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On The Record: Georgia Will Beat Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl

by Christopher McIntosh
01/01/2008

In what can only be described as an anticlimactic end to both seasons, the University of Georgia Bulldogs will beat the University of Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl.

Hawaii's dream of an unbeaten record and Boise State like credibility - gone.

The obvious running subplot here (as if there were only one) is which school had the better argument for playing for a national championship. Hawaii, with the only undefeated record in I-A football (I know it's FBS, but lends itself to too many cheap jokes, see I made one without even trying), or is it UGA - a team that watched OSU jump two spots without playing while they actually fell despite doing nothing more dangerous than sit on our couches and root for Pitt to pull off the improbable and OU to do the, well, probable.

Subplots aside, this game goes to the Dawgs. I don't know the score, but I don't see Hawaii winning.

Every wiseguy in the country saw this game come out and asked one question, "What's the moneyline on Hawaii?" Then they went back and checked the stats. Two wins against 1-AA teams. Two wins in OT against poor WAC competition. And I don't mean that as a redundancy to demonstrate just how bad the WAC was, the WAC was a bad conference, but Hawaii needed OT to beat two bad teams in the WAC. They beat Nevada with a last second field goal to come from behind and save their season. They beat the Broncos, but Boise State this year was not the Boise State of last year (although they still have the Smurf Turf and watching Georgia Tech get smoked on it was pretty satisfying even though the UGA-GT rivalry is pretty much dormant until GT can ramble their wreck to a win for what would be the first time this century). BSU beat no one and lost to Washington. Hawaii's win over BSU - irrelevant since they'd both pretty much played the same schedule - wasn't even that great as Ian Johnson wasn't right.

To be honest, I even thought about looking at the moneyline.

Then I remembered a couple of things. Okay, I remembered one big thing.

UGA is from the best conference in the country, has the record to prove it, and is on an unbelievable roll.

Hawaii... isn't.

Yes, I'll be scared to see if our secondary (and linebackers, hell, even some of our lineman) can cover their wideouts, but ultimately, I'm not too worried. We've got speed. We've always got speed. Question is, as the VW poster that hung over my dad's desk in the 1980s asks, "it's not how fast you go, it's how well you go fast."

I think this game will be pretty much decided by the end of the first quarter. If our receivers and tight ends can get picked out by Stafford, then it's over. They'll have to lineup with fewer than 7 in the box and we're off to the races - or should I say Moreno and Thomas Brown are off to the races. If not, they stack up on our smallish backs (okay, they're [redacted] tiny, I was just being nice) and while Knowshon especially has the ability to eke out extra yards like no other first year I've seen, when four 300 pound Samoans are falling on you, it ain't good.

I'll expect a lot of play-action early (and often if we can catch the ball) and double moves, hoping to use Hawaii's inexperience and aggression against them.

Hawaii should come out and just be Hawaii. Which I think will hurt them. June Jones is a spectacular coach, without a doubt, but the players still have to execute. I think they may believe that they can just throw it all over the field on UGA without having to make any real adjustments.

That'd be a mistake.

Some things to remember.

Matt Stafford is not Colt Brennan. He's not a senior, he's not a walk-on, and he's not packing the gaudy numbers. Smart money, however, is that he'll be a better overall quarterback than Colt. If you're a UGA fan, you're hoping the Sugar Bowl might be a coming out party.

The WAC has not done well so far in bowl games. Boise State lost to East Carolina. Fresno won on the blue field against GT who, as has been amply demonstrated during Richt's reign, is a paper tiger. The SEC has held serve against FSU and Colorado - UGA even beat Kentucky earlier this season prior to their appearance versus FSU.

Last, but not least - the blackout. Brilliant the first time we rolled it out. Black shirts in the stands, black shirts on the field, makes everyone feel like they're part of something special.

There's one other bit of brilliance to the move. I can't prove it and I don't know it (although I do know some UH chirpers are going to point out they wear white all the time - I know). Here's what I do know. Every time I've seen them on TV they've worn... black. They're a team known as the warriors who do a literal war dance before games to psych themselves up. I think Richt rolled out the black shirts for only the second time in his career partially as a good luck charm, but also to try and steal Hawaii's mojo.

Ultimately, unless you're a UGA fan, I don't think this game is going to be very interesting. UGA is going to show they can both score against a bad defense and hold Hawaii as low as need be.

Georgia wins.

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