From The Sports Desk

The Sports Desk is not disappointed that the Georgia Bulldogs lost the SEC Championship Game to the LSU Tigers yesterday.

Although we're Bulldog fans, we've been watching both teams play the last couple of weeks, and had little reason to believe that Georgia really stood a chance against LSU.  Going into the game, Georgia was a 7 1/2-point underdog.  They lost the game by 27 points.

No, we're not disappointed.  In fact, we're appreciative.  If you always win, it takes the fun out of the game.  The excitement, the thrill, of sports is knowing that there's a very really probability that your team may lose.  Without that risk, there's no suspense, no tension, and no fun.  So, you could say that LSU made future games more exciting.

I had a conversation earlier this year with a young man who works in the video game industry. He explained that the art of designing a game was making the play hard enough to be challenging, but not so hard as to be frustrating.  If a game is too easy, players will lose interest and move on to something else.  If a game is too hard, they'll get angry and quit.  A good game designer will operate between those two guardrails and pace the game to have some relatively easy stretches alternating with some relatively hard challenges, but none either too easy or too hard for players across a wide range of ages and abilities.

It's the same with sports.  If a team always loses, it will lose its fan base. If a team always wins, its fans will get jaded and blase.  From a business perspective, you can say its better to have jaded and blase fans than no fans at all, but from a fan's perspective, it's best to feel protective but loyal to your team.  

Georgia's loss to LSU in this year's SEC Championship Game just underscores what a tragedy the Dogs' loss to Alabama was in the 2018 National Championship Game.  That was the year Georgia should have won it all; that was the year Georgia was the best team in the country.  Sophomore quarterback Jake Fromm was playing the best football of his career, and the Bulldogs had the twin running backs of Sony Michel (now with New England) and Nick Chubb (now with the Cleveland Browns).  Georgia beat Auburn, 28-7, in the 2017 SEC Championship Game and then beat Oklahoma in two overtimes in the first round of the 2018 playoffs.  They had a 13-0 lead over Alabama at halftime in the Championship Game and forced Crimson Tide Coach Nick Saban to pull his starting quarterback, Jalen Hurts, for then-unknown freshman QB Tua Tagovailoa, who came out blazing and tied up the game by the end of regulation and then won it in overtime.  

Alabama won the game and won another National Championship; Georgia hasn't been the champion since 1980.  But in January 2018, we were 30 minutes from a second championship, the stars were all aligned in our favor, and it would never get that good for us again.  Yesterday's loss to LSU assured that Georgia wouldn't be in the playoffs this year, which only increases the frustration over the Bama loss in 2018 and the eventual enjoyment whenever the Dogs get all the stars aligned once again and finally win another championship.

By the way, Jake Fromm's assuming the Georgia QB role that year forced the previous QB, Justin Fields, to transfer to Ohio State, and Tagovailoa's success at Alabama forced Jalen Hurts to transfer to Oklahoma.  This year, both Fields and Hurts will be in the playoffs representing their new teams.  All of which is due, in part, to Georgia's 2017-2018 season.

It's not official yet, but Georgia is expected to play No. 7 Baylor in the Sugar Bowl on January 1.