The Old Testament roles are set for Monday night's college football national championship game.
Georgia will be the indisputable Goliath against TCU inside SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, riding wave after wave of touted talent in a quest for a second straight national championship. Kirby Smart's Bulldogs (14-0) have qualified for six consecutive New Year's Six bowls and are playing in their third national title game in six years, while TCU first-year coach Sonny Dykes inherited program with only four players who had represented the Horned Frogs in a postseason event, with that being the 2018 Cheez-It Bowl.
"I never look at it from the perspective of where your kids were rated when they came in," Smart said Tuesday afternoon. "Coach Dykes inherited a lot of those players and inherited some through the (NCAA transfer) portal, but you've got what you've got, and what you do with what you have is what makes you a coach. He's done a tremendous job with the players he has inherited, and I feel like we've done the same with the ones we've gone out and recruited.
"I never get too caught up in how it was built. You do the best job you can with what you've got, and that's what you focus on."
Georgia is now an annual staple in the preseason top five and the national recruiting rankings, finishing first, second, first, fourth and third in the 247Sports.com team standings from 2018-22. By comparison, TCU had classes ranked 25th, 32nd, 23rd, 54th and 45th during that stretch.
Dykes admits there has been a "Cinderella" label to his team for most of this season, as the Horned Frogs (13-1) had a starting point of the Big 12's seventh-place pick.
"I think in some ways we even viewed ourselves as that early because we were figuring this thing out," Dykes said. "If you had asked us before the season if we would be playing for the national championship, most of us didn't think that we would. We just hadn't done it together, and there is a lot that goes into doing it together.
"You learn a lot of things as the journey goes along, so we've kind of had to build the plane while we're flying it."
TCU was unranked after September but turned heads on Oct. 1 when the Horned Frogs routed No. 18 and longtime blue blood Oklahoma 55-24.
"The Oklahoma game is when we first saw what we were capable of," Dykes said. "We played good football in all three phases, and that was a bit of an eye-opener for me, honestly. We had played OK up to that point, and the big question after that was how we were going to handle prosperity."
The latest blue blood to fall to TCU was Michigan, 51-45, in last Saturday's Fiesta Bowl national semifinal. That preceded Georgia's 42-41 topping of Ohio State in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
Immediately after the semifinals, oddsmakers tabbed the Bulldogs as 13.5-point favorites for Monday night.
"We have a general belief in each other and that we're good enough, and I think that's been the message since I got here," Dykes said. "We're good enough to win game one. We're good enough to win game two, and let's take it one week at a time. We have all the pieces here. We just had to put them together."
Said Smart: "Everybody gets into those ratings, but it's about the chemistry of a team. I would venture to say that these teams probably have some of the best chemistry across the country."
Freshmen galore
In Saturday's defeat of Ohio State, the Bulldogs held off the Buckeyes with the freshman likes of defensive end Mykel Williams, linebackers Marvin Jones Jr. and Jalon Walker, and safety Malachi Starks.
"They didn't do exactly what they were supposed to do on every play, so the contribution can either be positive or negative," Smart said. "I wouldn't say it was negative, but I wouldn't say it was positive. It was probably a lot more neutral. They're out there because they give us the best chance to win, but some of them were out there due to unforeseen circumstances and injuries.
"We don't make excuses around here and talk about injuries, but we've had our fair share. Nobody feels sorry for us, and we don't want anybody to, but we have to get those guys ready to play at a higher level."
Not that similar
Smart was not much for comparing TCU's 3-3-5 defensive look to that of Mississippi State, a team Georgia defeated 45-19 on Nov. 12.
"Mississippi State is very different," he said. "They're not really 3-3-5 compared to these guys. There are different coverage structures and different elements to it and different personnel groupings and different techniques and different styles of play."
Bulldog bites
Smart used "hopeful" when asked about the availability of sophomore linebacker Chaz Chambliss, redshirt junior right tackle Warren McClendon and junior tight end Darnell Washington for the title contest. ... Sophomore cornerback Javon Bullard on the injury suffered by Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin Monday night: "I've never seen nothing like that as far as the dude's heart stopping. I didn't even know that was possible in football, to be honest with you. My prayers go out to him, his family and the Bills organization."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.