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INGLEWOOD, Calif. — For so long, Georgia was the flagship program of the really good but not quite great. It produced a few decades of pretty nice seasons ending in pretty nice bowl games played by a lot of really good players dressed in red, white and black. But the Dawgs were always a few steps behind the sport’s elite.

They were always one play shy of beating Alabama. Always a few five-star recruits behind Florida. Always a few inches short when measured against the true ruling class of college football, even as the head of that class rolled through different eras and teams, from Miami and Nebraska to Southern California and seemingly every team in the SEC except for the one in Athens, Georgia.

But on a damp Monday night outside Los Angeles, the Georgia Bulldogs didn’t simply engrave their names onto the measuring stick by which all other college football programs are measured, they pulled that stick off the desk and beat the TCU Horned Frogs with it. Now, the conversation about Georgia football isn’t about what it hasn’t been able to do. It’s about what it might be able to do that few have ever done before: move past building championship seasons and move into building a championship era.

“I don’t know about that word, era; I’m not even sure what an era is,” Kirby Smart confessed as he headed from the confetti-covered SoFi Stadium field to the cigar-smoke-filled locker room after winning the College Football Playoff National Championship. “But I know what a great program looks like, a program that is built to last. I was part of four national championships as an assistant coach at Alabama. I know how hard it is to get to the peak of the sport, and I know it is even harder to stay there. I know what the foundation of that looks like. I think we are building that foundation. I hope we are.”

Consider it built. Concrete poured, cured and seemingly built to last.

UGA won its second national title in a row, only the fourth team to do so since 1990 and the first in the nine-year College Football Playoff era. It did it via a beatdown the likes of which hasn’t been seen in a national title game of any format in 152 years of college football. Not the 1971 Orange Bowl (Nebraska 38, Alabama 6). Not the 1972 Rose Bowl (USC 42, Ohio State 17). Oklahoma 1985 (25-10 over Penn State). Nebraska 1995 (62-24 over Florida). USC in 2004 (55-19 over Oklahoma). Florida in 2006 (41-14 over Ohio State). Not even the previous standard-bearer for title game dominance: Alabama over Notre Dame 42-14 in the 2013 BCS championship. Miami in 2001, LSU in 2019, whatever comes up while thumbing through the record books … not a single one of those juggernaut teams or lopsided evenings on the gridiron comes close to approaching the 65-7 Bulldogs bulldozing that took place Monday night at SoFi Stadium.

It demoralized the upstart Horned Frogs and sent shivers into the souls of any team hoping to stand in TCU’s cleats anytime soon. It was the most lopsided postseason victory since bowl games made their debut in Pasadena, California, in 1902, capping a 17-game winning streak, the longest for Georgia since 1947. The Bulldogs’ 29 wins ties the mark for any major college team over a two-season span and is the most ever for an SEC school. Monday’s victory rewrote page after page of the college football history book.

“Georgia, obviously you’ve seen them in the past couple of seasons now, really, they’ve taken hold of college football.” That declaration was made by former Georgia All-America linebacker turned TV analyst David Pollack during ESPN’s halftime coverage of the game, when the score was 38-7.

He said it while sitting beside the network’s guest analyst for the evening, Alabama coach Nick Saban.

If it’s possible to say it, the game was even worse than the score. It was such a throttling that Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett, shortly after tying LSU signal-caller Joe Burrow‘s CFP title game record for points responsible for (36), was pulled from the game … with 13:25 remaining in the fourth quarter.

This is a team that lost 15 — yes, 15! — players to the 2022 NFL draft, five more than any other team, and simply reloaded. A defense that was supposed to take a step backward after a 2021 unit that was statistically speaking among the greatest of all time instead limited TCU — which came into the game averaging 474 yards and 41 points per game — to 188 yards and one solitary touchdown. A team that looked emotionally and physically exhausted after a New Year’s Eve thriller comeback win over Ohio State in the CFP semifinals responded by embarking on a week of practice that Bennett described in the days leading up to the title game as “a damn reconstruction project.”

“You attack every aspect of this as a challenge,” Bennett, 25, recalled of the week, quick to praise the UGA scout team that played the role of tough-as-railroad-spikes TCU quarterback Max Duggan. “Now I am done, but I think that those who are still here, and maybe those of us who are gone, have a responsibility to make sure this keeps rolling. Make sure you feel the pressure of keeping up what has been built.”

The comment showed shades of those all-time teams that Georgia once chased. The legendary Miami Hurricanes calling out from NFL locker rooms to those youngsters wearing their beloved orange and green to ask what happened after a loss to a rival or one that ended a streak. Or Saban’s Alabama veterans showing up to spring practice to talk to their heirs about maintaining the principles of the process.

“That’s what we all have to guard against, complacency, and I am talking about coaches, players, even fans, never taking a night like this one for granted,” said Smart, who played defensive back on a lot of those good but never great Bulldogs teams of the 1990s. “You have to expect to be in these games and expect to win these games, but you can’t assume that it will happen. And I think that’s why trying to win a third straight championship will be an even steeper challenge than this one was. We lost so many guys last year and have so many more guys coming back next year. That’s more chances for complacency.”

