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Olivia Sayer
Scenes from the 2024 SEC Championship NCAA football game between Georgia and Texas at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. Georgia won 22-19. (Photo/Laney Martin, @LaneyMartinPhotography)
Georgia football’s path to the national championship is set. After beating Texas on Saturday night in the SEC championship, the Bulldogs will face the winner of Indiana at Notre Dame on January 1 at 8:45 p.m. EST in the Sugar Bowl.
Georgia received arguably the most favorable path to the national championship, as it avoids playing Texas — for a third time — Ohio State, Oregon, Tennessee and Clemson until the final game. The Bulldogs also received a first round bye as one of the top-four highest seeded conference champions.
“We’ve got a lot of time to work on ourselves and try to get better,” head coach Kirby Smart told the media on Sunday. “And that’s the biggest thing right now, is what’s important now, and what’s important now is for us to keep trying to challenge ourselves and find ways to get better.”
The Bulldogs, who lost both quarterback Carson Beck — to what Smart clarified as an elbow injury — and punter Brett Thorson on Saturday, could use the time off. Smart said both had MRIs this morning, but he has not received the results. If Beck and Thorson are unable to play, the time off will be valuable for providing Georgia’s backups with reps.
“There’s no good script for losing a quarterback or having to go to your backup,” Smart said. “But this situation does give you time if that’s what has to happen. There is time there, but experience is so valuable, and you can’t really get experience in this amount of time.”
Georgia is 3-0 against Notre Dame, with its biggest win coming in the 1981 Sugar Bowl. There, the Bulldogs beat the Fighting Irish 17-0 to complete a perfect 12-0 season and win their second national championship in program history.
Georgia has never faced Indiana. The Hoosiers are 11-1 under first year head coach Curt Cignetti this season with their lone loss coming to Ohio State 38-15. Smart coached with Cignetti at Alabama from 2007-2010 and said he “enjoyed being around him.”
“I thought it was awesome to see some of [Indiana’s] games on a national stage this year and their team transform the whole campus and energy around their program,” Smart said.
Should Georgia win its quarterfinal matchup, it will play No. 3 Boise State, No. 6 Penn State or No. 11 SMU on January 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the Orange Bowl.