ATLANTA — Talk to some of the key contributors returning from Georgia’s national championship-winning team, and you’ll realize the window for the Bulldogs to celebrate their first title in more than four decades lasted mere nano seconds after the 33-18 win over Alabama in the College Football Playoff National Championship.
“To be honest, the fans are thinking about it [a repeat] after the game,” coach Kirby Smart told CBS Sports during SEC Media Days. “That’s all they can think about. That’s what everybody wants. That’s the way it was every time we won one at Alabama. [The fans] can’t get enough.”
Forbearance is not a quality usually linked to Georgia fans, even after that long-awaited victory.
“It was fast. It was quick,” Georgia linebacker Nolan Smith Jr. said of the do-it-again talk.
“It was probably something like, ‘We can’t wait for you to repeat,’ quarterback Stetson Bennett recalled. “That night.”
Impatience may not be fair at this point, but neither is a shiv from behind — figuratively speaking.
“I’ve told our players: Every time they’re patting you on the back, next year that could be a knife,” Smart said.
All of it is meant to be a description of a natty aftermath, not a deflection. Certainly a repeat is not a demand from Dawg Nation (we think), but it remains a possibility.
It is Smart’s job to keep his program’s focus on the straight and narrow. This the Dawgs’ time, sure, but their followers want it to be all the time. In that sense, nothing has changed in Athens, Georgia. The angst that was alleviated on Jan. 11 in Indianapolis has merely transitioned to a different form of longing.
Great season. Now, what’s next?
Smart knows that. He has lived it, winning four championships as an assistant at Alabama. Two of those accounted for the only repeat in the game in the last 17 years (Alabama 2011-12). But even Smart has to admit this one is different. Life- and career-changing different. As coach of his alma mater, the native son led his school out of a 40-year wandering in the college football desert. The only thing missing that night inside Lucas Oil Stadium was Indianapolis actually being painted red.
Georgia’s first national championship in forever is now 9 ½ months old, but it seems like the offseason has been another forever for Dawg Nation.
“It’s like a satisfaction deal,” Smart said. “As soon as you win one, you move on to the…
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