The Last Time: Rose Bowl

Ah, it's been quite the break since we discussed that feels-like-yesterday win over Auburn in the SEC Championship.

I'm glad to be back, and I'm glad you're reading.

Whether you were fortunate enough to make the trip out west to see Georgia take on Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl, or whether you're like me (ready to watch it on TV with my Bulldog family), I hope you'll enjoy what we hope will not be the final dive into stats for the 2017-18 season.

But before we get there, a few notes about the "last times" today: I will not be doing the obvious ones that you've probably seen a million other places (last time in the Rose Bowl, last time playing for a national championship, etc.). My goal is to bring you stats you won't find anywhere else, goofy as they might become to achieve that end.

So. Enough of that chatter. Let's get started.

The last time...

1) These teams met:

Never. (Sorry, I lied, but this one is required.)

Despite two storied histories and plenty of wins to go 'round, these two programs have never met in football.

Heck, they've only met once in basketball, too, with the Sooners getting a win in 93-90 in a neutral-site tournament. (Didn't see THAT one, did ya?)

So, uh, not a lot to talk about here.

Let's move on, shall we?

2) Georgia beat a Heisman trophy winner:

Again, an obvious point that bares repeating if you didn't know: Oklahoma QB Baker Mayfield won the Heisman this year.

There are few ways to look at this, so I'll start with the more recent one.

In 2007, the Dawgs went to Jacksonville, danced in the end zone and knocked off Tim Tebow's Florida Gators 42-30.

Tebow, a sophomore at the time, would go on to win the Heisman that season, despite winning just nine games in the regular season.

Obviously, looking at the timeline of events, Tebow was not yet a Heisman winner when Georgia sacked him six times in Jacksonville, so when was the last victory over a player who had already won the Heisman?

That ... has never happened, as best as my research can tell. A win Monday would be the Bulldogs' first over a now-has-the-trophy Heisman winner.

And if you're wondering, here's how Georgia has fared against the Heisman winners (or eventual winners) throughout history, in descending order.

Don't worry if you lost count. I've done that for you.

Georgia has played 21 games against Heisman winners (eventual or otherwise), and not surprisingly, the results haven't been great, going a paltry 6-15.

But hey. We beat Spurrier twice, so there's that.

3) Oklahoma lost to a ranked team:

The Sooners haven't lost to a ranked team in well over a year, not since they fell to Ohio State 45-24 in September 2016.

Since then, Oklahoma has only lost ... once, a 38-31 defeat at the hands of unranked Iowa State on Oct. 7, 2017.

But over that stretch, the Sooners have played a whopping NINE games against ranked opponents, winning them all by an average score of 44-27.

4) Georgia beat two Top 5 teams in the same season:

This hasn't happened since ... the last time the Bulldogs went to the Rose Bowl.

In 1942, Heisman Trophy winner Frank Sinkwich led Georgia to a national championship, including wins over No. 3 Alabama and No. 2 Georgia Tech in the regular season.

Already owning a win over No. 2 Auburn in the SEC Championship, the Dawgs have chance to repeat this feat with a win Monday over No. 2 Oklahoma.

BONUS: What about three Top 5 teams?

For that to happen this season, obviously, it would mean Georgia wins the national championship, knocking off the Sooners and either No. 1 Clemson or No. 4 Alabama in the title game.

And as best as I can tell, that would be a first in Bulldog history.

(Or at least since polls were introduced in 1936.)

5) Oklahoma turned the ball over:

The Sooners have actually gone four straight games without a turnover, the last one coming in the wild 62-52 win over Oklahoma State on Nov. 4.

Mayfield threw a pair of interceptions that day, which is forgivable when you guide an offense to 785 total yards and 8 touchdowns.

Since then, the Sooners' offense has gone 16 quarters without turning it over, which gets even more impressive when you consider that unit had to play against Gary Patterson's TCU defense twice in that stretch.

6) Georgia played a game this far west:

This will be the Bulldogs first trip to California since the 1943 Rose Bowl, if my research hasn't failed me — but that's not the answer to this question.

We're actually looking into the final year of the Jim Donnan era, 2000, when Donnan led Georgia to a 37-14 win over Virginia in the Oahu Bowl, all the way out in Hawaii.

It would mark the last time the Oahu Bowl was played (at the time, it was a twin-ticket with the Hawaii Bowl, which still exists), and it would become the Seattle Bowl in 2001.

7) A first-year head coach won the national championship:

Lincoln Riley is in his first full season at the helm in Norman, Oklahoma, and he's taken the Sooners into the playoff.

Riley is looking to become the first coach since Larry Coker with the 2001 Miami Hurricanes to lead his team to a national title in his first season.

Coker's team, led by a host of NFL talent like Ed Reed, Clinton Portis, Jeremy Shockey, Andre Johnson and Jonathan Vilma, finished a perfect 12-0, blasting Nebraska 37-14 in the Rose Bowl.

8) A first-time participant in the College Football Playoff or BCS Championship won the national title:

Let's jump back to 2010, when Cam Newton was auctioned to the highest bidder led Auburn to a 13-0 SEC Championship season, and the school's first appearance in the BCS Championship.

The Tigers beat Oregon (also making its first appearance) 22-19 on the infamous no-he-wasn't-down-and-there-wasn't-a-whistle run by Michael Dyer in the game's closing minutes.

Since then, every team that has won the national championship or a playoff game (some combination of Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Florida State and Oregon) had previous experience in such a situation.

Oklahoma made the playoff in 2015, falling to Deshaun Watson and Clemson 37-17. The Bulldogs are gracing it for the first time, and never made the BCS Championship.

9) A Georgia player scored his first touchdown of the season in a bowl game:

There are a few potential candidates to break out of their own personal droughts, notably TEs Charlie Woerner and Jeb Blazevich, FB Christian Payne, and backup QB Jacob Eason, none of whom have scored a touchdown this year.

Should this happen, it would actually be the second straight year that a Bulldog player scored his first touchdown in a bowl game.

In the 2016 Liberty Bowl, some up-and-coming WR named Javon Wims scored his first touchdown in a Georgia uniform, hauling in a four-yard lob from Eason.

The Dawgs won 31-23.

10) The 3-seed won a college football playoff game:

There's two ways to look at this. On the one hand, you might say we're due.

On the other hand, you may notice a pattern.

No 3-seed has ever won a playoff game. In fact, Jameis Winston's 2014 Florida State team remains the only one that has even scored a point.

In 2015, Michigan State got stomped by Alabam 38-0, and in 2016, Ohio State likewise got stomped 31-0 at the hands of Clemson.

Here's a free "the last time for you." The last time the 3-seed scored a touchdown in the College Football Playoff was Winston's 18-yard touchdown pass to Travis Rudolph midway through the 3rd quarter of the 2014-15 playoff.

Yikes.

***

Prediction/Analysis time.

Most Vegas lines like Georgia by a couple of points. I'll be honest, when the playoff was announced, I never felt that nervous about it.

Well, not Oklahoma anyway.

I'm on record (you can ask my mom, she was there) saying that I thought the Bulldogs would beat Oklahoma. I'm also of the belief that Alabama will beat Clemson.

Good lord, help the rest of the United States cope if we have an all-SEC national championship game. The whining will happen on a constant flow throughout the off-season, but we'll cross that bridge if and when we get there.

I still think Georgia wins, and I think it'll be a semi-comfortable one. I don't think the Sooners will have much success slowing down the Bulldog offense, and I don't believe they've seen a defense as good as the one crafted by Kirby Smart and Mel Tucker, who will have had a month to get ready.

I like Georgia, 38-24. The run game puts in a final dagger with less than five minutes remaining.