Kirby Smart likes to use this quote from Billie Jean King: “Pressure is a privilege.” Smart first used it the season after losing to Alabama in the 2018 national championship game, and it has stayed in the ether around the program through everything that has happened since.
Kalen DeBoer would know about pressure. too, having to follow Nick Saban. And as smooth as the transition has been so far, the biggest test arrives Saturday when Smart and Georgia roll into Tuscaloosa.
So if pressure is a privilege, who is the most privileged this week? Seth Emerson and Kennington Smith III break down the biggest game (so far) of the 2024 season.
Smith: That privilege belongs to the Dawgs. That’s not to say there isn’t pressure on Alabama because certainly there is within the fan base to win, and if Georgia wins by a convincing margin, the goodwill that Alabama has built through three weeks will diminish. But Georgia has more to lose in this game.
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Kirby Smart’s 1-5 record against Alabama is well-documented. Georgia is 49-2 since Nov. 7, 2020, with two losses to Alabama. Many would argue that Georgia’s win over the Tide in the 2022 national championship game was a changing of the guard, and there’s no doubt the Dawgs have ascended since that point with two national championships since Alabama’s last one in 2020. But when these teams met in December, with Georgia as the favorite, Alabama reasserted its dominance. Georgia is favored over Alabama for the fourth straight time Saturday, but another loss would be three losses in those four games.
Perhaps Smart’s only knock as a coach was he couldn’t find regular success against Saban (who could?), but now that hurdle is gone. Saban’s sudden retirement has shifted how these programs are viewed on a national level. Alabama has taken a step back without Saban, and Georgia is now at the forefront with the new top coach in the game. There’s pressure to live up to that billing. So I can’t see how there’s not more pressure on Smart and Georgia with their resume during the past few years to usher in a new era in this series against a first-year coach in DeBoer. A loss would turn the conversation from “Kirby Smart had a Nick Saban problem” to “Georgia has an Alabama problem.”
Alabama beat Georgia in the SEC Championship Game and earned a spot in the College Football Playoff. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
The question of who is “the standard” in college football is always ongoing. Alabama had been the measuring stick by which other top programs were compared for a decade-plus, but Georgia’s recent success has called that into question. It’s something that has been used as motivation by Alabama’s players. It certainly was in last year’s SEC Championship Game and likely will be again this weekend. I wonder if Georgia views it the same way. Is that title as important to Georgia? Do the broad-scale ramifications of a win or loss reverberate in the same way?
Emerson: Does Georgia have more to lose? Oh, it certainly would be bad for Georgia if it loses this game, especially for College Football Playoff implications — more on that in a second — but not so much psychologically. That pressure is more on the other sideline.
DeBoer is shaking the Saban shadow, but if he loses at home to Georgia, just imagine the hot takes, fair or not. The fair take would be it shows Georgia has passed Alabama. The unfair take would be that DeBoer is in over his head. Smart and his program, meanwhile, don’t need to beat Alabama to stave off any existential questions about the program. Smart has twice as many national championships as wins over Alabama. He needed to beat the Tide to win the first title but not the next one.
Minus Saban, it could be argued that Alabama is just another top-tier opponent rather than a mental nemesis.
Where the pressure is definitely on Georgia is the Playoff. Georgia still has to go to Texas and Ole Miss and has to face Tennessee at home. It needs to win two of those four huge games — without blowing one of the others — to make the CFP. If Georgia loses Saturday, the road is harder. That’s where the true pressure should lie.
And that’s where it lies for DeBoer, too: Alabama still plays at Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma, and faces Missouri at home. A loss Saturday makes the margin for error much smaller. And what would people say if DeBoer misses the CFP in his first year?
Smith: It depends on how the game unfolds. A definitive Georgia win quiets the noise about an Alabama mental edge and puts DeBoer into focus with his first big loss as Alabama’s coach. But an Alabama win would elevate his status early in his tenure, so in that regard, there’s a lot to gain. A close loss should be taken in stride, but this isn’t a rational sport. And a moral victory is un-Alabama-like.
