It was Georgia linebacker Davin Bellamy who first proclaimed the new order of things around here – at least the first I heard it spoken aloud. In the bitter aftermath of Georgia’s overtime college football championship loss to Alabama, just minutes after the diverse freshman connection of Tua Tagovailoa to DeVonta Smith lifted the Crimson Tide to another glorious, yet ever-so repetitive, championship, the Bulldogs senior linebacker was able to spin forward.
“It changes the standard around here,” Bellamy said in the Georgia locker room at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, speaking on the impact of what these Bulldogs had wrought.
“A 10-1 season isn’t good enough around here anymore. It’s championship or bust.”
Guess we know where Bellamy will be setting the bar as he ambles off to the role of venerated, it-was-so-much-better-back-in-my-day alum. Very high. Unreachably so by the vast majority of teams following this one.
There has been a seismic shift in expectation in these parts. That goes for both Bulldog and Falcon. A rethinking of what success looks like. We have had a small taste of filet; and Spam just isn’t going to cut it anymore.
You’ve arrived as a program/franchise when anything less than a real chance to win a championship is deemed failure. This isn’t always a fair way to approach a season. This isn’t entirely reasonable. But the world – real or sporting – is neither fair nor reasonable.
That’s the way it works in Alabama.
That’s the way it works in New England.
That’s the way it used to work with the Braves, whose run of consecutive division championships led to an insufficient number of world titles and dissatisfaction among the faithful. It’s going to be a while before they enter that alternate universe again.
This season, the Falcons fully felt the repercussions of life in this new reality. Measured against the whole history of the franchise, making the playoffs for a second consecutive year and winning once in the postseason would be considered a quite successful campaign.
And, yet, with that loss in Philadelphia, there is the clear aftertaste of underachievement. They should have been so much better than their last game, and for that, there is more blame than satisfaction to go around. And everyone takes a turn on the griddle. The head coach. The offensive coordinator. The 2016 MVP quarterback. His top-of-the-line receiver. No one is immune.
And that’s a good thing. Because the expectations will be just as high next season for the Falcons, which certainly beats the notion that they just doing well just to show up.
There have been too many seasons go by here in which they could be commended for trying hard.
To his credit, Kirby Smart does not seem the type who will shy away from the new paradigm he created at Georgia. He practically invites the crush of raised expectation.
These were some of his first words, almost defiant ones, he spoke in the post-championship-game press conference: "I think everybody can see that Georgia's going to be a force to be reckoned with."
And: "I'm very proud of this team and this university, and we're not going anywhere."
The echoes of those statements will follow him into 2018, and into every game, cupcake and actual.
This kind of course is not the easiest to take. Fans and players will be disappointed at the end more than they will be ultimately rewarded – that’s just the odds. The cruelties of social media will thrive. Impatience and intemperance will have permanent seats at the table.
But it beats being satisfied with less.
