What UGA’s last win over Notre Dame meant to the 1980 national title team

When Tim Morrison wakes up every morning, the former Georgia offensive lineman walks through his house to his home office. There, he looks at team photos and a picture of Herschel Walker jumping over his back to score a touchdown against Notre Dame in the 1981 Sugar Bowl. Upon reaching his desk, Morrison opens a drawer to grab his 1980 national championship ring.

The ring isn’t flashy, and it isn’t the most glamorous ring to be given to a Georgia football team, even though it is the only one honoring an undisputed national title.

As Morrison slides the ring onto his right ring finger, he thinks of his teammates. Putting on the ring is part of Morrison’s morning routine. Without the ring, Morrison said he would feel naked.

“I know a lot of guys don't wear their ring,” Morrison said. “This is just part of me.”

Since Georgia won the 1981 Sugar Bowl to finish undefeated, the designation of “national championship winner” has followed the players wherever they go. In the nearly four decades since, the championship has held a steady presence in all of the Bulldogs’ lives. Once, in Belize, a man approached quarterback Buck Belue wanting to discuss the title.

“You know it’s important,” Belue said. “But the scope of it, you don’t understand how many people it touches, how many people it means something to.”

Bob Kelly, a backup defensive back, said he might not have gotten his first job out of college — a bank consultant at Bank Earnings International — without being a member of that team.

“If I had been on an average Georgia team,” Kelly said, “I don't know if I would have gotten that job.”

Within the state of Georgia, the 1980 national championship season holds a certain level of reverence. In the 37 years since, Georgia football hasn’t won a national championship. The title drought exacerbates fans and former players, but it also increases interest in the 1980 team. Those players are the only ones from Georgia who can say that, for one year, they were the best in the country.

After his playing career ended, Frank Ros, a starting linebacker and captain, worked as a vice president of Hispanic strategies for Coca-Cola. Every day, he wore the championship ring to work.

“You put on your wedding band and your national championship ring and your watch,” Ros said.

For Ros, his job took him across the United States. When he spent time around newly arrived immigrants, he inevitably was asked about the ring he wore on his right index finger.

“It's a part of your life every day,” offensive lineman Hugh Nall said.

On Saturday, Ros expects 84 people, about half of whom were players, to attend a watch party of Georgia’s game against Notre Dame at the Indoor Athletic Facility. The game is the second meeting between the teams in history. The first was the 1981 Sugar Bowl.

As these Bulldogs, now in their late 50s, watch Georgia play the team they defeated so long ago, they’ll once again be reminded of what they accomplished when they were in their teens and 20s.

“I think you wouldn't be human not to wander back in your mind to when we played,” Ros said. “I'm sure my mind will go back and forth.”

Morrison plans on watching the game at the IAF with his teammates. When the game ends and he walks home that night, Morrison will take his championship ring off and put it in a drawer — until the next morning.

This story was originally published September 7, 2017 at 7:07 PM with the headline "What UGA’s last win over Notre Dame meant to the 1980 national title team."