ATLANTA — In a seismic statement of an SEC championship, Georgia played itself into the heart of the national championship conversation. And Alabama potentially played itself right out of the College Football Playoff.
With one 28-7 victory, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart rewrote the entire narrative surrounding himself and Alabama. Holding a woeful 1-7 record against the Tide coming into Saturday, Smart deployed a combination of speed, deception, trickery and flat-out bust-your-face football to not just beat Alabama, but humiliate them, too. This is the kind of win that galvanizes a program for the rest of the year, the kind of loss that leaves scars that last across seasons.
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Georgia is now headed to — at worst — a bye and a No. 2 seed in the College Football Playoff. No. 9 Alabama (9-3), on the other hand, is headed nowhere fast. There will be plenty of talk over the coming days of whether it’s fair to penalize a team for playing an extra conference championship game while other playoff contenders sit idle, but this much is indisputable: Even knowing they had to make a good showing, the Tide didn’t look, act or perform much like a playoff team on Saturday night.
Smart had been salivating over this game, but plenty of others in Bulldog Nation weren’t so enthusiastic, given that there was no playoff upside for Georgia either way, and the possibility of injury to a weary team loomed large. Seeded No. 3 going into the game, Georgia wouldn’t be dropping out of the playoff bracket no matter what happened.
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Alabama, by contrast, has been effectively in a win-or-else sequence since its loss to Oklahoma in order to keep its playoff hopes viable. The Tide saw one potential stumbling block crumble into dust an hour or so before kickoff, when Texas Tech obliterated BYU in the Big 12 championship. That cleared out any possibility that a convincing BYU win would have given the Cougars a CFP berth. With that out of the way, the Tide held their fate in their own hands.
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And promptly threw it away.
Georgia: Merciless and quick
Both teams spent their first couple of series gently pawing at each other, testing defenses and waiting for the right moment to strike. That moment came with 6:37 remaining in the first, when Georgia’s Cole Speer devoured the punt of Alabama’s Blake Doud, giving Georgia the ball on the Alabama 21. Four plays later, Georgia’s Gunner Stockton made the first of multiple big-game plays on the night, rolling out to the right to find a wide-open Roderick Robinson for the night’s first touchdown.
The ease with which Georgia seized every bit of the momentum early brought Alabama’s doomsday scenario into stark reality. Alabama might be able to survive a narrow loss and get into the CFP bracket, but a blowout loss? That would clear a path for both No. 10 Notre Dame and No. 12 Miami to leap Alabama and leave the Tide out of the playoff for a second year in a row.
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On the ensuing possession, Simpson’s pass was tipped in the air and into the hands of Georgia’s Daylen Everette, sending the Georgia half of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium crowd into an earsplitting frenzy. Georgia marched downfield, surviving one fourth-and-1 attempt as Stockton crafted a 14-play scoring drive that consumed nearly eight minutes of clock … the first of many. It was a 14-0 Bulldogs lead.
Alabama: Ineffective and inaccurate
Alabama, meanwhile, spent virtually the entire game looking ineffective, inconsistent and inaccurate. The Tide were down two significant offensive weapons in running back Jam Miller and tight end Josh Cuevas, but Alabama could have suited up Julio Jones and Derrick Henry for one more run and still would have struggled against an unforgiving Georgia defense that had the Tide seeing ghosts.
For every pass where Simpson connected for a chunk of yardage, he threw three others out of his receivers’ reach. Four of Alabama’s five first-half drives lasted no more than four plays for 13 yards, and the fifth covered only 30 before Simpson ended it with an interception. Alabama ended the half with just 70 yards of offense, only 17 on the ground. Simpson was just 5-of-12 with the interception. Georgia, meanwhile, feasted on the Tide, claiming a 2-to-1 advantage in time of possession on top of that two-touchdown lead.
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Given the chance to cut into the lead with the ball at the start of the second half, the Tide promptly gave it right back after a third-and-long sack of Simpson. And then Stockton engineered another efficient beauty — six plays, 40 yards — to put the Bulldogs up 21 and effectively seal off the game and Alabama’s last hopes.
Saturday marked the first time in the history of the SEC championship that any team had been shut out through the first three quarters. Even Alabama’s band got blown out of the building. As the Million Dollar Band played “Basket Case,” Alabama’s traditional fourth-quarter rallying cry, the many thousands of Georgia fans in attendance drowned them out with chants of “U-G-A!”
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Needing to show even the barest hint of a pulse in the fourth quarter to have any kind of CFP hope at all, Alabama finally got on the board with a heavily penalty-enhanced drive that ended with Germie Bernard shaking off most of the Georgia defense for a 23-yard touchdown that was, legitimately, aided by a referee:
And then Georgia did what Georgia does, encircling and smothering with brutal fourth-quarter efficiency. After its lone touchdown, Alabama forced a punt out of Georgia, but Simpson again couldn’t move the ball, and Georgia shut down a desperation fourth-and-2 attempt at Alabama’s own 12-yard line. Three plays later, Zachariah Branch stormed into the end zone to put Georgia up 28-7 and shake off years of frustration and disappointment.
The last 12 SEC championships have featured Alabama, Georgia or both. For the last decade, these two programs have been the class not just of the SEC, but of college football as a whole, stacking conference titles and national championships like firewood.
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But now, there’s a clear division between the two, regardless of what the standings may say. Georgia simply throttled Alabama on Saturday with merciless efficiency, leaving the Tide no room for arguments, protests or even hope.
Georgia can now rest and prepare for a bye to start the playoff. Alabama, meanwhile, will have to hope for the mercy of others, since the Tide couldn’t handle business for themselves.