It’s fair to question if the mystique of this game is the same. This is a rivalry of circumstance: The two teams’ successes and the dynamic between Saban and Smart created these recent, great matchups. Perhaps that same fire remains after Saturday, or maybe these programs become just two supernovas competing against each other and nothing more (like Georgia and/or Alabama against Texas in the years to come), but that all depends on the game.
You bring up a good point about the Playoff, and this is the first major, top-five matchup in this new era. Previously, a loss at this point in the year meant the margin of error was close to zero and a second loss was the kiss of death. Now it would be a tough loss but not completely season-altering. For that reason, I’m just as interested in the conversations to come after the game. As far as what it all means for Alabama, missing the Playoff would be completely unacceptable for the fans.
Our annual fan survey taken in July showed that 70 percent of Alabama’s fans who responded expect the team to play for the SEC championship this season, while 72 percent see a successful season as a CFP quarterfinal appearance or better. Alabama had its lowest preseason ranking since 2009 (at No. 5) and wasn’t forecast to play in the SEC championship, so I see a clear divide in the expectations inside and outside of the fan base.
Emerson: What about the quarterbacks in this game? Carson Beck’s game at Kentucky, which wasn’t bad but wasn’t great, brought out some skeptics. He struggled until late in the game the last time he played Alabama. If Beck is less than stellar Saturday, it may start to drop him down some NFL draft boards.
Jalen Milroe, meanwhile, has continued to be a great deep-ball passer and scrambler and hasn’t thrown any interceptions. (Neither has Beck.) But having faced Milroe before, it’s a good bet Smart, Glenn Schumann and company are going to do their best to force Milroe to win by hitting the lower-percentage, intermediate-range passes while doing their best to have outside run contain.
Smith: Beck and Milroe decided to return to their schools for games like this, which carry national championship, Heisman Trophy and NFL draft implications. And it’s interesting how their situations have changed since their last meeting.
Milroe has had his share of doubters during his career, but he is performing at a high level. Statistically, he’s leading the most explosive offense in college football with Alabama leading the nation in touchdowns of 20-plus yards (13). Georgia will have its best plan possible aided by bye week prep, and if Milroe can beat it, that could be his launching pad as talks of 2025 NFL Draft quarterback rankings intensify.
That’s where Beck needs to match Milroe if Georgia is to win: It’s time to let it rip vertically. Alabama’s defensive backs are vulnerable, but no quarterback has taken advantage. Beck can — and has to — to win the game. If he does, the Kentucky game will feel like a distant memory, but if he doesn’t, the skepticism will only get louder. But who is going to be the playmaker for Georgia? Alabama always seems to have one at receiver, and freshman Ryan Williams looks like that player. Someone for Georgia has to emerge to fill the Brock Bowers-Ladd McConkey-AD Mitchell role.
We’ve talked about the implications of a loss on both sides, but which team’s trajectory/season outlook changes the most with a win?
Emerson: It’s so hard to say because both teams have other big games where they can make up for losing this game or cancel out winning it. The winner gets a quality win to impress the CFP committee, and I’m not sure the loser suffers unless it’s a blowout.
An underrated benefit to having this game so early in the season is the ability to see how these teams stack up against another (presumably) elite team, without a loss automatically costing them a Playoff spot. Three weeks after this showdown, Georgia goes to Texas, and Alabama goes to Tennessee. Win or lose, both Georgia and Alabama will come away with things they need to work on.
Georgia, of course, already had a gut-check game at Kentucky, and maybe the Bulldogs benefit from that. Or maybe Alabama having a slight scare against South Florida and having to play at Wisconsin negates that. Or maybe Georgia already had a measuring stick game when it played Clemson, and it just has been spinning its wheels since then.
That’s the fascinating thing: This is the earliest in a season Georgia and Alabama have played since 2007-08, when the visiting team won both games. We’re so used to these teams playing in what seems a winner-take-all scenario. This time, it’s not. We can argue which team has more pressure on it this week. But what if the answer is … neither?
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; photos of Kirby Smart, left, and Kalen DeBoer: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images; Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
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Publish date : 2024-09-22 22:00:00
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