Georgia / TCU National Championship Preview: Playing The Compare Game

Georgia TCU National Championship Preview: Playing The Compare Game

By college football analyst Gabriel Rauch for Wannamakeabet.com

It’s Saturday night and you just finished watching two incredible semifinal games back to back: something we have not seen in the college football playoff era. TCU outscored Michigan in a contest of mental and physical endurance, which preceded an impressive comeback by Georgia against Ohio State. After a night of fun and a morning of reflection as you enter the New Year, you remember something: we still have the national championship game left! Life is sweet, but college football is sweeter. 

You have a great weekend and Monday morning comes around after the NFL games finish. You check the spread as the anticipation finally reaches its end, and the spread is…Georgia -13.5? Wait, what?!   A thought enters your head, “Well that line makes no sense. Vegas must be losing their minds, TCU is the easiest bet ever! I am gonna put my life savings on them, no way they lose by two touchdowns or more.” (Or if you bet on Wannamakeabet.com, all your remaining points for the season.)

This is where I step in and remind you that some things in life are not as easy as they seem. 

Sports gambling is one of them.  

The line for this game has now moved down to Georgia -12.5 as bookmakers adjust to the majority of gamblers hammering TCU. At this rate, it may even drop again before game time Monday night. The easy answer to the question of who will cover this game seems to be that this is too many points for the best team in the country against the third (now second after beating Michigan) team in the country. 

After all, gambling can be simple from time to time. Alabama blew out Kansas State right before the playoffs started and the vast majority of gamblers took Bama.  In the NFL, the Colts keep getting blown out, most gamblers keep taking them, and the bookmakers keep making money. In this case, the vast majority of gamblers are taking TCU to cover. They could be right, but I do not believe that will be the case for this game. 

Analysis:

Georgia’s strengths are pretty much endless, with each player’s talent ranging from very good college starter to decade long NFL pro. This means that even their shortcomings are relatively good. While Stetson Bennett does not have the biggest NFL upside, he is still an above average college starter and has consistently come up clutch when the game is on the line against top teams.

Their secondary might have shown some weakness as Ohio St quarterback CJ Stroud had as perfect a game as one could have against them (without winning), but that is because Stroud is better than anyone Georgia has faced or will face. As far as strengths, while Georgia does not have a true feature back, they instead have a rotation of strong runners, who always stay fresh. It looks like star blocking tight end Darnell Washington will be back for the game (albeit still hurt) facing a TCU team that has not been able to stop the run all year. 

TCU has had a magical, improbable, unprecedented, run to the national championship. They are a true Cinderella story- something that has been rare in college football- especially when the championship has been dominated by the SEC and ACC in the playoff era. Topping it off, first-year head coach Sonny Dykes has gotten them there: another rarity in college football, since coaches in their first year do not have their own recruits yet.

Their offense has been electrified by dual threat quarterback Max Duggan, NFL level wide receivers, and back up running back Emari Demercado. who ran through Michigan last week. Duggan will be the second best quarterback (either him or Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker) that Georgia has faced all year. However, just as Georgia did to Hooker, their defense does have a plan to shut down dual threat QBs when they know that their legs are a threat. Ohio State caught them off guard by using Stroud’s legs unexpectedly, but Georgia will be ready this time.  

The Compare Game

A team being “good”, “bad”, or “average” is always relative to other teams that it has played or that it has been compared to. Georgia and TCU are good because they have beaten everyone in their path, who is in their same conference, therefore on their same level. When it gets tricky is when there is overlap (teams having played opponents who have played the same teams), which leads to what I call the compare game. “If Georgia barely beat Ohio State and Ohio State got blown out by Michigan and TCU looked unstoppable against Michigan’s defense, then Georgia TCU should be a thriller of a game,” could be a thought process many gamblers have before picking this game. Are Georgia and TCU really the best, or have they just won their matchups and took advantage of the right mismatches?

It is an impossible question to answer because college football teams usually only play each other once a year; and unlike seven game series in other sports, anything can happen in one game. TCU absolutely has a shot of beating Georgia, but how many times would they beat Georgia if they played ten times? Georgia is a mismatch for TCU and is the SEC team in a format meant for SEC teams to get in.

The Pick: Georgia -12.5