball first. Ewers misfired on pass after pass out of the end zone, and once again the Longhorns had to settle for a field goal attempt. Auburn converted again, this time from 27 yards out, to give the Longhorns a 19-16 lead.
That put the ball back in Stockton’s hands. After leading the Bulldogs down to the Texas 12, he took off and ran the ball himself, taking a hard hit from Texas’ Andrew Mukuba at the 4-yard line that cleared his helmet. One play later, Trevor Etienne forced a fumble into the end zone for a 22-19 Georgia victory. (Beck entered the field to make the game-winning pass, but was noticeably uncomfortable.)
The question now for Georgia is how Beck is injured and what effect that might have on the perception of the Bulldogs. Injuries and speculative effects shouldn’t affect a school’s seeding … but as 2023 showed, injuries can derail an entire season’s work in the eyes of the CFP selection committee.
Last year, Florida State finished the regular season undefeated and won the ACC Championship despite losing quarterback Jordan Travis to a season-ending injury. In choosing the members of the four-man bracket, the College Football Playoff selection committee decided that Travis’ absence made Florida State a significantly worse team and instead selected Alabama as the fourth seed.
Georgia didn’t suffer an immediate loss of quality after Beck left the game; indeed, the Bulldogs looked much sharper in the third quarter around Stockton than they did in the first half around Beck. But the final tackle in the fourth quarter was a brutal blow that allowed Texas to tie the game and force overtime. Fortunately for Georgia and Stockton — and unlike last week’s eight-overtime win against Georgia Tech — the Bulldogs only needed one overtime to erase that mistake and claim the SEC title.