LATE TUESDAY : Bulldogs take it out on Warriors
Posted on Thursday, January 3, 2008
NEW ORLEANS — After beating up on unbeaten Hawaii, the Georgia Bulldogs sounded a bit miffed about getting passed over for a shot at the national championship.
“We’re No. 1,” Georgia safety Kelin Johnson proclaimed. “We’re supposed to be in the national championship game. The nation knows it, everyone knows it.”
Instead, they got the Sugar Bowl.
Showing off a dazzling array of young talent Tuesday night, Georgia, ranked fifth in the BCS, closed its comeback of a season with a dominating 41-10 rout of Colt Brennan and 10 th-ranked Hawaii.
At every turn, a freshman or sophomore made a huge play for the Bulldogs, be it Knowshon Moreno (two touchdown runs ), Rennie Curran (two sacks ), Matthew Stafford (a touchdown pass ) or Asher Allen (nine tackles, two interceptions ).
While Florida and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow are the early favorites for next season, keep an eye on the Gators’ SEC rival. The Bulldogs certainly provided a tantalizing glimpse of their 2008 potential against Hawaii, which came in seeking perfection and left thoroughly whipped.
“It was the fastest team I’ve probably ever seen,” said Warriors quarterback Colt Brennan, a Heisman finalist whose college career ended with a thud.
Georgia Coach Mark Richt wasn’t about to make any bold predictions, but he conceded the obvious.
“We’re going to return a very good football team,” he said. “We’ll be more of a veteran team than we’ve had in a while. We’ll have some good depth. We’ll have a chance to make a run at it. But so do about six or seven others in our league.”
Georgia closed the season with seven consecutive victories after a sluggish start, the last of them on the very same field where Ohio State will meet LSU in the national title game next Monday.
The Bulldogs (11-2 ) feel they’re as deserving as either of those teams — and they’ll certainly get no argument from Hawaii (12-1 ), which failed to pull off another Boise State Miracle.
Moreno ran for a pair of touchdowns in the opening quarter and the Bulldogs’ swarming defense made life miserable for Brennan, a Heisman Trophy finalist and catalyst for the nation’s highest-scoring team. He was sacked eight times, threw three interceptions and lost two fumbles, one of them recovered for a Georgia touchdown.
After getting slammed to the Superdome turf one last time by Geno Atkins, Brennan staggered to the sideline, his night mercifully done.
The junior had the worst showing of his career in a game played to the finish, going 22 of 38 for just © yards, less than half of his 348-yard average this season.
The Bulldogs led 24-3 by halftime and quickly snuffed out any chance Brennan might lead an improbable comeback, as he did in bringing Hawaii back from a 21-point deficit in their regularseason finale against Washington.
On Hawaii’s first possession after the break, Brennan was sacked by Roderick Battle, then picked off by Allen. The Warriors held, getting an interception of their own on a tipped ball, but that merely set up Brennan for more misery.
Marcus Howard, who spent as much time in the Hawaii backfield as the guys wearing white, sped by tackle Keoni Steinhoff and crashed into Brennan. The ball rolled loose in the end zone and Howard recovered, giving him as many touchdowns as the vaunted run-and-shoot offense that was averaging 46. 2 points a game.
“It just shows it’s not always about offense,” said Howard, who was named the game’s MVP after making three sacks, forcing two fumbles and tipping a pass that was intercepted by teammate Dannell Ellerbe. “Defense wins ballgames, and that’s what happened tonight.”
The senior end played his final college game, but he knows the Bulldogs are sitting pretty for next season.
“They have a great nucleus coming back,” Howard said. “It will be fun to watch them.”
Georgia lobbied for a spot in the title game after the top two teams in the BCS rankings lost on the final day of the regular season. But the Bulldogs, who didn’t even make the SEC championship game, had to settle for their third Sugar Bowl appearance in five years.
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