BAMANEWSBOT
Staff
We've seen a lot of strange things in the first 23 years of the SEC Championship Game.
Mike DuBose beating Steve Spurrier for the second time in the same season.
Gene Chizik putting the same double whammy on The Head Ballcoach.
Nick Saban making Tim Tebow cry andUrban Meyer sick.
On each memorable occasion, if you didn't see it with your own two eyes right there in the Georgia Dome, you might not have believed it.
But there's one thing that could've, would've and probably should've happened by now on the first Saturday in October - at least once since 1992 - that we've yet to see.
It's a sequel to Auburn vs. Georgia.
Instead, shockingly, the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry has remained a one-and-done annual affair.
Auburn has played in the SEC Championship Game five times, and so has Georgia, but the Tigers and Bulldogs have never gotten there at the same time.
This probably should be the year.
Either that, or the Bulldogs should get a second sniff at Alabama.
You can talk about parity until the Chick-fil-A cows come home, but if the SEC West representative in the Georgia Dome isn't from the state of Alabama for the seventh time in the last eight years, it'll be an upset.
Alabama has the best overall talent in the league, as usual. Auburn has a special quarterback in Jeremy Johnson and a defense to complement its offense. Which means the Iron Bowl promises to be a divisional playoff game for the second time in three seasons.
On the other side of the conference, with Tennessee still rebuilding under Butch Jones and Florida starting over under Jim McElwain, Mark Richt and Georgia should be heavy favorites to win the East for the first time in three years.
I mean, c'mon. What are the odds of Missouri becoming the first SEC East team to reach three straight SEC Championship Games since Spurrier and Florida made it to the first five from 1992-96?
Show me a Georgia offense featuring stud tailback Nick Chubb as a sophomore and a Georgia defense in its second year of improvement under elite coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, and I'll show you a division champion.
Unless, of course, the Bulldogs get bitten during the regular season by both Alabama and Auburn.
Stranger things have happened, many of them in the SEC Championship Game, but come Dec. 5, if this year's extravaganza doesn't feature a rematch between Georgia and Auburn or Georgia and Alabama, something will have gone terribly wrong between now and then for the Dogs, the Tigers or the Tide.
More likely, the three best teams in the league will decide among themselves which two of them get to meet one final time in Atlanta. How much fun will this round robin be?
Alabama 32, Georgia 28 in the 2012 SEC Championship Game was special. Auburn 43, Georgia 38 - a k a "The Prayer in Jordan-Hare" - was unforgettable in 2013, and two weeks later, we witnessed the Mother of All Iron Bowls punctuated by the Kick Six.
These three teams have combined to give us some of the greatest games in college football history in recent memory. Now it's about time for two of them to stage the Mother of All Rematches in the SEC Championship Game.
Don't ask me which two. We'll leave that up to them.
Continue reading...
Mike DuBose beating Steve Spurrier for the second time in the same season.
Gene Chizik putting the same double whammy on The Head Ballcoach.
Nick Saban making Tim Tebow cry andUrban Meyer sick.
On each memorable occasion, if you didn't see it with your own two eyes right there in the Georgia Dome, you might not have believed it.
But there's one thing that could've, would've and probably should've happened by now on the first Saturday in October - at least once since 1992 - that we've yet to see.
It's a sequel to Auburn vs. Georgia.
Instead, shockingly, the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry has remained a one-and-done annual affair.
Auburn has played in the SEC Championship Game five times, and so has Georgia, but the Tigers and Bulldogs have never gotten there at the same time.
This probably should be the year.
Either that, or the Bulldogs should get a second sniff at Alabama.
You can talk about parity until the Chick-fil-A cows come home, but if the SEC West representative in the Georgia Dome isn't from the state of Alabama for the seventh time in the last eight years, it'll be an upset.
Alabama has the best overall talent in the league, as usual. Auburn has a special quarterback in Jeremy Johnson and a defense to complement its offense. Which means the Iron Bowl promises to be a divisional playoff game for the second time in three seasons.
On the other side of the conference, with Tennessee still rebuilding under Butch Jones and Florida starting over under Jim McElwain, Mark Richt and Georgia should be heavy favorites to win the East for the first time in three years.
I mean, c'mon. What are the odds of Missouri becoming the first SEC East team to reach three straight SEC Championship Games since Spurrier and Florida made it to the first five from 1992-96?
Show me a Georgia offense featuring stud tailback Nick Chubb as a sophomore and a Georgia defense in its second year of improvement under elite coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, and I'll show you a division champion.
Unless, of course, the Bulldogs get bitten during the regular season by both Alabama and Auburn.
Stranger things have happened, many of them in the SEC Championship Game, but come Dec. 5, if this year's extravaganza doesn't feature a rematch between Georgia and Auburn or Georgia and Alabama, something will have gone terribly wrong between now and then for the Dogs, the Tigers or the Tide.
More likely, the three best teams in the league will decide among themselves which two of them get to meet one final time in Atlanta. How much fun will this round robin be?
Alabama 32, Georgia 28 in the 2012 SEC Championship Game was special. Auburn 43, Georgia 38 - a k a "The Prayer in Jordan-Hare" - was unforgettable in 2013, and two weeks later, we witnessed the Mother of All Iron Bowls punctuated by the Kick Six.
These three teams have combined to give us some of the greatest games in college football history in recent memory. Now it's about time for two of them to stage the Mother of All Rematches in the SEC Championship Game.
Don't ask me which two. We'll leave that up to them.
Continue reading...