It’s also more chances to benefit from experience, to lean on been there, done that. More than half of this season’s starters were redshirt sophomores or younger. They’ll be paired with what will be Georgia’s seventh consecutive top-three recruiting class.

Smart is only 47 years old. His former mentor, the guy who was sitting awkwardly next to Pollack, is 71. The GOAT was fully focused on what was in front of him. Saban always is.

“I have hard time watching football because it’s always work,” Saban confessed the morning of the game. “How would we scheme against this? How are they accomplishing that? And in the case of what Kirby has done at Georgia, that is especially true. That’s the greatest compliment I can give any program, that everyone in our business has to watch everything you do.”

Yes, there are plenty of cautionary tales when it comes to college football dominion collapses. The transfer portal; name, image and likeness (NIL); an expanded playoff — the list of what has derailed the mighty and could do the same to the Dawgs in the future is ever changing. All of those teams listed earlier, from Miami to Nebraska to USC, have fallen from “they can’t be beaten!” to “whatever happened to those guys?” It was just four winters ago when Clemson was playing in its fourth CFP title game in five years, and it has since slowly started sliding from the national conversation.

But even the players and coaches from those ruling-class programs, hailing from every spot along the timeline of college football history, likely spent their Monday night like the rest of us, watching the Georgia Bulldogs and wondering if what we witnessed against TCU might be a lot closer to the beginning of something big than it is to any conceivable end.

“I want to enjoy tonight, and I will,” said Georgia’s Brock Bowers, the All-America tight end who hauled in seven catches for 152 yards and a TD. He also is one of those sophomores. “But we go back to work as soon as we get home. There is always work to be done.”

That’s how it goes when you’re building an empire.

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‘Reason he’s here’: Crochet delivers for Red Sox

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'Reason he's here': Crochet delivers for Red Sox

BALTIMORE — Garrett Crochet gave the Boston Red Sox an immediate return on their investment.

In his first start since agreeing to a $170 million, six-year contract, the left-hander pitched a career-best eight innings as the Red Sox shut out the Baltimore Orioles 3-0 on Wednesday night. Crochet also threw 102 pitches, one shy of his career high.

“My first start in college I went eight, and I haven’t sniffed it since,” Crochet said.

Crochet (1-0) gave up four hits and a walk while striking out eight in his first victory since the offseason trade that sent him from the Chicago White Sox to Boston.

“That’s the reason he’s here,” manager Alex Cora said after the game. “That’s the reason we committed to him.”

Crochet went 6-12 with a 3.58 ERA last season, a bright spot on a Chicago team that lost 121 games. He threw 146 innings, which was double his previous career total since his debut in 2020.

Then Crochet was dealt to the Red Sox, and they made their long-term commitment to the 25-year-old earlier this week.

“Going back to when the trade went through, we knew Boston was a place where we would love to be long term,” Crochet said. “Credit to the front office for staying diligent, and my agency as well.”

Now the question is less about where he’ll pitch and more about how well. He’s off to a nice start in that regard.

“I can’t think of the last time I played baseball for pride. In college, you’re playing to get drafted, and once you’re in the big leagues, you’re playing to stay in the big leagues,” Crochet said. “So to have this security and feel like I’m playing to truly just win ballgames, it takes a lot of the riff-raff out of it.”

The news all around was good for Boston on Wednesday.

It reached a $60 million, eight-year deal with young infielder Kristian Campbell, and he went out and doubled twice against the Orioles.

And Rafael Devers ended a 21-at-bat hitless streak to start the season with an RBI double in the fifth inning. He finished with two hits and no strikeouts.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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Ohtani’s walk-off pushes Dodgers to historic 8-0

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Ohtani's walk-off pushes Dodgers to historic 8-0

LOS ANGELES — Aside from his ability to pitch and hit and stretch the boundaries of imagination, Shohei Ohtani has displayed another singular trait in his time in the major leagues: an ability to meet the moment. Or, perhaps, for the moment to meet him.

And so on Wednesday night, with his Los Angeles Dodgers looking to stay unbeaten, the score tied in the bottom of the ninth, and more than 50,000 fans standing and clenching the Ohtani bobbleheads they lined up hours in advance for, Ohtani approached the batter’s box — and his teammates expected greatness.

“He’s going to end this right here,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said he thought to himself.

“We knew,” starting pitcher Blake Snell said. “It’s just what he does.”

Validation came instantly. Ohtani stayed back on a first-pitch changeup from Raisel Iglesias near the outside corner and shot it toward straightaway center field, 399 feet away, for a walk-off home run, sending the Dodgers to a 6-5, come-from-behind victory over the reeling Atlanta Braves.

“I don’t think anybody didn’t expect him to hit a walk-off home run there,” Dodgers utility man Tommy Edman said. “It’s just a question of where he’d hit it.”

The Dodgers are now 8-0, topping the 1933 New York Yankees of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth for the longest winning streak to begin a season for a reigning champion. The Braves, meanwhile, are 0-7, the type of record no team has ever recovered from to make the playoffs. And Ohtani, with three home runs and a 1.126 OPS this season, just keeps meeting moments.

