Georgia fans’ ears are still ringing from the Dawgs’ miracle last-second victory over Ohio State in Saturday’s Peach Bowl, but it wasn’t all that long ago that Georgia head coach Kirby Smart walked off that same Mercedes-Benz Stadium field looking like a relic, a dinosaur, a holdover from a bygone era.
The date was December 7, 2019; the game was the SEC championship; and the then-fourth-ranked Bulldogs couldn’t even throw a scare into the Joe Burrow-led LSU Tigers. Burrow masterminded a 37-10 win over Georgia that wasn't even that close, a beatdown so complete that it both clinched Burrow’s Heisman candidacy and consigned Georgia, once again, to the ranks of regular-season tough guys who wilted when the games mattered.