Georgia Knocks Off Alabama to Win National Championship

“I can tell you what, there’s going to be some property torn up in Indianapolis tonight,” Georgia Coach Kirby Smart said on the field afterward, a nod to the touchdown call by Larry Munson, the former Georgia broadcaster who died in 2011, after the miraculous Buck Belue-to-Lindsay Scott touchdown pass against Florida that kept Georgia’s unbeaten season alive 41 years ago.

If Monday night was celebrated in some quarters as a moment of Southeastern Conference supremacy — Georgia became the conference’s third different team to win in the last three seasons — the field goal fest may well have been another reason for those outside the South to begin clicking off their TV sets well before the confetti landed.

This season’s semifinals were the second- and third-lowest rated broadcasts in the playoff’s eight seasons and if it is due in part to SEC fatigue, there may be more of the same to come. Earlier Monday, the College Football Playoff management committee once again failed to come to an agreement that would expand the field and perhaps spice up the tournament.

But if you were an old-school purist, who appreciated battles in the trenches and didn’t mind seeing quarterbacks getting dirtied, this was your game. The teams combined for seven sacks, 14 tackles behind the line of scrimmage and umpteen jarring hits. Neither team breached the end zone until Georgia’s Zamir White bulled in from 1 yard out with just over a minute remaining in the third quarter, giving the Bulldogs their first lead, 13-9.

That score seemed to open up the game.

Alabama kicker Will Reichard booted his fourth field goal, a 21-yarder early in the fourth quarter, and then linebacker Christian Harris turned in what looked like a game-turning play, drilling quarterback Stetson Bennett IV deep in Georgia territory. The ball squirted from Bennett’s hand as he threw and was ruled a fumble that bounced into the hands of safety Brian Branch as his foot was millimeters from the out-of-bounds line at the Georgia 16.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/sports/georgia-alabama-score.html