‘It’s surreal’: Bulldogs cherishing Sugar Bowl experience

Monty Rice lit up like a New Year’s Eve firework when asked about the experience of playing in another New Year’s Day bowl game.

The sophomore has good enough reason to feel excited. In his two seasons at Georgia, Rice and the Bulldogs have played in a Rose Bowl, a College Football Playoff National Championship and two Southeastern Conference title games.

And while the allure of playing in Pasadena, California, or the stakes of a national championship may not apply to the 2019 Sugar Bowl (8:45 p.m., ESPN), the Bulldogs are not taking their trip to New Orleans for granted.

“I just want to win,” Rice said. “It’s always nice to win, no matter what game it is. We could be playing Faulkner (an NAIA school) and I’d want to win. I’m just excited to be here.”

Obviously, Texas is no Faulkner, and the Sugar Bowl remains one of the more prestigious of the annual bowl season games. The 2019 matchup will serve as the program’s 10th all-time appearance in the bowl, and its first since 2008, when Georgia trounced Hawaii 41-10.

The Bulldogs finished No. 5 in the final regular-season BCS rankings that year; Texas finished No. 19. That Bulldogs team boasted Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno, among others, and much like this year’s Bulldogs, hit the 11-win mark.

Of course, that was 10 years ago. Far too long ago for most of this year’s team to really remember much.

“I was 11, I have no idea (what I was doing),” said Jonathan Ledbetter, who will play his final game for the program on New Year’s Day. “I know I was home for the holidays. I definitely did not watch (the 2008 Sugar Bowl).”

That 2007 team wasn’t really near the national championship picture due to two regular-season losses. This Bulldogs squad was a blown second-half lead away from a College Football Playoff appearance.

The players know that. The coaches know it, too. But the team remains confident it’ll avoid a letdown against a solid Longhorns squad a few steps above 2007 Hawaii.

“At the end of the day, it’s not always about the draft stock,” Bulldogs’ head coach Kirby Smart said. “It’s about a memory. It’s about a legacy. It’s about being a part of something bigger than yourself.”

For Georgia, there won’t be a shortage of opportunities to make a few memories.

The players already picked out various items from a bowl suite, and will receive a hefty set of bowl gifts for appearing in the game. The Bulldogs will visit Children’s Hospital New Orleans on Friday, a day after flying into Louisiana.

From there, it’s all business for both teams involved, as both the Bulldogs and Longhorns will take part in various interviews and in-stadium practices to prepare for their New Year’s Day showdown.

And, really, there’s not much else the Bulldogs can do but cherish the opportunity. The playoff selections were determined the day following that SEC Championship collapse, and an eight-team playoff is not predicted to happen any time soon.

“If you go around the team and you ask everybody, ‘Is this where we wanted to be?’ — no,” said Bulldogs quarterback Jake Fromm. “But, we’re excited to be here. It’s the Sugar Bowl, it’s still a really big bowl. … I think a lot of seniors, juniors, guys that want to play at the next level, that’s the motivation right there.”

And it’s not like the Sugar Bowl is a massive step down from a season ago: 2017’s playoff run aside, it will serve as the program’s highest-ranking bowl appearance since Smart took over in 2016.

“It’s surreal for me to be here,” Rice said. “It’s amazing to me that I’ll be able to tell my kids and my family one day that we won a Rose Bowl, we played for two SEC Championships, and we’re playing in this (Sugar) Bowl.

“It’s a great game to be in, and I know my family will be watching.”