College Football

Georgia hoping to reclaim its swagger vs. surging Michigan

Published Dec. 29, 2021 6:44 p.m. ET

By RJ Young
FOX Sports College Football Writer

How do you respond after getting your butt kicked?

No. 3 Georgia gets to answer — and, oh, how the Dawgs must want to answer — against No. 2 Michigan on Friday in the Bulldogs' first College Football Playoff appearance in four years.

Michigan is the team of this moment, but Georgia has been the team of this season.

"Breaking the Huddle with Joel Klatt"

Joel Klatt breaks down all the key matchups between Michigan and Georgia in the Orange Bowl.

Before the SEC Championship Game, no one — but no one — dared pick against Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs this season. In the preseason, they were a sexy pick to not only make the CFP but also win the program’s first national title in more than 40 years.

Even with star wide receiver George Pickens sidelined for nearly the entire season, the Bulldogs had "Capital-D Dudes" on both sides of the ball. Only Alabama counts more blue-chip recruits on its roster, and 22% of Georgia's players (19) are former five-stars.

The Orange Bowl (7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN) should hinge on the good-on-good matchup of Michigan's top-10 rushing offense against Georgia's impenetrable run defense. If Hassan Haskins, Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards can't find room on the ground, can Cade McNamara lead Michigan's passing attack against what’s bound to be mostly man-to-man coverage?

That's what it might take to defeat a Bulldogs defense that uses stunts and simulated pressure in its front to confuse not just the quarterback but also the offensive line. Smart explained earlier this season what simulated pressures entail.

"So that means that you bring somebody and drop somebody — some people would call that fire zones," Smart said, "but we call them simulated pressure because it's usually only four guys rushing, or sometimes three guys rushing. They allow you to play simpler coverages where you don't have to get really complicated and worry about a bust."

Cousin Sal likes Georgia in the Orange Bowl

Georgia is favored by a touchdown over Michigan in the College Football Playoff semifinals. Cousin Sal and Clay Travis make their picks for who will win the Orange Bowl.

Another potential wrinkle is the fact that Smart’s team is dealing with a lame-duck defensive play-caller. Oregon coach Dan Lanning will call the defense for UGA on Friday, despite having accepted his new post and hired a staff in Eugene.

For his part, Lanning said he’s locked in to winning the next two games with Georgia.

"West Coast being three hours behind us has given us the opportunity to be able to really focus on Georgia early on during the day, and then, later on at night, [we're] able to get a lot of things accomplished there with our team in Oregon and our staff as we're piecing that together," he said.

In the first 12 games of the season, Smart fielded a generational defense, a unit so stout that it was allowing fewer than seven points per game and likely features 11 starters who will be drafted. Then it met an Alabama team that put a pop-knot on its head large enough for the whole country to see in a 41-17 shellacking in the SEC championship.

Lost in that game, though, was how well Georgia QB Stetson Bennett played (and has played all season), given that no one thought he’d start or finish the year as the starter. Bennett completed 29 of 48 pass attempts for 340 yards with three TDs and two interceptions — career highs in passes, completions and pass yards.

The last time Georgia played in the CFP, Bennett was a redshirt freshman backing up Jake Fromm, Jacob Eason and Justin Fields. Bennett was the only QB of the foursome who chose to walk on at Georgia. All, including Bennett, transferred, except Fromm.

While Eason (Washington) and Fields (Ohio State) left for Power 5 schools, Bennett chose Jones College, a JUCO, in Ellisville, Mississippi. He won the starting job at Jones, led the program to a 10-2 record, a conference title and a Mississippi Bowl win, and then returned to Georgia in 2019.

Still, he was expected to, at best, be the fourth-string QB on the depth chart. Jamie Newman, D’Wan Mathis, JT Daniels and Carson Beck were all rated as better QBs. Yet by 2020, Bennett found himself under center, taking meaningful snaps, and he beat a preseason Heisman candidate (Daniels) for the job.

In many respects, Bennett is a quarterback after Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh’s own heart. Harbaugh has a QB similar in ability and leadership in McNamara.

In fact, Michigan is built similarly to Georgia. The Wolverines' identity rests on running the football and allowing the defense to keep them in games.

"He NEVER takes a down off" — Harbaugh on Hutchinson

Jim Harbaugh joins the "Big Noon Kickoff" crew to talk about Heisman finalist Aidan Hutchinson.

Neither of these teams can rely on its offense to put up 40 a game, and neither wants to. But while Michigan has shown that it’s equal to the task of an aerial attack, stopping the prolific Ohio State offense last month at Michigan Stadium, a question remains as to whether McNamara can summon the kind performance Heisman winner Bryce Young delivered in the SEC title game.

At this point, nearly everyone wearing maize and blue is playing at the highest level the program has reached in two decades. The Broyles Award winner (given to the nation’s top assistant, which went to offensive coordinator Josh Gattis), the Joe Moore Award (given to the nation’s top offensive line) and perhaps even the No. 1 overall selection in the 2022 NFL Draft (defensive end Aidan Hutchison) are all Wolverines.

Add to this that Michigan, the only team to start the season unranked in the preseason AP poll and finish in the College Football Playoff, is led by Harbaugh, the only man in history to serve as head coach of a team that played in the Super Bowl and the CFP, and it’s easy to think of the Wolverines as a team of the moment, if not of destiny.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The No. 1 Ranked Show with RJ Young." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young, and subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube. He is not on a StepMill.