As Bulldawg Illustrated colleague Greg Poole and I boarded a plane out of Orlando, Florida the week leading up to the January 1, 2018 Rose Bowl featuring the Georgia Bulldogs and Oklahoma Sooners, my mind was already racing ahead to this somewhat historic match-up which would have the University of Georgia playing in Pasadena, California for the first time in 75 years.
Not only were the Bulldogs at the famous venue for the first time since January 1, 1943 when a freshman named Charley Trippi led Georgia’s 1942 team to a 9-0 win over UCLA, but with the Bulldogs-Sooners clash being one of the two College Football Playoff semifinal games, the stakes in the 2018 Rose Bowl were at an all-time high for Kirby Smart’s second Georgia football team … with the winner of course punching a ticket to the National Championship Game back in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.