Mr. CFB: They've Played Once, But There Is A Lot of History in Georgia-Oregon game

Georgia is the defending national champion. Oregon is ranked No. 11.

It happened 45 years ago, but Rich Brooks remembers it well.

Brooks, now 81, had served for 14 seasons as a college and NFL assistant when he finally got a chance to be a head coach at the University of Oregon. Brooks was an Oregon State grad.

He inherited a program that had not had a winning season since 1969. The 1976 team had gone 4-7 overall and 1-6 in the Pac-8. He also inherited a schedule that had him making his head coaching debut with a 2,700 mile trip to the University of Georgia in Athens.

I caught up with Brooks by phone coming off the golf course on Monday and asked if he had any memories of Oregon’s one and only trip to Sanford Stadium  (Now Dooley Field).

“Oh yeah,” said Brooks. “You never forget your first game as a head coach."

“I remember us getting off the bus and back then the students and fans sat on the railroad tracks behind the stadium. As we started walking down the steps and toward the field they kept yelling “Dog meat! Dog Meat! Dog meat!”

Georgia was coming off an SEC championship in 1976. The Bulldogs, with quarterback Ray Goff running the veer behind one of Georgia’s best-ever offensive lines, went 10-1 in the regular season losing at Ole Miss (21-17). They played No. 1 Pittsburgh and Tony Dorsett in the Sugar Bowl, losing 27-3. The Panthers of Johnny Majors won the national championship.

Georgia suffered some substantial losses in personnel for the 1977 season and it showed once the game with Oregon started. Brooks, who said he started several true freshmen in the game, put his team in position to win, leading 13-12 in the third quarter.

“We had the ball and a chance to get in and go up two scores,” said Brooks.

But Georgia linebacker Jeff Lewis returned an interception 28 yards to give Georgia the ball at the Oregon 24-yard line. Kevin McLee put Georgia ahead with a three-yard touchdown run. A successful two-point conversional gave Georgia a 20-13 lead. After an Oregon field goal made it 20-16, Georgia drove the ball 73 yards for a touchdown. Willie McClendon, who had 119 yards on the day, scored from five yards out to put the game away.

“It was a very competitive game,” said Brooks, whose first Oregon team would go 2-9. He would go on to be the Ducks’ head coach for 18 seasons, taking them to the 1994 Rose Bowl. “We gave them all they wanted.”

Vince Dooley, who was in his 14th season at Georgia in 1977, agreed.

"He had his team well prepared," said Dooley, who turns 90 on Sunday. "But we made some big plays when the game was on the line."

Ironically, Georgia would finish the 1977 season with a record of 5-6. It was the only losing season the Bulldogs would experience in Dooley's 25 years as head coach.

The two teams have not played since. They had a home-and-home scheduled for 2015-2016 but it was cancelled by mutual agreement.

That all changes Saturday when No. 3 Georgia, the defending national champions, meet No. 11 Oregon at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Credit for making this game happen after all these years goes to Gary Stokan, the long-time CEO and President of the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. Since 2008, when Alabama met Clemson in the first-ever Chick-fil-A Kickoff game, Stokan has been putting together strong matchups to open the season. He likens it to NASCAR, which opens the season with its best race, the Daytona 500.

“There is no doubt that Atlanta is the college football capital of the world,” said Stokan. “That’s why we want to open each season with something big.”

Alabama’s Nick Saban so liked the game for recruiting and competitive reasons that he brought his team to play in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff six times. Watching closely during that time was Kirby Smart, Saban’s top assistant.

“Kirby saw first hand the benefits of playing in a high-profile game to start the season,” said Stokan. “And with the advent of the College Football Playoff the selection committee made it clear that schools should be upgrading their non-conference schedules.”

When Smart became Georgia’s head coach in 2016, a Chick-fil-A Kickoff game with North Carolina was already on the schedule. Georgia won that game, Smart’s first as the Bulldogs head coach, 33-24.

Stokan scheduled a game with Georgia against Virginia to open the 2020 season. But that game was cancelled due to COVID. At that point, said Stokan, Smart made it clear that he wanted to be in the game on a regular basis.

“After we put the Virginia game together Kirby said he wanted to look into the future and come back as often as he could,” said Stokan.

Georgia committed for 2022 and then Stokan flew to the West Coast for Pac-12 media days. He met with Oregon coach Mario Cristobal. Stokan’s pitch was that Cristobal had played in the game as an assistant to Saban and knew how it could only help in recruiting. Cristobal said yes and Stokan worked out the financials with athletics director Rob Mullens.

So get the picture of all that will happen on Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium when Georgia and Oregon play for the first time since 1977:

**--Sitting in the stands will be Rich Brooks, who has a little history in Atlanta. His daughter, Kerri, lives there. He was the defensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons from 1997-2000. He was a successful coach at Kentucky where, he reminded me, he got two wins against Georgia.

**--The honorary captain for Georgia will be Willie McClendon, who sealed the Bulldogs’ win 45 years ago

**--The honorary captain for Oregon will Marcus Mariota, the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner and current quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons.

**--Bryan McClendon, son of Willie, will be on the Georgia sideline as an assistant coach. Bryan was a successful player at Georgia before he embarked on a coaching career. One of his stops along the way was at Oregon (2020-2021). When Cristobal took the head coaching job at Miami, McClendon became the interim head coach for Oregon’s game in the Alamo Bowl. McClendon was originally going to serve as offensive coordinator for Cristobal at Miami but Smart convinced him to come home.

**--Dan Lanning, who was the architect of Georgia’s national championship defense in 2021, is now the head coach at Oregon, and recruited a lot of the Georgia players on defense.

**--Bo Nix, who started at quarterback for Auburn in last season’s 34-10 Georgia victory, is expected to start at quarterback for Oregon on Saturday.

That’s a lot of history for two teams that have only played once in history. It should be fun.