NEW ORLEANS - Georgia's season ended with Monroe Freeling face-down on the Superdome turf.
Freeling gave up a fourth-down sack that officially extinguished any hopes of a Bulldog comeback against Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. That play capped off a rough night for an offensive line that had a roller-coaster season.
"They're a good physical team," center Jared Wilson said. "I saw a lot of reports saying they're small, but that doesn't matter, honestly. They’ve got some dogs up front and over their front seven, and it was their day. They're a great, great, great team, and it just wasn't our night."
The stats aren't pretty.
Georgia gave up four sacks to a tenacious Notre Dame defensive front. One of those came just before halftime when the Fighting Irish stripped quarterback Gunner Stockton, recovered a fumble, and scored a touchdown on the next play to take a 13-3 lead into halftime.
"I think they did a great job pass rushing," Freeling said. "They knew we were passing the ball, so they were getting off that snap count. We probably didn't play our best pass protection game. We didn't play with the great technique, but you’ve got to give them credit."
On the ground, Georgia netted 62 yards on 29 attempts. Other than one 28-yard run from Nate Frazier, the Bulldogs struggled to find space in the run game.
"They didn't sit still," offensive lineman Earnest Greene said. "You know, they moved a bit on early downs, run downs specifically, to try to just not let us get four hands on them and get our double-teams on them. So, we knew that coming in that they were going to probably try to do that. We’ve just got to work on getting our second step in the ground and getting our feet in the ground and anticipating."
Offensive lineman Dylan Fairchild echoed Greene, saying the Bulldogs struggled to defend Notre Dame's lateral movement. He added that there were many occasions where Georgia's five offensive linemen weren't all on the same page.
Georgia's offensive line as a whole had its ups and downs throughout the season. In the Bulldogs' biggest game of the year, the group came up short.
Now the offensive front looks ahead to 2025 as it hopes for a different ending to next season.
"You always just want to look back and just try to remember this feeling," Greene said. "This is the feeling that drives you in all your off-season workouts and everything that you do to prepare to get ready for long, hard, gruesome seasons like these, honestly. But, you know, you just want to look back and try to remember this feeling."
