It’s not every year that a college football team has the opportunity to exact revenge after an early-season loss. No. 3 Georgia will have that chance Saturday when it faces No. 9 Alabama in the Southeastern Conference Championship in Atlanta.
Georgia (11-1) has rattled off eight straight wins since falling to Alabama 24-21 at home on Sept. 27. The Bulldogs are firmly in the College Football Playoff picture, but they can clinch a bye in the 12-team tournament with a win over the Crimson Tide. If Georgia can get it, it would be a rare win for the red and black in the series.
Georgia has lost 10 of 11 against Alabama since 2007 and is 0-4 against the Crimson Tide at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Luckily for head coach Kirby Smart’s team, the Bulldogs look like a much different team than they did in September.
“Seems like ages ago,” Smart said of the first matchup. “We’ve improved in some areas. We’ve gone full circle in other areas. But the growth of (quarterback) Gunner (Stockton) would be one thing. He’s played in more games. He’s played in a lot of tough environments. As the year goes on, you get more comfortable with who you are. You tweak some things. We’ve moved some things around and tried to make things better.”
Stockton threw for just 130 yards in the loss, but has since helped the Bulldogs qualify for their fifth straight SEC title game appearance. The redshirt senior has thrown for 2,535 yards and 20 touchdowns, while adding 403 yards and eight scores on the ground.
Smart, a former four-year Georgia player who never had the chance to play for a conference title, understands the importance of Saturday, regardless of its CFP implications.
“It’s a chance to win an SEC championship,” Smart said. “That’s a very rare thing. These opportunities are hard to come by. The SEC we’re talking about now was not the SEC we were talking about for the last, I don’t know, almost a hundred years. It’s a challenge to win that trophy. It’s a mark of toughness, of battle scars. The team that wins it has been through a gauntlet.”
Alabama (10-2) got its desired combination of outcomes on the final day of the regular season. After Texas A&M lost to Texas, the Crimson Tide sealed a spot in Atlanta with their 27-20 win over Auburn.
It’s not a certainty that Alabama will make the CFP if it loses on Saturday, and head coach Kalen DeBoer is already prepared if his team can’t complete the season sweep of Georgia.
“I just think when you’re really trying to have a playoff, you need your best teams in there. There’s no doubt in my mind that we are one of the best teams,” DeBoer said. “I don’t say that arrogantly. I just really believe that’s what it is. There’s a ton of metrics I know people look at: strength of record, FPI. We’re right at the top. Playing in your conference championship shouldn’t be something that we’re worried about as far as what that would do to our playoff hopes. We got here by earning it.”
The Crimson Tide have been led by Ty Simpson’s 3,056 passing yards and 25 touchdowns. The fourth-year Alabama quarterback watched from the bench the last time the team played in the SEC Championship in 2023, and is well aware of the stakes that Saturday will bring.
“This wasn’t something that a committee picked, we earned this,” Simpson said. “We went through a tough schedule to get to this position. But we also have got to understand that this isn’t the same team we played a couple months ago. … This is why you come to Alabama. This is what you dream about as a kid, playing in an SEC championship, and we need to make sure we see it like that.”
