Georgia football had a chance to cruise into the College Football Playoff undefeated last season. The favored Bulldogs were sitting at 12-0 entering the SEC championship game against Alabama, a win away from a top seed.
Then, Nick Saban pulled one last rabbit out of his hat. The Crimson Tide beat UGA, then barely slide into the CFP, while Kirby Smart’s team demolished a depleted Florida State squad in the Orange Bowl.
On Saturday, the two teams will meet again, though with Kalen DeBoer in Saban’s place. Speaking to reporters Monday in Athens, Smart was asked if he was concerned about his team chasing ghosts in the rematch.
“No, I mean, I don’t think we chase the past at all,” Smart said. “I think that you watch the tape, two different teams. We’re focused on what we can do to be our best this week. The ghost we’re chasing is past performances this year, and what we can do to clean that up, and how we can be more efficient. I wouldn’t say it’s anything to do with them.”
The loss certainly stuck with linebacker Smael Mondon. He said Monday that the game against the Crimson Tide is exactly the kind of matchup that convinced him to join the Bulldogs.
The defeat in Atlanta, on the biggest of stages, hurt.
“It lingered a lot,” Mondon said. “Personally, just because it kind of stopped us from getting to where we wanted to go, you know, with our goals for last season. So it lingered a lot with me, and I know with a lot of other guys.”
This year’s Georgia team is once again a national championship contender. The Bulldogs are ranked No. 1 in the coaches poll, No. 2 in the AP media vote.
According to Smart, the motivation from the loss is more than just a need to win the 2024 game.
“I think each one has a different impact,” Smart said of the loss. “There’s guys in the locker room, upset. And everybody handles that in different ways. I think the motivation it gives to guys to wanna come back and have an opportunity to win an SEC Championship, which this group didn’t do last year, and they have a chance to do that. It doesn’t all hinge on this game, but that game did. And I certainly think that a lot of our guys remember it, and they wanna use that as motivation.”
Alabama and Georgia are scheduled to kick off at 6:30 p.m. CT Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The game will be aired on ABC.
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Publish date : 2024-09-24 00:15:00
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