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SEC Championship Game
Georgia Bulldogs vs Alabama Crimson Tide

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Four

By Don Stone - Football Atlanta

   Oh so close. There was much anticipation of this SEC Championship Game from the Bulldog Nation. A chance to play in the National Championship Game for the first time in 31 years when they did it twice in a row with Herschel Walker, winning the 1980 version.
   That's a long time to wait, but the wait will be a little bit longer as Georgia came up four yards and four points short. A literal last minute drive ended on the four yard line as time ran out on the clock with the Bulldogs driving for the potential winning score. But it was any number of plays throughout the game that brought that result to be. One obvious one was a missed Marshall Morgan 50 yard field goal in the first quarter that would have given the Dawgs three more points needing only another to win the game on that final drive instead of a touchdown.
   Georgia would take a 7-0 lead on second quarter Aaron Murray 19 yard pass to Jay Rome.  The Tide's Eddie Lacy would be a key ingredient in the victory by dominating the UGA defense on the ground including a 41 yard run to tie the game. Another late first half drive put Alabama up 10-7 on a Jeremy Shelley 22 yard field goal.
   The second half started off with the ball bouncing right for Georgia and the crowd in a frenzy making plans for South Beach. The first drive took the Bulldogs 75 yards downfield to retake the lead 14-10 on a Todd Gurley three yard run. The play of the game for the Dawgs came on the next drive resulting in a 10 point turnaround as Alec Ogletree blocked a Cade Walker 49 yard field goal attempt, grabbed it and ran it back 55 yards to give his team a surprising 11 point lead with 6:31 to go in the third quarter. You could see the Georgia fans screaming in collective stunned sense of what could be. Was this actually happening? Could it actually continue?
   The Tide turned, so to speak, from there as Bama would outscore Georgia 22-7 in the final 21 minutes starting with a T.J. Yeldon driven 62 yard drive including a two point conversion dwindle the big lead to 3.
   "Their goal is to line up and play real sound football in all three phases and basically physically maul you -- wear you down and wear you out, make you quit. They've been able to do it most every game they've played," said head coach Mark Richt in his press conference earlier in the week.
   He was right on and you could see it taking effect on the Bulldog defense. "You could see them getting tired," said Bama QB A.J. McCarron after the game.
   The UGA offense needed a sustained drive to give the defense a chance to rest, but could not do so going a quick three and out in just 1:06. The Bama offense would continue to pound on the defense with a powerful 75 drive done entirely on the ground. Lacy gained 32, 15, and 14. Then Yeldon added 14 more on his next two carries letting Lacy finish it off to put the Tide up 25-21. The Bulldog crowd seemed to sense the inevitable.
   But one thing that made this what many consider to be the best SEC Championship Game ever was the never quit attitude of both teams. Murray hit Malcolm MItchell for 17 yards, then a 45 yard bomb to Tavarres King. Gurley would take it the rest of the way for the freshman back's second touchdown and UGA was on top again 28-25 with 12:54 to go.
   I made a comment to 680 The Fan's Chuck Oliver, who was seated at my right in the press box that the down side of that drive was that it happened so quickly. Just as the Bulldogs needed a long sustained drive earlier, they needed it more this time. And, although it resulted in points, the drive took less than a minute more (2:03) than the last failed three and out. The defense again took the field and did a good job forcing Bama to punt. But, Georgia would start their drive backed up at their 8 yard line.
   I feel that this was their best chance to put the game away. With 7:24, they just needed to get that long time consuming drive going punctuated by points.  Two bad things happened instead. They could only get nine yards on still another three and out consuming less than two minutes and the fatigued defense had to get up again with no time to rest.
   The reigning national champions got the ball in good field position on their 45 with 5:36 remaining. "We really wanted to get back to the national championship game again," said McCarron.
   McCarron would go to the air with a 45 yard strike to Amari Cooper putting them up for good by four.
   Georgia still had lots of determination of their own left, but not as much time to go with it. Murray would lead the team down the field needing four to win with just 1:16 on the clock to go 80 yards. Passes of 15 and 26 to Arthur Lynch and 23 to King got them down to the 8 when their was confusion on whether to spike the ball as precious time dwindled from 22 seconds to 9. Instead of the spike, the QB tried to catch the scrambling defense off guard and threw a short pass that was deflected into the surprised hands of Chris Conley who was dropped at the four yard line as the clock went to 0:00 along with the national championship chances of the frustrated and disappointed Bulldog nation.
  A game that would be second guessed filled with what ifs will be looked back at down the road with pride. Georgia had had another great season resulting in the second consecutive SEC Eastern Division Championship including a second straight win over Florida. They had taken what most feel will be the repeating national champions down to the wire giving them all they could handle with a chance to win in the final seconds.
  They picked up the admiration of the Crimson Tide team and coach Nick Saban in the process.
   "I'm going to tell you what, I think it's a crying shame if Georgia doesn't go to a BCS bowl," said Saban, who will take Alabama to its third national championship game in four years. "They should get to go to a BCS bowl game. They played a tremendous game out there today... and could have won at the end just as soon as us. It came down to the last play. So, I mean, it's just ridiculous.
   "I watch these teams that are 7-5 that are talking about they might go to a BCS game because they won their championship?," Saban asked incredulously. "Something's not right here. I just don't think it's fair to the Georgia players, coaches and their institution if they don't go to a BCS game."
   Richt expressed a similar sentiment after the game. "It's up to whoever is deciding and I'm not in charge of that," he said. "But do I think we are worthy of a BCS Bowl? Yes I do. I do."
   The team will have to wait until Sunday evening to find out. It's likely that Florida will move ahead of the team they lost to and take the Sugar Bowl spot leaving the Cotton Bowl, Capital One Bowl or Chick-fil-A Bowl as the destination.