ATLANTA _ It didn't matter. Then again, it mattered a lot.
Beat Georgia Tech or not and Georgia was headed to next Saturday's SEC Championship Game with a chance to reach the College Football Playoffs. But winning in a 38-7 blowout as the No. 7-ranked Bulldogs did on Saturday sure will send them to Mercedes-Benz Stadium 1.6 miles south of here with a much better vibe, not mention a ton of confidence. In the SEC title game, they'll face the winner of No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 6 Auburn.
With the victory, Georgia (11-1) improved to 4-0 on its unofficial Revenge Tour that has been the 2017 season. The win avenged last year's 28-27 loss to the Yellow Jackets in Athens. The Bulldogs also reversed results this season against Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Florida.
Georgia's last victory of the regular season was thorough and dominant. Tech's vaunted triple-option offense had managed just 225 yards by the time the Bulldogs' defensive starters left the game early in the fourth quarter. For the game, the Jackets had only 188 yards rushing and 38 yards passing.
Conversely, Georgia's offense had 425 total yards and almost a perfect run-pass distribution when the starters left the game midway through the fourth. Tailbacks Sony Michel (13 rushes, 85 yards), Nick Chubb (12-53) and D'Andre Swift (4-37) each had a touchdown run.
Freshman quarterback Jake Fromm checked out early with 224 yards on 12 of 16 passing and two touchdowns. The highlight was a 78-yard pass to Ahkil Crumpton with 11:21 to play. Sophomore Jacob Eason, the starter at the beginning of the year, finished the game for the Bulldogs.
It might not have seemed so at the time, but the biggest play of the game might've occurred at the end of the first half. It wasn't the greatest job of clock management one will ever witness, but Georgia managed to drive 50 yards in 48 seconds and get a 37-yard field goal from Rodrigo Blankenship as time expired in the first half.
The key play on the drive was a 23-yard pass from Fromm to Javon Wims to get the Bulldogs into field-goal range. In between, Fromm was slow to spike, Isaac Nauta failed to get out of bounds and Kirby Smart was delinquent in stopping the clock at the end of Tech's previous possession, which had resulted in a touchdown. Nevertheless, Georgia overcame it all to get ahead by two scores at halftime with the ball coming its way to start the second half.
The Bulldogs failed to capitalize on their first possession of the second half. But after a critical defensive stop, Georgia went 77 yards in six plays and scored on Michel's nifty 4-yard run to effectively put the game out of reach for its deliberate-moving hosts. As it turned out, Tech would never score again.
