Georgia vs TCU College Football Playoff National Championship Prediction Game Preview
Georgia vs TCU prediction, game preview, odds, how to watch. College Football Playoff National Championship, Monday, January 9, 2023
Georgia vs TCU College Football Playoff National Championship Prediction Game Preview
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Georgia vs TCU How To Watch
Date: Monday, January 9, 2023
Game Time: 7:30 ET
Venue: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
How To Watch: ESPN
Record: Georgia (14-0), TCU (13-1)
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Georgia vs TCU College Football Playoff National Championship 5 Things To Know
– Why Georgia & TCU will win
– CFP National Championship Prediction, What’s Going To Happen, History
– How do you possibly top the College Football Playoff semifinals? TCU’s win over Michigan was as wild and crazy as any massive college football game ever, only to be topped by one of the greatest games in the history of the game with Georgia’s gut-check comeback win over Ohio State.
And now TCU is here. In the College Football Playoff National Championship with a shot that Michigan has never had. Oklahoma hasn’t been in this position. Notre Dame hasn’t, either.
Only six schools – Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, LSU, Ohio State, and Oregon – have played for a CFP national title, and now TCU is added to the list as it tries to become the second No. 3 seed to beat a No. 1. Georgia did that last year with its win over Alabama.
– TCU knows how to do bowl games. With the shocker over the Wolverines, it’s now 5-1 in its last six post-season games, 7-2 in the last nine, and 12-3 in the last 15 going back to 2001.
How amazing is the program in bowls? Those three losses since getting rocked by Texas A&M in the 2001 Galleryfurniture.com were all by seven points or fewer. The team was great under Gary Patterson, and now Sonny Dykes showed he could take things one step further.
1938 was the school’s lone universally acknowledged national championship. The 2022 season’s version has the starting 22 with the speed, playmakers, and ability to pull this off. It was the No. 1 offensive team in the Big 12, it doesn’t make a slew of big mistakes, and no one this season does a better job of figuring out how to land the plane in the final moments of a tight situation.
– Counting College Football Playoff games as bowls, Georgia has been next-level amazing in these things.
Under former head coach Mark Richt, Georgia lost the Gator to Nebraska 24-19 to end the 2013 season, and dropped the 2011 season’s Outback in overtime against Michigan State. When was the last time the program lost a bowl/playoff game by more than a touchdown?
Pitt closed out the 1976 season with a 27-3 win over the late Vince Dooley’s Dawgs in the Sugar.
Since then, Georgia has gone 27-13-2 with all 13 losses by seven points or fewer. Under Kirby Smart, it has won five straight, and the program has gone 7-2 with one defeat coming on Tua-to-DeVonta in overtime of the 2017 season’s CFP national title, and the year after in the Sugar Bowl to Texas.
CFN Experts Picks Georgia vs TCU, NDSU vs SDSU
– Yeah, the 2021 Georgia Bulldogs broke through. It was the first national championship since 1980, but to be extremely nitpicky … it wasn’t a perfect season. Alabama got the 2021 SEC Championship t-shirt and confetti shower.
The 2022 version isn’t as good as last year’s. The defense isn’t as strong, but it’s got a whole bunch of NFL talent. The offense is a bit steadier than it was, QB Stetson Bennett has been way smoother and more confident in his play, and overall, the attack is more productive.
And this year’s team has an SEC Championship and a perfect record so far. Win, and Georgia will be the first back-to-back champion in the College Football Playoff era. Win, and it’ll be the first back-to-back national champion since 2011 and 2012 Alabama.
– There’s no way we’ll be spoiled enough to get a national title game as good as the two College Football Playoff semifinals. It’s just not possible – at least historically.
The first four of these set too high a bar. Ohio State ended up blowing out Oregon 42-20 at the end of the 2014 season, but it wasn’t that bad a game. Alabama and Clemson combined for two all-time classics, and the Bama overtime win over Georgia to end the 2017 season was special.
Last year’s 33-18 Georgia win over Alabama was way tighter and more dramatic than the final score would indicate, but it was also the fourth straight College Football Playoff National Championship decided by 15 points or more.
No pressure, TCU and Georgia. Just put on a terrific show.
– Why Georgia & TCU will win
– CFP National Championship Prediction, What’s Going To Happen, History
NEXT: Why Georgia & TCU Will Win The College Football Playoff National Championship
Why TCU Will Win The College Football Playoff National Championship
TCU can move the ball on the Georgia defense.
The Bulldog D is great, the NFL will be loaded with a fresh batch of players from the program in a few months and over the next couple of years, but it’s not the same.
Even though it was No. 1 in the SEC in total defense and 11th in the nation overall, it can be bombed on.
Most of the time, everyone throws on the Georgia secondary to try keeping up. However, the secondary allowed 200 yards or more in six of the last seven games – Tennessee’s 195-yard day was the outlier – and it has been rocked over the last two outings.
The SEC Championship might have been a blowout, but LSU’s passing attack cranked up over 500 yards through the air, and CJ Stroud was magnificent in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl hitting 68% of his passes for 348 yards and four scores. Georgia’s defense gave up 15 touchdown passes all season, and seven of them came in the last two outings.
