To paraphrase a well-known meme, call the ambulance. But not for us.
Georgia dominated the line of scrimmage and punished Alabama snap after snap to lock up a second consecutive SEC Championship.
A Red and Black defense that looked so shaky to start the season, and had grown a little each week, metamorphosed into its final form tonight, and it was terrifying. How terrifying? If you’re reading this you had more rushing yards tonight than the Alabama Crimson Tide. The Fightin’ Gumps managed -3 yards of rushing offense against Georgia. It was the Tide’s lowest rushing total since 1940, a shocking statistic that won’t do anything to mollify Bama fans who have grumbled that their team hasn’t been as physical under Kalen DeBoer as under the guy who preceded him.
To be fair, the Alabama passing offense wasn’t much better. Georgia sacked Ty Simpson 3 times and pressured him on almost every drop back (he also took a series of hard shots when he made the error of tucking it and running). Georgia defenders occasionally walked Bama All-American tackle Kadyn Proctor back into Simpson’s face. And while Tide fans said before the game that the loss of Jam Miller wouldn’t be a big deal, it looked like it absolutely was in the passing game.
Georgia brought pressure right at Tide tailbacks Daniel Hill and AK Dear, neither of whom was consistently effective in response. Ty Simpson quite justifiably never looked comfortable as a result, finishing 19 of 39 passing for 212 yards and an interception. Georgia fans worried about again being burned by Ryan Williams had nothing to fear, as the freshman phenom continued his sophomore swoon, finishing with only 2 catches for 33 yards. By the time Germie Bernard reeled off a gutsy 24 yard touchdown jaunt to finally get the Tide on the board the night was already a flop for the Crimson and White.
Not so for the Red and Black offense. If you had told me Georgia would play the Alabama rematch without Colbie Young, Drew Bobo, or Noah Thomas I would have been filled with an icy dread. But the Bulldogs put up 297 yards of offense that could have been significantly more but for the patented Kirby Smart anaconda offense being deployed for most of the fourth quarter.
Redshirt freshman Malachi Toliver acquitted himself well in place of Bobo (who was worryingly tootling around on a knee scooter on the sideline). And Zachariah Branch and Dillon Bell were all the targets Gunner Stockton needed. Both had a clutch 3rd down conversion and a touchdown.
Stockton’s passing numbers weren’t gaudy, just deadly. It felt like exactly the night Kirby Smart wants his signal caller to have: an uber-efficient 20 of 26 passing for 156 yards and 3 touchdowns. Most importantly, Stockton took care of the ball, throwing exactly one less interception than Simpson, which was exactly the number we want to see from him.
And to top it off Georgia also won decisively in the kicking game, supercharging the victory with a Cole Speer blocked punt that led to the first score of the game. Georgia has blocked a kick in 17 games under Kirby Smart-the Dawgs have gone in to win every one of them. We talked all week about how Kirby Smart seems to go into his shell and play not to lose sometimes against the Tide. That call was the antithesis of doing so. The new, dice rolling Kirby is either going to kill me or save me. But so far it’s pretty fun.
Georgia has now won back-to-back SEC football titles for the first time since 1982. The Athenians will almost certainly claim a top four seed and a first round bye when the playoff bracket is announced tomorrow, a result which seemed far, far away when the ‘Dawgs were losing to the Tide in September and clawing back from behind against Auburn in October.
It’s going to be an uncomfortable Sunday for the Tide, however, as tonight’s result will test the committee’s resolve to not drop a team out of the playoff for losing a conference title game (you know, like they did Georgia in 2023). Last year the league’s champion lost its starting QB in this game. This year a team may go from the title game to getting left out of the playoff entirely. With the SEC going to nine conference games next season, the league is going to have to come to terms with the fact that this game is incompatible with their goal of getting as many teams as possible in the college football playoff.
But on this night, Georgia dominated the game that many of us Georgia fans watched take place for a decade without us. Roy Kramer, the longtime commissioner of the SEC died this week. Kramer was the architect of the SEC title game, and with it helped birth the modern era of college football that now seems to be passing, or at least evolving. But for now this game still matters. Winning it still matters. And finally beating Alabama in Atlanta to do it feels as sweet as any victory since Georgia hoisted the title trophy in January 2023.
This game is an old school classic, and tonight Georgia won it by playing old-fashioned physical football. Ain’t nothing better than that.
Go ‘Dawgs!!!
