5 reasons it’s OK that Georgia won the national championship

There was a map that showed up on Twitter last week that showed which team each state was rooting for in the national championship game. According to this map, the state of Florida was rooting for Georgia.

Of course, we all know better. Florida fans have been rubbing that 41-year drought in the noses of Bulldog fans as if they just made an inside poop and need to be punished.

That’s over now – the drought beat the dynasty by finally having a team that was just too good. And this has caused the Gator Nation to feel this week like it was another loss in a season that already had seven of them.

But it’s not all bad.

I mean, it’s not like FSU won it.

There are some slurs you will have to retire, but really, the more distance you put between you and that game, the better you will feel. In fact, I’ll give you five good reasons you shouldn’t feel that bad.

The SEC East is back

Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports

Hey, forget that regular-season record (it was an ugly 4-10 East vs. West) or that Alabama won the SEC Championship Game making it 12 of 13 since Florida won the thing in 2008. Forget all of that. The East has the king of 2021 in its division.

You may say that only reflects well on Georgia, but I can say the Bulldogs were steeled by a conference schedule that included six East opponents. OK, I may be stretching it, but at least the East has the beast for once. It’s been a while.

And it sure is going to sell a lot of tickets in both Columbias and Lexington when the Dawgs come to town this season.

Katie bar the door

OK, we’re not saying that Katie Turner won a national championship for Georgia.

But she certainly contributed to the building of that program.

And now she wears orange and blue, poached out of Athens to be the assistant athletic director for recruiting strategy.

Everywhere she has been, recruiting has taken an uptick.

The Mailman

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Stetson Bennett is a great story and if you can’t sit back and enjoy it you have too much rage in your body.

A former walk-on who was constantly vilified by his own fans for being too short and not good enough. And to see him get that emotional on the field, well, you had to feel good for him

The dude took a slug from a $6,000 bottle of bourbon before going on “Good Morning America” so I have no problem with him. He beat out the Heisman winner in the most important game of the year and there are a lot of players on this campus who could learn from him.

Nobody is saying you should have been rooting for Georgia in that game. We’re just saying it’s OK to be like the story, especially because it dispelled the notion that you have to have a great quarterback if you can build around his flaws.

Good people deserve good things

Joshua L. Jones/Athens Banner-Herald

There were so many people that I was happy for Monday night even though I was not happy with the result.

It starts with Claude Felton, the best sports information guy in the business who might have been on the phone pumping up a player the day after it was invented.

I texted Will Muschamp the next day. He’s one of my favorite people in the world. You can hate me for that all you want, but I love the guy. Just not where he went to school (but he only went there because Florida wouldn’t take him).

I have a brother-in-law Dick who is a big Georgia guy. He’s terrific. I was happy for him. And a few other friends, including Georgia legend Buck Belue, who were popping corks Monday night.

There are a lot of great Georgia fans. Think about them and how they have been wandering in the desert for so long instead of thinking about the ones who barked at you and threw chicken bones at your car at last year’s game and hung a stuffed Gator off the bumper.

Those… not happy for.

Alabama lost

Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports

There was a crowd shot near the end of the game that showed all of these Alabama fans in sad disbelief, and while I have a lot of respect for the program and for Nick Saban, it was nice to see them humbled.

And they were really humbled because Saban’s win streak against the SEC East was stopped at 34 games and that whole “Saban’s assistants can’t beat him” narrative can be tossed out the window since two of them did this year.

So, there’s that. Alabama fans are miserable. More miserable than Gator fans who just went 6-7.

You’re welcome.

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