On an episode of The Herd this week, with Jason McIntyre filling in for Colin Cowherd, he was joined by college football broadcaster and analyst Joel Klatt. And as part of their discussion, Klatt evoked the names Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson while making a slapstick comparison between one of the golfers to a certain college football contender.
“Do you remember Rick Riley?” Klatt asked McIntyre, referencing the famous sportswriter and author of several golfing novels. “Okay. He wrote an article way back in the day about Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and how Tiger, you know, watching him play golf was just like rigid and focused. And then watching Phil Mickelson play golf was like watching a drunk chase a balloon next to a cliff.”
That scene could come straight out of the Road Runner cartoon TV show from back in the day, and it’s a fitting way to describe the lefty elder statesman’s golf game. But it doubles as a good way to describe one of the top SEC championship hopefuls.
“I don’t know why it’s always stuck with me, that was his line,” said Klatt. “And you know, like for Georgia, it kind of reminds me of that.”
No longer the supremely dominant force of the sport they were early in the decade, Georgia is still coming out on top more often than not. But they’re just not looking as head-and-shoulders above the rest as they once did, instead winning with timely playmaking and, admittedly, a few luckier breaks throughout this season.
Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart / Travis Register-Imagn Images
“Because it’s like, gosh, why are you behind in all of these games?” asks Klatt. “You know, every SEC game, it’s like they’re they’re down. They have to create some great plays. They’re at the whim of a review like they were on that third-down catch/no catch against Florida. You know, like Florida’s sitting there. If they get the fourth and one, you know, they could salt the game away.”
Georgia also needed some extraordinary fireworks late in the Tennessee game to pull that one out, 44-41. Plus, they nearly gave up a huge lead to Ole Miss at home in what wound up as a tight win. Even the win over Auburn and now-fired Hugh Freeze required a fake timeout fiasco and second-half comeback. With a matchup in Athens against a surging Texas club on the horizon, in a battle for SEC Championship positioning, Klatt isn’t inclined to blindly take the home side.
“So I don’t think that it’s just a surefire, Oh, absolutely, Georgia is going to beat that Texas team. Because Texas is actually playing their best football right now.”
Texas and Georgia meet in a huge one in Week 12, with Joel Klatt expected any and everything, including one side coming out looking like a wobbling drunkard.
