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MIAMI GARDENS – James Cook and Nolan Smith were making their way through their Georgia teammates, each holding a handful of an orange Gatorade bucket when their trainer, Kirby Smart, turned around, shook his head and waved his finger in the manner of Dikembe Mutombo.

Smart didn’t want to be drenched in a sticky, sugary energy drink. Not now. Not with so much work to do in the next 10 days.

Because Smart knows winning the college football playoff semi-final isn’t what will define his agenda. Something bigger, much bigger is coming on the road.

“I wanted to take a real shower, not a Gatorade bath, because I want to focus on Alabama,” Smart said. “They are five or six hours early.

“I’m not interested in celebrating (beating Michigan)”

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Now we know why so many Georgia fans decided to spend their New Years Eve in Buckhead or South Beach or wherever Georgia fans celebrate in Athens, Georgia, instead of watching their team beat Michigan, 34. -11, in person.

Because everything this game did set the stage for the greatest game in program history, one that will validate Georgia’s regular-season dominance or crown a colossal failure that could take years to overcome.

But before we explain how important it is for Georgia to atone for their embarrassment by Alabama in the SEC Championship, a word about how Michigan has been absent from the biggest game in program history since. about 25 years old.

Jim Harbaugh deserves some credit, not only for taking an unranked team through the preseason to the playoffs, but for doing so after accepting a pay cut and then donating his bonus to employees of the sports department affected by pay cuts during COVID. But the ending will once again raise questions after Michigan was the program that looked like it wasn’t in the bottom four this year, not Cincinnati. The Bearcats were more competitive against the No.1. Alabama than Michigan was against No. 3 Georgia.

It’s something Michigan has to live with for the next nine months.

Georgia’s offseason mood will be determined Jan. 10 in Indianapolis.

The Bulldogs will remember the collapse of the SEC title game 10 days before the national championship. That day in Atlanta, everything they accomplished in the regular season was forgotten in a stunning 41-24 loss to Alabama.

Smart has all the flick he’ll need to show his team in the lead-up to the rematch, the bad one against Alabama and the good against Michigan.

Everything Georgia did wrong against Alabama, they did right against Michigan. Alabama Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young threw for 421 yards. Michigan’s Cade McNamara was benched after throwing for 106 yards and two interceptions. The Bulldogs did not record a sack or interception against Alabama. They came to McNamara four times and defensive MVP Derion Kendrick had two picks.

The Bulldogs scored on their first five possessions – three touchdowns, two field goals – as offensive MVP Stetson Bennett completed his first eight assists and cut the Wolverines’ defense. Unlike Alabama All-America linebacker Will Anderson a month ago, Heisman Trophy finalist Aidan Hutchinson of Michigan was not a postman.

“We didn’t play well and we turned the ball around and we didn’t have any turnovers and played poorly in the red zones,” Smart said of the SEC title game. “You can list all the things we did in the last game. That’s all our kids heard about for three weeks.

“Now we have to focus our energy on a very good football team.”

The Bulldogs insisted their confidence had not been damaged by Alabama. Disappointed? Sure. After all, it was heading for a transcendent season before Nick Saban convinced his players that they weren’t respected by everyone who crowns Georgia.

And it showed against Michigan. It’s never been a close game after Georgia took the opening kickoff and went 80 yards in just over four minutes.

But the Bulldogs won’t face another Big Ten in the title game. It is Georgia’s arch nemesis, the gold standard of college football, the team that has won half of the last 12 national leagues, one of those (2018) a game in which Georgia led 20 -7 in the third quarter before losing in overtime.

Now Georgia is one step away from erasing all of those disappointments.

Or a setback to cement its reputation as a program that fades onto the bigger stage.

“We’re ready to play,” Kendrick said, “whoever the opponent is. It just so happens that it was Alabama that beat us. We need to go back and clean up some of the things we’ve been doing… and do what we do. “

No. This time Georgia must do better.

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