Georgia Bulldogs Fans: Join up with On3's DawgsHQ Like I Did
This Dawgs football team gave Georgia Bulldogs fans everything they asked for since 1981.
Faith now marks a fan-team relationship once driven by hope. I spoke recently with College Football Hall-of-Famer Matt Stinchcomb, and couldn’t help but appreciate how he described that four-letter ‘H’ word:
“Hope is just a fancy word for torture,” the Damn Good Dawg told me and Marty Smith on our Outsider podcast.
Georgia fans no longer have to rely on ‘fancy torture.’ If you aren’t a Georgia Bulldogs fan, or if you haven’t watched this team over the past few decades, then you’ll just have to trust me.
The Bulldog Nation saw some pretty intricate methods of torment before this 2021 football season.
Now, the wish is realized. The faith that it can not only happen, but maybe even happen again, fuels most of this fanbase.
Some, meanwhile, are addicted to those old torture devices. They panic about players leaving for the draft. Some write doomsday tweets about the transfer portal. They criminally under-appreciate a head coach’s decision to stick with a championship quarterback.
Two weeks after their first national championship since astroturf, they wring their hands over his return.
While I disagree with all of those people, that’s what makes Georgia Bulldogs fans objectively special.
Some of it is a whole lot of Larry Munson still hangin’ around.
Some of it is just stupid social media discourse. All of it is part of the Bulldog experience.
I’ve seen this team as a reporter: Rose Bowl Highs and 2nd-and-26 lows.
Before that professional era in my life, and since, I’ve seen it as a fan: 2010 Liberty Bowl lows, and 2021 hope-fulfilling highs. It’s a perspective I appreciate, and can’t wait to share as a member of On3’s Dawgs HQ team.
I wanted to wait until after the parade to write about Georgia’s 2021 National Championship season.
The trip to Indianapolis filled the heart of every Bulldog fortunate enough to go – and unfortunate enough to stare down the resulting credit card statement.
The ceremony, pomp and circumstance in Athens, Ga. officially placed the crown jewel back into Uga’s spike collar for the first time in… well, you know how long.
I don’t usually pray for sporting event outcomes. God has enough going on. As I sat in my rental car at an Indianapolis red light Monday morning before the game, though, I offered a little something up to the Almighty.
“Lord,” I said in that full-size Mitsubishi rental, “If You do care about sports. And if You do care about Georgia, and its players, coaches and fans, then please make this win possible tonight. If You don’t care, and the Dawgs lose to Alabama again, then there won’t be any hard feelings between You and me. I just think this is much bigger than a football game for a lot of people down here in the red and black. You don’t need to show me a miracle for me to believe You’re up there. I just figured I’d ask. Thanks.”
Maybe He doesn’t care about sports and the Georgia Bulldogs.
Maybe Stetson Bennett, a generational defense, and a bunch of freshmen contributors met at the perfect intersection of talent and opportunity.
Or maybe He does care. And I just haven’t been praying enough.
Moments after Kelee Ringo sealed Stetson and the gang’s special delivery, I looked up from the tears I’d leaked all over the people in front of me and said one more prayer through the roof of Lucas Oil Stadium. It was a lot shorter than the one in the rental car earlier.
“Thank you. I never doubted you.”
And I didn’t. The whole game, through some magical combination of Tito’s vodka, shocking naivete, and faith*, I knew Georgia was going to win this time.
(*As much as I hated to see Jameson Williams injure his knee, I would be lying if I said his exit from the game didn’t significantly increase that faith.)
Georgia fans hoped for long enough. Kirby Smart had to win a national championship with Nick Saban across the field from him for all of those Dawg people to have faith.
Every Alabama redzone trip that ended in a field goal attempt built faith in all those Bulldogs in the building.
George Pickens – months removed from ACL rehab – diving to catch a Stetson Bennett deep ball, built faith.
Two number 5’s scoring in the same endzone – AD Mitchell and Kelee Ringo – built faith.
Kirby Smart referencing Larry Munson in his trophy acceptance speech built faith.
A whole lot of you had your faith restored in what it means to be a Georgia Bulldog. From Sanford Stadium to Stegeman Coliseum, Foley Field, down Milledge Avenue and beyond. To all of Bulldog Nation from Rabun Gap to Tybee Light and Hartwell to Bainbridge:
We’re for this community, and we’re in it with you.
This is an extraordinary time to believe in the Dawgs. We’ll have takes on them that you like, and some with which you’ll disagree. Whatever the case, you’ll always have a place to voice your own.
Thank you to all of the Georgia Bulldogs fans who placed some of that newfound faith in DawgsHQ. If you haven’t already, go ahead and sign up to be a part of it like I did.
Let’s chop some wood. Build some boats. And burn them. That’s what people are doing around here these days, right?
