TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Nick Saban’s retirement was supposed to provide an opening for Georgia. If Kirby Smart was the nation’s second-best coach, now he was the first. Saban’s Alabama teams had been the main obstacle for Georgia’s championship aspirations, including denying the Bulldogs a playoff berth last season.
Surely, things would change with Saban sitting in the Bryant-Denny Stadium skybox instead of pacing the sidelines. It’s a different year. The Crimson Tide have a new coach. But it was the same story for the Bulldogs.
Just like Saban, Kalen DeBoer delivered a crushing loss to the Bulldogs.
Alabama dominated Georgia for most of the game, gave back the lead with less than three minutes to play, and then took it back 13 seconds later. Jalen Milroe’s 75-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Williams sent the Crimson Tide to a 41-34 victory. No. 4 Alabama ended Georgia’s regular-season victory streak at 42 games and denied the Bulldogs’ bid for the biggest comeback victory in a game featuring top-five teams.
No. 2 Georgia trailed 28-0 after 17 minutes and 30-7 at halftime. The Bulldogs took their first lead on Carson Beck’s 67-yard touchdown pass to Dillon Bell. It wasn’t enough.
After Williams’ go-ahead score, Georgia made it to Alabama’s 20-yard line with less than a minute left. Beck’s pass to the end zone was intercepted by Zabien Brown.
“I can sit here and say, ‘If this would have happened then we would have won,’ but it really doesn’t matter,” Beck said. “What happened, happened, and we’ve got to move on.”
What happened is the Bulldogs suffered another stinging defeat to Alabama. Smart now is 1-6 against Alabama. In four of those losses, the Bulldogs blew double-digit leads after halftime. This time they couldn’t hold on after the furious comeback.
Said Smart: “Has anyone got one better than 1-6? I don’t think so. I think they’ve got really good players. They’ve got a great program. I’ve got an immense amount of respect for them. They did a great job. Nick has recruited good players. Kalen has got good players in here. It’s a tough battle.”
The latest meeting started as a mismatch. Shockingly, the Bulldogs didn’t look ready for what was coming on Saban Field. How could they not be? Alabama is the only team to beat them since the start of the 2021 season.
The loss to Alabama in last year’s SEC Championship game kept Georgia out of the College Football Playoff. The consequences of this loss won’t necessarily be so severe. The CFP expanded from four to 12 games. The Bulldogs almost surely would make it with one loss, and probably would get in with two.
“We play to win every single game, but the new rules with the playoffs, we are definitely not out of it,” Beck said. “Just get back and learn from our mistakes and where we went wrong and just keep pushing.”
Everything went wrong for the Bulldogs at the start. The Tide led 14-0 after 11 minutes. They had run 14 plays and six of them went for 15 yards or more. Then Alabama cornerback Domani Jackson intercepted Beck’s pass inside UGA’s 30-yard line. Three plays later, Germie Bernard ran for a 7-yard score.
Smart’s defense has been bested by Bama before. But the group had never looked this bad against any foe. LSU’s all-time great offense scored 37 points against UGA in the 2019 SEC Championship game. Alabama threatened to match that number in the first half.
“Obviously, we were not really prepared, and that falls on me in the first half,” Smart said.
Georgia defenders were more than just a step slow. Too often they weren’t even in the picture. Tide pass-catchers were consistently wide open. Once they became ball carriers, they brushed pass feeble tackle attempts. When the Bulldogs managed to cover Milroe’s pass targets, he took off running to open space while gaining 15 yards or more on three attempts in the first half.
The most demoralizing of Milroe’s runs came early in the second quarter. Bama faced a fourth-and-1 at Georgia’s 36-yard line. The Bulldogs trailed 21-0. They desperately needed a stop. Milroe took the snap, sprinted around right end and stiff-armed one Georgia defender before outrunning the rest for a 36-yard touchdown.
“They got a guy back there at quarterback that could be the best running back in the country, and he throws the ball,” Smart said.
The Tide scored another touchdown the next time they had the ball to extend their lead to 28-0. It would be up to quarterback Beck to rally the Bulldogs. It didn’t look like he had it in him.
In he first half Beck threw one interception on a pass to a receiver who wasn’t looking (Smart said that pick wasn’t Beck’s fault). He had another pick on a pass that went right into a defender’s chest. Everywhere Beck threw, there was a Bama defender breaking on the ball to make a play.
Everything changed after halftime. Beck was 19-of-33 passing for 339 yards with two touchdowns in the second half. His 12-yard TD pass to Arian Smith got Georgia’s deficit down to 30-15. Beck tossed two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter, including the 67-yard strike to Bell after he sucked in the safety with a pump fake.
“Nobody would have thought that we were going to come back and get the lead, but for sure, that happened,” Bell said.
Bell’s score stunned home fans who’d been partying for most of the night. Alabama answered on the next play. Williams caught the pass then split two Georgia defenders on the way to the 75-yard TD.
The Bulldogs couldn’t come back again.
“Nobody wants to go down 28-0,” Beck said. “But we did today, and we showed our resiliency, and I’m proud of the guys.”
The Bulldogs didn’t quit. But they still suffered another crushing loss to Bama. Saban is gone, but the Tide still own Georgia.
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