Georgia’s three-peat hopes depend on beating familiar nemesis
Georgia has to play Alabama this week, and for the first time in forever, the pressure seems off. That night in Indianapolis two years ago did the trick. Kirby Smart should not look at the other sideline, see Nick Saban and shirk. Georgia players should not look at their Alabama counterparts and have a mental hurdle.
Even the attempt to make this about one final box to check — Georgia has yet to beat Alabama in the SEC championship or at Mercedes-Benz Stadium — was shrugged off by Smart on Sunday night.
“I’m not looking for check marks in boxes to put on your belt,” Smart said, mixing his metaphors but getting his point across.
This is just another SEC Championship Game. And this one, the argument will be made here, probably determines whether Georgia wins its third national championship in a row.
If Georgia beats Alabama on Saturday, it will win the national championship.
If Georgia loses to Alabama, it will not make the College Football Playoff.
Feel free to take this column and bring it back in a month. Feel free to wave it around now as an example of SEC bias, or depending too much on recent history. But the sense one gets when watching this Georgia team and knowing the other contenders is the biggest hurdle that awaits on Saturday.
The main reason is talent. It’s not the only one. But it’s the main one.
There’s a colleague of mine here at The Athletic who likes to say that stars matter. Well, the most talented team in the country, per the 247Sports team talent composite, is not Georgia. It’s Alabama. The third-most talented team is Ohio State .
Class, who is the last team to beat Georgia? That would be Alabama, two years ago in the SEC championship. Which team since then has come the closest? That would be Ohio State in last year’s CFP semifinal. Others have given Georgia scares ( Missouri twice, Auburn this year) but those weren’t down-to-the-wire affairs like Ohio State and Alabama in the national championship. Georgia has been a balanced team these last three years — offense, defense and special teams — and laden with talent. It took the only teams that could square up with the Bulldogs talent-wise to either beat them or take them to the brink.
This year the Buckeyes are almost certainly out of contention unless something crazy happens. The Crimson Tide, for all their flaws, are still in the Bulldogs’ way. By Smart’s own admission, quarterbacks who can run and throw have given his defense problems, and you may have noticed that Jalen Milroe can run and throw. He has multiple receivers who can make plays — Jermaine Burton , playing against his former team for the first time, and Isaiah Bond , the man who caught fourth-and-31 to win the Iron Bowl. And teams with multiple receivers, a la Ohio State last year, also give Georgia problems.
No, Georgia is not doomed. It’s a modest favorite (4.5 points) for the right reasons, and the temptation in this space would be to take Georgia to cover. But it is a mere temptation, because Alabama, Saban and his talented unit are going to be a tough out.
After that? Georgia should and will be a much heavier favorite against anybody it plays. Yes, even Michigan , which isn’t even the potential Playoff opponent that should scare the Bulldogs the most.
First, of course, they need to make the Playoff, and at this point, the SEC championship looks like win-and-in, lose-and-out. That wasn’t the case for Georgia the past two years, but this year there are too many viable candidates in other conferences. There are only four spots, and if Alabama beats Georgia it would get one of them. The Pac-12 championship will get another. The chaos scenario thus requires two of the following three: Michigan losing to Iowa, Florida State losing to Louisville, Texas losing to Oklahoma State .
Possible? Yes. Likely? We’ve been waiting for the chaos, and the chaos hasn’t occurred, so it’s probably time to stop waiting.
We could also get into a scenario where Georgia loses on a late field goal or disputed call, and two of the three win in the same fashion. That’s maybe when the committee finds a way to jam Georgia in. This is a committee made of human beings who apparently think a lot of Georgia, and may also appreciate the three-peat storyline. If it’s close, that would help Georgia. But it’s harder and harder to see the close scenario. It’s setting up to be fairly clear choices for the committee.
That leaves the simplest scenario: Georgia wins and is in as the No. 1 seed and plays in the Sugar Bowl. The most likely opponents:
• Florida State, on its backup quarterback, inexperienced in the postseason, and only 20th in the talent composite.
• Texas , which has talent (sixth in the composite) and good receivers, including another former Georgia guy in Adonai Mitchell . But the Longhorns would also be a Playoff newbie, lost star tailback Jonathon Brooks to an injury, and quarterback Quinn Ewers isn’t a threat to run. Then again, the Longhorns did embarrass the Crimson Tide, so ... let’s just say Georgia might prefer Florida State beat Louisville and sew up that fourth spot.
There’s also a chance Oregon could be the fourth seed, but if the Ducks knock off Washington , avenging their only loss of the season, the guess here is they jump depleted Florida State or Texas and get the third seed. That means Oregon (or Washington) would play Michigan in the Rose Bowl. Let’s roll with that scenario and wonder how any would match up with Georgia:
• Washington? That defense, yuck.
• Michigan? We’ve seen this movie before, two years ago in the Playoff semifinals. Yes, the teams are different. Michigan may be better, more Playoff-hardened and experienced. But it’s still built in a similar image to Georgia (physical and along the trenches), the same way Mark Stoops has built Kentucky . And you can ask Stoops how that’s gone when he’s played Georgia. You don’t beat Georgia by playing its own game. And the Wolverines, for all Jim Harbaugh’s optimism about players being drafted, are still only 14th in the talent composite.
• Oregon? We’ve seen this movie even more recently: Georgia routed Bo Nix and company 49-3 in last year’s season opener. And yet this still seems the team Smart and his staff would least like to see because they know Dan Lanning, and they respect his recruiting and coaching. Lanning was coaching his first game when he lost to Georgia back then. He’s grown as a coach now, as has Nix. There’s still a talent gap (10th in the composite) but it may take a former Georgia assistant to finally beat Georgia.
Or it may taken Smart’s mentor. Or another one of Saban’s former assistants, Steve Sarkisian at Texas. Or maybe all this is wildly off, and Harbaugh hoists the national championship trophy in Houston, having beaten Smart and avenged that loss two years ago. Georgia is an imperfect team, especially in run defense, and a team that can run and pass on the Bulldogs may finally crack the code.
It could be a fascinating month. Or it could all be fait accompli after Saturday. If someone is going to stop Georgia from a three-peat, the most likely team is the one that for the longest time was its nemesis, and could still be again.
(Photo: Brett Davis / USA Today)
