» College Football, Week 5: Let's Make a Pact

[If you’re looking for words about Lane Kiffin’s firing, click here.]

There’s something about certain college teams that certain pro sports franchises will never be able to emulate. Maybe you were born into your allegiance and your parents were, too, or maybe you shipped off to your alma mater sight unseen and its teams just got their claws into you at a vital formative stage of your existence. However you arrived at your cheering interest, if you want to, you’re practically guaranteed the ability to hold on to it for life, with the chance to pass it on to your children. The odds are astronomically against your FBS football program being disbanded; no callous owner is going to threaten to move your university to London if nebulous thresholds for ticket sales aren’t met. This inextricably embeds college identities into the landscape of the communities they inhabit, and the osmosis works both ways, with deeply regional streaks of localized weirdness affecting how college programs are regarded and celebrated.

With that kind of genetic history driving fandom, it’s so easy to feel 12 to 14 times a year like college football games are the end of the world or herald the dawn of a new golden age. The brevity of the season gives each contest greater urgency, and with that comes the race to hyperbole. One for the record books is quantifiable. Instant classic is not; it presumes full knowledge of what will stand the test of time and survive the changing tastes of the ages, and is applied too liberally, which only cheapens the classification.

You’re going to hear Saturday’s LSU-Georgia tilt called “a classic” a lot. The thing is, in this case, everybody who’s saying so is absolutely correct. We promise you never to abuse the term, and we promise you now that we’re using it in earnest.

We Went There: No. 9 Georgia 44, no. 6 LSU 41

“That had to be fun for America to watch,” said Mark Richt in his postgame remarks, and he, too, was not exaggerating. An aggressively beautiful day, even for Athens. A riotously loud, packed stadium. Two top-10 teams led by quarterbacks on campaigns to best their on-field reputations. An SEC-unseemly display of scoreboard histrionics. Possible conference and national title bids at stake, possibly. Breath-snatching action, fourth-quarter lead changes, late-game heroics, and postgame tears. A curtain call for the home team in the deepening twilight. Short of LSU’s live tiger mascot breaking free of his enclosure in a postgame fit of temper and ransacking a nearby exotic bird facility, there’s so little left to want that we were not given Saturday afternoon. (Next year, Mike. Next year.)

There was no chance for Zach Mettenberger and Aaron Murray to live up to their QB1 reunion show billing, until they did, padding their highlight reels with plays like Mettenberger’s throw in triple coverage to Jarvis Landry and Murray’s 33-yard third-quarter connection with Chris Conley that’s simply jotted down in our notes as “HOW IN THE HELL.” Mettenberger’s 372-yard aerial output was a career high, as were Landry’s 156 receiving yards. Murray has broken several records already this season and is chasing more, sitting at second in Georgia history in career passing yardage and second in conference history in total offense.

Georgia’s unfortunately nicknamed Gurshall rushing tandem was once again separated by injury, with Todd Gurley sidelined early on a hurt ankle, but Keith Marshall executed a dramatic save with a career day of his own. Marshall’s personal-best 20 rushing attempts for 96 yards made up nearly half of the Bulldogs’ 196-yard rushing output. LSU’s Jeremy Hill experienced a turnaround of his own, in forward-yardage fortunes, contained to just 86 yards on 21 carries. This does count as an off day for Hill, who recorded 183 yards on 25 carries last week, and 117 on 11 the week before.

This brings us around to the bewildering display by Georgia’s defense, which did that to Hill while also graciously extending the Bayou Bengals 449 yards’ worth of hospitality, and which coupled magnificently timed sacks in the game’s waning minutes with allowing LSU to score both of its fourth-quarter touchdowns running the same play. As unaffiliated third-party observers, this isn’t a complaint. Without Georgia’s defense holding LSU back on first and second downs, we wouldn’t have been treated to, in chronological order:

• Mettenberger throwing a 48-yard touchdown pass on third-and-7
• Hill breaking loose for a 16-yard gain on third-and-1
• Mettenberger throwing a 39-yard touchdown pass on third-and-9
• Mettenberger completing a 25-yard pass on third-and-10
• Mettenberger completing a 25-yard pass on third-and-22

That’s entertainment.

Changing things up a bit with less than 90 seconds on the clock, Mettenberger converted a second-and-17 with an 18-yard pass to Odell Beckham. Mettenberger’s next four heaves from LSU’s 35-yard line all fell incomplete, and Murray trotted in to run out the clock with 58 seconds remaining. Richt clutched his quarterback, and his former quarterback, and teared up on camera with Tracy Wolfson. Richt earned his modest postgame declaration, the one about giving America a treat. And he earned that midfield moment.

“You don’t get many opportunities like that,” Richt said afterward, “and have it come out the way it did.” He’d know. Georgia under his rule has been hugely successful and, almost since he set foot in Sanford Stadium, even more hugely overshadowed by what-ifs. They span almost his entire career here. If they’d only beaten a Ron Zook team, they could have played for the title in 2002. If only Murray’s final pass in the 2012 SEC championship game hadn’t been tipped. Saturday night in Athens, without even playing a complete game, the Dawgs trotted home with a very large pelt. The knock on both Murray and Richt has been their record against the big’uns — and it’s past time to knock that shit off.

Spinning this forward: LSU’s far from out of the BCS picture, but the Dawgs are in the most advantageous possible position for a one-loss FBS program, with the loss (to Clemson in Week 1) coming early enough to give them plenty of time to recover, and with their built-in perception cushion as an SEC team. The biggest hurdles remaining between Georgia and a return trip to the SEC title game this December are Florida’s defense and Auburn’s offense. Even if they suffer a conference loss, the Dawgs could still take the East thanks to their head-to-head advantage over South Carolina. The Tigers, meanwhile, still have to get past Florida, Alabama, and Texas A&M, not trip over their own tails against Ole Miss or Arkansas, and hope Alabama loses to somebody. It’s nice to hope things, isn’t it?

Curtain call in Athens. pic.twitter.com/h0NsoKSKmR

— Holly Anderson (@HollyAnderson) September 28, 2013

We Went There: No. 9 Georgia 44, no. 6 LSU 41

Elsewhere in Footballvania

Profiles in Profiteroles

Malevolent Manipulation of Events by an Omnipotent and Crabby Hand of the Week

Grape Job!

Laff Riot