Where Georgia's evisceration of TCU ranks among largest blowouts in national championship game history
National title blowouts aren't uncommon, but where do the Bulldogs rank in their win over the Horned Frogs?
By
Tom Fornelli
•
3 min read
No. 3 TCU's 65-7 blowout loss to No. 1 Georgia in the College Football Playoff National Championship doesn't take away everything the Horned Frogs accomplished by simply reaching the title game in the first place, but they can no longer be deemed a Cinderella story. I haven't seen "Cinderella" in quite some time, but my recollection of the Disney film is she ends up marrying the prince and riding off in his carriage for their honeymoon. She's not run over by the carriage like TCU was Monday night in SoFi Stadium.
No, in this updated version of the story, the Frogs were dissected by Georgia as if the game were played in an eighth-grade science lab instead of a billion-dollar football stadium with a roof that can't keep rain from falling inside. Seriously, it's never a great sign when your opponent's social media account is dunking on you with your own meme with more than a quarter left in the game.
The Horned Frogs lost by 58 points, marking the most lopsided bowl game in college football history. That's rather embarrassing on its own, but it takes on even more significance if we add in the context of history. Yes, we've seen blowouts in the College Football Playoff before, and we've seen them in the title game. Even Alabama -- the greatest college football program of the modern age -- lost by 28 points to Clemson in the 2019 CFP title. The Tide would take it out on Ohio State in a 52-24 win in the same game two years later.
But to lose by 58? This is another level entirely. In fact, if we look at the biggest blowouts in title game history and include the BCS, this ranks as the largest in any championship game since 1998 and by a wide margin. Here are the biggest margin of victories in those games.
| Game | Score | Margin of Victory |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 CFP | (1) Georgia 65, (3) TCU 7 | 58 |
2005 BCS | 36 | |
2013 BCS | (2) Alabama 42, (1) Notre Dame 14 | 28 |
2019 CFP | (2) Clemson 44, (1) Alabama 16 | 28 |
2021 CFP | (1) Alabama 52, (3) Ohio State 24 | 28 |
2007 BCS | (2) Florida 41, (1) Ohio State 14 | 27 |
2002 BCS | 23 | |
2015 CFP | (4) Ohio State 42, (2) Oregon 20 | 22 |
Of course, the final margin of victory is just one way to measure dominance. Another is by how many points a team scored. Georgia's 65 points are the most scored by a team in the modern (CFP/BCS) era, and it's only the third time a team has cracked 50 points in the title game, joining 2005 USC (55) and 2021 Alabama (52). Regardless of title games, the 65 points the Dawgs scored in the game are the most against a team ranked in the top three of the AP Top 25 since No. 5 Oklahoma beat No. 2 Texas Tech 65-21 during the 2008 season. That Sooners team would go on to lose to Florida in the BCS National Championship that season, but by only 10 points.
On the other side of the coin, TCU suffers the ignominious fate of being the first team to reach the title game and not crack double-digits since LSU was shut out 21-0 by Alabama in the 2012 BCS National Championship. The Frogs are only the third team ever to be held to single digits, with the other being the Florida State team that lost to Oklahoma 13-2 in the 2001 BCS National Championship. This is not the kind of company you want to be keeping.
So, yeah, this was a rather epic beatdown by the Dawgs. Now the question becomes: Was TCU this bad, or was Georgia just this good? I'll leave that for you to argue amongst yourselves.
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