ESPN’s Bill Connelly released his top five SEC games of the regular season over the weekend, and it’s no surprise that Alabama was prevalent throughout his list. This top five was largely generated by each team’s SP+ ranking, meaning the games weren’t necessarily handpicked by Connelly.
The presumably top-ranked Georgia Bulldogs will come to Tuscaloosa on September 28th for a week five showdown that topped Connelly’s list. Alabama and Georgia have run the sport of college football as of late, combining to win three of the last four national championships.
Since 2017, the Tide and the Dawgs have met for three SEC titles (all won by Bama) and two national titles (1-1 split), with one or both of them appearing in the College Football Playoff every single year except 2019. In any given year, it’s a safe bet that one of them will win the national championship. Other teams that have gotten one-off nattys in that time span include Clemson, LSU, and Michigan, all of whom had to go through Bama or Georgia to take it.
This will be the first big SEC test for Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer. Still, all the pressure will be on Georgia’s Kirby Smart, who could never quite get the Alabama monkey off his back while Nick Saban was in town. Though it’s the first conference game of the year, this matchup could have SEC title game implications down the line in the now-divisionless league. The entire college football world will be watching this early season gargantuan clash.
Connelly’s top five includes the Crimson Tide two more times. In back-to-back games with a bye week in between, Alabama hosts Missouri in a week nine showdown before traveling to Death Valley to play LSU in week 11. Needless to say, both will be massive games and potentially top-10 matchups.
Georgia at Ole Miss and Georgia at Texas round out Connelly’s top five, which are reasonable choices. Of course, the SEC is loaded so there are a lot of quality matchups that will be left out of a list like this.
Personally, I would have included Alabama’s return to Neyland Stadium on the Third Saturday in October instead of Alabama vs Missouri, but otherwise I have no qualms with Connelly’s list.
Other heated rivalry matchups like the renewal of Texas vs Texas A&M, the Red River Shootout, and the Iron Bowl are also very intriguing, but likely don’t fit Connelly’s criteria.
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Publish date : 2024-07-30 09:30:00
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