{"id":72403,"date":"2025-02-14T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T14:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=72403"},"modified":"2025-09-13T15:06:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T19:06:55","slug":"between-the-hedges-fly-dawgs-fly-super-bowl-bump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/02\/14\/between-the-hedges-fly-dawgs-fly-super-bowl-bump\/","title":{"rendered":"Between the Hedges: Fly Dawgs Fly, Super Bowl Bump"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fly, Eagles, Fly! Those chants rang down throughout downtown New Orleans and Philadelphia on Sunday night. The Eagles overcame Taylor Swift, the NFL Officials, and the Kansas City Chiefs to win <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2025\/02\/08\/best-betting-sites-sportsbook-promos-super-bowl-59-chiefs-vs-eagles\/\" target=\"_self\">Super Bowl LIX<\/a> 40-22. As big as the party was in New Orleans and Athens, the party in Athens might have been just as big. Hearing &#8220;Fly, Dawgs, Fly&#8221; coming out of Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall would not have been a shock after Sunday Night&#8217;s game. The connection between Athens and Philadelphia is deep. Let&#8217;s take a closer look at how Georgia could stand to benefit from and experience a Super Bowl bump.<\/p>\n<h2>Between the Hedges: Fly Dawgs Fly, Super Bowl Bump<\/h2>\n<h3>Athens &#8211; Philadelphia Connection<\/h3>\n<p>The Eagles roster is littered with former Georgia Bulldogs. Six former Bulldogs, Jalen Carter, Lewis Cine, Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, Kelee Ringo, and Nolan Smith, are all members and meaningful contributors to the Eagles&#8217; defense. The Eagles drafted all but one of these six players over the last three years, many in the first few rounds.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/C\/CartJa05.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jalen Carter:<\/a> Selected 9th overall pick in 2023 by Philadephia.<\/li>\n<li><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/C\/CineLe00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lewis Cine<\/a>: Selected 32nd overall pick in 2022 by the Minnesota Vikings. Cince battled injuries and played for Buffalo before coming to Philadelphia this season.<\/li>\n<li><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/D\/DaviJo03.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jordan Davis<\/a>: 13th overall pick in the 2022 draft by Philadelphia.<\/li>\n<li><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/D\/DeanNa00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nakobe Dean<\/a>: Selected in the third round (83rd overall) in 2022.<\/li>\n<li><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/R\/RingKe00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kelee Ringo<\/a>: Selected in the fourth round (105th overall) in 2023.<\/li>\n<li><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/S\/SmitNo02.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nolan Smith<\/a>: Selected 30th overall in the 2023 draft.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>A Math Lesson<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Think about that for a moment. Six players from one school on one team. An NFL roster has 53 men on it. That means 11% of the roster is made up of former Bulldogs. If we break that down further, three roster spots are probably reserved for specialists, leaving roughly 25 spots for the offense and defense. That means 24% of the Eagles&#8217; Defense is made up of Damn Good Dawgs.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s face it\u2014that is a lot of math. So put down your calculators and take it from <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/H\/HurtJa00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jalen Hurts<\/a>, a former nemesis of the Georgia fanbase, now the Eagles&#8217; quarterback, and Super Bowl MVP, best summed it up.\u201cI think a big part of it has to do with the Georgia background on defense, and I think that starts with Nakobe Dean and all those guys that were able to play ball in college together and bring their ways to the league,\u201d Hurts said. \u201cI think that has a big impact on our culture on defense, how they play, and how together they are, and I think that kind of seeps through the team in many ways.\u201d The culture Hurts&#8217; spoke about is reflected in just how special Georgia&#8217;s 2021 and 2022 defenses were.<\/p>\n<h3>Reflecting on the 2021 and 2022 Defenses<\/h3>\n<p>Georgia fans know just how great the 2021 and 2022 teams were. The 2021 team was special, becoming the first Georgia team since 1981 to win a National Championship. The defense played a huge role in their success, allowing just 4,019 total yards\u2014tops in the nation. The defense was an impenetrable force that most teams struggled to move the ball against. The Georgia defense was a force in the air and on the ground in 2021.\u00a0 Their defensive red-zone touchdown percentage was 28.13%, the best in the FBS since 2016. Georgia also racked up 41 sacks that season, ranking fifth in the nation.<\/p>\n<p>The 2022 Bulldogs finished a perfect 15-0 and crushed TCU in the National Championship game. While the defense may not have been as statistically overwhelming, it still made life miserable for opponents. Georgia ranked 15th nationally in passing yards allowed and 20th in points allowed, proving it was still one of the toughest units in college football.<\/p>\n<h3>Super Bowl Bump<\/h3>\n<p>The Georgia social media team did a fantastic job highlighting the collective and each player wearing Black and Red, Green, and White. Kirby Smart said his program is about more than just getting paid and NIL. Let&#8217;s not be foolish. We all know the Classic City Collective does a good job of ensuring that Georgia student-athletes are well compensated. At the end of the day, though, getting paid in college is nice, but it still matters more than getting paid in The League. Georiga&#8217;s impact on Philadelphia will go a long way in those upcoming conversations with transfers and recruits about who will best prepare them for the next step. Another Top 3 recruiting class last week showed everyone is singing and will continue to sing Fly, Dawgs, Fly.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Image: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fly, Eagles, Fly! Those chants rang down throughout downtown New Orleans and Philadelphia on Sunday night. The Eagles overcame Taylor Swift, the NFL Officials, and the Kansas City Chiefs to win Super Bowl LIX 40-22. As big as the party was in New Orleans and Athens, the party in Athens might have been just as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4424,"featured_media":72413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,35578,3],"tags":[65,613,4683,33101,106,7119,7101,1075,4685,6498,7647],"class_list":["post-72403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-georgia-bulldogs","category-sec","tag-georgia-bulldogs","tag-jalen-hurts","tag-jordan-davis","tag-kelee-ringo","tag-kirby-smart","tag-lewis-cine","tag-nakobe-dean","tag-nfl","tag-nolan-smith","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-super-bowl"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72403"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72415,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72403\/revisions\/72415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}