Buffalo Bills running back James Cook is no stranger to playoff heartbreak. It seems to be part of life in Western New York . But his collegiate team, the Georgia Bulldogs, didn’t get the chance.
Georgia looked to be well on its way to its third consecutive College Football Playoff berth before a loss in the SEC Championship Game took them out of the prerequisite top-four seed.
Cook spoke about his school’s playoff aspirations and the “conspiracy” that kept the Bulldogs home from the playoff.
“We were supposed to be in [the playoffs] this year,” Cook told USA Today. “If Georgia is in the playoffs this year, we win it all. And I think they didn’t want to see us go back-to-back.”
To Cook’s credit, the Bulldogs had a legitimate claim to the playoff. They had been among the favorites to win the championship and spent multiple weeks toward the end of the season as the No. 1 team in the nation. They lost just a single game – by three points – and blew out three of the ranked teams on their schedule on the way to a 12-1 pre-bowl record.
“It was like the same scenario my last year in college,” Cook said. “We won every game and lost to Alabama in the SEC Championship but we still got in and went on and won it all.
“But I just feel like they knew Nick Saban was gonna retire so they tried to sneak him in one.”
Saban’s retirement shocked the football world, with the coach citing his age and the grueling year-round schedule as the leading factors. His Crimson Tide did get to play in the playoffs but lost to the Michigan Wolverines in the semifinal, 27-20.
Georgia, meanwhile, sent a statement to the college football overlords with a 63-3 stomping of the hobbled Florida State Seminoles in the Orange Bowl. There’s a reasonable argument to be made that the Bulldogs would have been as good, if not better, than the eventual champion Wolverines or their playoff competition.
Both Buffalo and Georgia will head back to the drawing board in an attempt to exceed exceptionally high expectations in 2024.
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