TCU can add to that.
This is a fantastically balanced TCU attack with a ton of explosion both on the ground and through the air. No one ran on Michigan this season – Kendre Miller and Emari Demercado didn’t have much of a problem, combining to average close to eight yards per pop as the ground game ran for 263 yards.
No one did anything against the Georgia run defense this year, but Missouri almost pulled off the shocker partly by averaging close to 4.9 yards per carry. Ohio State only ran for 119 yards, but that was enough to help the cause.
Forget the total yards, if TCU averaged 3.5 yards or more per pop, it’ll be doing its job. The deep shots from Max Duggan to Quentin Johnson and company will be there.
However …
Ranking Bowl Games: How Good Were They?
Why Georgia Will Win The College Football Playoff National Championship
Shhhhhhh, we’re talking just between us, right? Let’s keep this quiet because we don’t want to take anything away from what TCU accomplished. So shhhhhhhhhh …
Michigan totally gagged that away.
Awful early play-calling, awful late play-calling – trying to score 18 points with every deep throw – not sticking with the run enough for stretches, three turnovers – and two pick-sixes – for a team that didn’t turn the ball over more than once in any game and gave it away seven times total in the first 13 outings, the defense opting out in the third quarter …
That was nothing like the rock-steady Michigan team that rolled through the season.
And even with ALL of that, it was still a 51-45 final with the Wolverines putting 39 points on the board in the second half.
But all kidding aside, give credit to TCU. The moment was too big for Michigan until it was too late. It wasn’t for TCU.
The Horned Frogs took advantage of every opportunity, hung on for dear life, and found a way to get the job done just like they have all season long. This is a very, very good team about to come out of the tunnel.
But TCU hasn’t dealt with anything like this.
Granted, that rationale went for dealing with the Michigan lines, too, and everything turned out okay. However, Michigan isn’t the defending national champ. As good as that team was, it didn’t have Georgia’s talent.
TCU needed a miracle to get by Baylor, lost to Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship, got a fight from Kansas, and the Michigan game was a battle to the end. In all, the Horned Frog D allowed 185 rushing yards or more five times and 4.7 yards or more per carry in all of them.
Georgia got past the 185-yard mark eight times and averages way over five yards per carry in all of them. Other than the 16-6 win over Kentucky and the sluggish 39-22 victory over Kent State, all of those wins were blowouts.
The Bulldog offense won’t pull a Michigan. It’s not going to get cute, it’ll keep powering away, and it’ll never, ever panic. It’s D won’t get on the bus and leave after halftime, and it’s about to get another great performance out of QB Stetson Bennett as he finishes up against a TCU defense that doesn’t generate enough of a pass rush.
However …
– CFP National Championship Prediction, What’s Going To Happen, History
NEXT: What’s Going To Happen, Georgia vs TCU Prediction, College Football Playoff National Championship History
Georgia vs TCU College Football Playoff National Championship, What’s Going To Happen
Will Georgia be too cocky? Will it take its foot off the gas after thinking it won the national title already with that win over Ohio State?
Maybe a little bit.
It’s so hard to be a repeat national champion.
All of the pressure is on the Georgia sideline, just like it was for Miami in the Fiesta Bowl to end of the 2002 season. Just like it was for USC in the historic Rose Bowl against Vince Young and Texas to close out the 2005 campaign. Just like it was for the 2000 Florida State team in the Orange Bowl against Oklahoma. Just like it was for 1992 Miami in the Sugar Bowl vs Alabama. Just like it was for Alabama in the 2016 season’s College Football Playoff National Championship vs Clemson.
TCU will score, and it’ll come up with a few big plays and good drives to keep up for a while. But Georgia will be far, far more methodical than Michigan was.
If anything, the coaching staff will have drilled into the team’s head that TCU beat the Michigan team that trucked that Ohio State team that came within a missed field goal of making the trip to LA.
Georgia will have a good early burst, TCU will come back, and then around midway through the third quarter the weight of the Georgia talent and lines will start to take over.
It’ll take a little longer than Dawg fans might like, but there won’t be any complaining about the outcome.
Georgia vs TCU College Football Playoff National Championship, Prediction, Line
CFN Prediction: Georgia 44, TCU 23
Line: Georgia -13, o/u: 63.5
ATS Confidence out of 5: 3.5
College Football Playoff National Championship Must See Rating (out of 5): 5
CFN Experts Picks Georgia vs TCU, NDSU vs SDSU
College Football Playoff National Championship History
Jan. 10, 2022 Georgia 33, Alabama 18
Jan. 11, 2021 Alabama 52, Ohio State 24
Jan. 13, 2020 LSU 42, Clemson 25
Jan. 7, 2019 Clemson 44, Alabama 16
Jan. 8, 2018 Alabama 26, Georgia 23 OT
Jan. 9, 2017 Clemson 35, Alabama 31
Jan. 11, 2016 Alabama 40, Clemson 34
Jan. 12, 2015 Ohio State 42, Oregon 20