“He’s pretty good, huh?” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said. “It’s Shohei. He’s going to do that. He’s going to do things better than that.”

On Aug. 23 last year, Ohtani reached the 40/40 club with a walk-off grand slam. Five days later, the Dodgers staged a second giveaway of his bobblehead — one that saw his now-famous dog, Decoy, handle the ceremonial first pitch — and Ohtani led off with a home run. On Sept. 19, Ohtani clinched his first postseason berth and ascended into the unprecedented 50/50 club with one of the greatest single-game performances in baseball history — six hits, three homers, two steals and 10 RBIs. Barely two weeks later, he homered in his first playoff game.

When Ohtani came up on Wednesday, he had what he described as a simple approach.

“I was looking for a really good pitch to hit,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “If I didn’t get a good pitch to hit, I was willing to walk.”

Of course, though, he got a good pitch.

And, of course, he sent it out.

“You just feel that he’s going to do something special,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And I just like the way he’s not pressing. He’s in the strike zone, and when he does that, there’s just no one better.”

The Dodgers began their much-anticipated season with a couple of breezy wins over the Chicago Cubs from Japan, even though Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman did not play in them. They returned home, brought iconic rapper Ice Cube out to present the World Series trophy on one afternoon, received their rings on another and swept a three-game series against the Detroit Tigers. Then came the Braves, and the Dodgers swept them, too — even though Freeman, nursing an ankle injury caused from slipping in the shower, didn’t participate.

The Dodgers already have two walk-offs and six comeback wins this season.

Wednesday’s effort left Roberts “a little dumbfounded.”

A nightmarish start defensively, highlighted by two errant throws from Muncy, spoiled Snell’s start and put them behind 5-0 after the first inning and a half. But the Dodgers kept inching closer. They trailed by just two in the eighth and put runners on second and third with two out. Muncy came to bat with his batting average at just .083. He had used the ballyhooed “Torpedo” bat for his first three plate appearances, didn’t like how it altered his swing plane, grabbed his usual bat for a showdown against Iglesias and laced a game-tying double into the right-center-field gap.

An inning later, Ohtani ended it.

“Overall, not just tonight, there is a really good vibe within the team,” Ohtani said after recording his fourth career walk-off hit. “I just think that’s allowing us to come back in these games to win.”

The Dodgers’ 8-0 start has allowed them to stay just ahead of the 7-0 San Diego Padres and the 5-1 San Francisco Giants in the National League West. Tack on the Arizona Diamondbacks (4-2) and the Colorado Rockies (1-4), and this marks the first time in the divisional era that an entire division has combined for at least 25 wins and no more than seven losses, according to ESPN Research. The Dodgers’ and Padres’ starts mark just the fifth season in major league history with multiple teams starting 7-0 or better, and the first time since 2003.

The Dodgers famously overcame a 2-1 series deficit to vanquish the Padres in the NL Division Series last year, then rode that fight to their first full-season championship since 1988.

That fight hasn’t let up.

“It feels like this clubhouse is carrying a little bit of the attitude we had last year that we’re never out of a game and we’re resilient, and we’ve been carrying it into this season,” Muncy said. “It’s been fun to watch. The guys don’t give up. Bad things have happened, and no one’s really been down or out on themselves. Everyone’s just, ‘All right, here we go, next inning, let’s get after it.’ The whole team, top to bottom, has been doing that. It’s been making it really, really fun to play.”

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Death of Gardner’s son pinned to carbon monoxide

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Death of Gardner's son pinned to carbon monoxide

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Carbon monoxide poisoning was the cause of death of the teenage son of former New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner, authorities in Costa Rica said Wednesday night.

Randall Zúñiga, director of the Judicial Investigation Agency, said 14-year-old Miller Gardner was tested for carboxyhemoglobin, a compound generated when carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin in the blood.

When carboxyhemoglobin saturation exceeds 50%, it is considered lethal. In Gardner’s case, the test showed a saturation of 64%.

“It’s important to note that adjacent to this room is a dedicated machine room, where it’s believed there may be some type of contamination toward these rooms,” Zúñiga said.

The head of the Costa Rican judicial police added that, during the autopsy, a “layer” was detected on the boy’s organs, which forms when there is a high presence of the poisonous gas.

Gardner died March 21 while staying with his family at a hotel on the Manuel Antonio beach in Costa Rica’s Central Pacific.

Asphyxiation was initially thought to have caused his death. After an autopsy was performed by the Forensic Pathology Section, that theory was ruled out.

Another line of investigation centered around whether the family had suffered food poisoning. Family members had reported feeling ill after dining at a nearby restaurant on the night of March 20 and received treatment from the hotel doctor.

Brett Gardner, 41, was drafted by the Yankees in 2005 and spent his entire major league career with the organization. The speedy outfielder batted .256 with 139 homers, 578 RBIs, 274 steals and 73 triples in 14 seasons from 2008 to 2021.

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