Chris Graythen / Getty Images

Thomas Brown (20) and Fernando Velasco (75) celebrate after Brown scored on a 1-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.

Georgia lobbied for a spot in the title game after the top two teams in the BCS rankings lost on the final day of the regular season. But the Bulldogs, who didn’t even make the SEC championship game, had to settle for their third Sugar Bowl appearance in five years.

“I feel we’re the No. 1 team in the country,” Howard said defiantly.

With their title hopes dashed, Richt urged his players to get a good start on 2008, knowing an impressive win over the Warriors would surely set up the Dawgs for a top-five ranking at the start of next season — and better positioning for a run at No. 1.

Consider it done.

Hawaii hoped to follow the lead set by WAC rival Boise State, which capped last year’s perfect season with a stunning overtime win against Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. In the locker room before the game, coach June Jones urged his team to “play with confidence, like you belong.”

They didn’t.

Brennan ran up against a swarming Georgia defense that was in no mood to give the little guys another day in the sun. In the first half alone, he was sacked five times and turned it over twice, losing a fumble and throwing an interception.

“We’ve never played in this element,” Brennan said. “We got here and we tried as hard as we could to keep it as normal as we’re used to, but it just seemed like we weren’t used to this kind of venue. We weren’t used to the crowd noise. We couldn’t get our audibles.”

Georgia wasn’t much help, either.

“It was the fastest team I’ve probably ever seen,” Brennan said. “We just couldn’t get into our groove and do what we wanted to do.”

Hawaii finally got to the end zone with 10½ minutes to go and backup quarterback Tyler Graunke running the offense. He tossed a meaningless 16-yard TD pass to Ryan Grice-Mullen while Brennan watched from the sideline.

In all fairness to the Hawaii star, this wasn’t really a fair fight. The Bulldogs were so much stronger, so much faster, so much better in so many areas.

Even so, it was tough to be serenaded with chants of “Overrrated! Overrated!” by the Georgia faithful.

“They’re a great football team,” Brennan said. “I’m just really disappointed that we didn’t show up and at least play our type of football. We’re such a better football team than what we showed tonight.”

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