Well, they play in the SEC, so they have to play somebody! Plus, the “have won national championships” is misleading because Auburn sucked this year, Vanderbilt is a joke, and Tennessee had their first good season in more than a decade, and their resurgence may not be for real.
I do agree with the Ohio State reference, however. They played a grand total of one power team this year, Michigan, and lost to them at home.
To be fair to Georgia, however, all the big powers schedule X-number of patsies to fill out their schedule. It allows the coaches to look at a lot of players that might not otherwise be able to play, and it helps them get through a long, physical season.
TCU has used a 3-3-5 defense all season and I think that was a big factor in this blowout. I’m guessing that they hadn’t practiced anything else so when it became clear that UGA could move the ball at will against the 3-3-5 they had no fallback plan. They just had to suffer through it.
Matchups are very important in CFB. And not very many teams can match NFL level talent that UGA and Alabama have. TCU was probably the least talented team to ever make the national championship game.
Maybe not 50 years ago, but 40 years ago, when I was in high school, most of them certainly did put one or two far weaker schools in their schedule.
The top teams in 1982, based on the final AP poll, and “patsies” that they played that year (mostly from smaller conferences, or independents; I didn’t include any in-conference games in this list): Penn State: Temple, Rutgers SMU: UTEP, North Texas Nebraska: New Mexico State Georgia: Memphis UCLA: Long Beach State Arizona State: UTEP Washington: UTEP Clemson: Western Carolina Arkansas: Tulsa