ATHENS, Ga. — The game was played between the hedges. And between Kirby Smart’s ears. That’s where the problem lies for Georgia.
The most accomplished coach in college football has one glaring, growing shortcoming. He cannot beat Alabama.
Not in Atlanta. Not in Tuscaloosa. And now not even in Athens, where Georgia had won 33 straight times, until the haunting houndstooth showed up Saturday night and walked out with a 24–21 upset victory.
Smart’s record is now 107–13 against the rest of college football, 1–7 against the Crimson Tide. When the disparity is that dramatic, it’s more than just a curiosity. It’s a . It’s a mind game Smart can’t win.
“What’s everybody else’s record against [Alabama]?” Smart responded when asked about his nemesis. “I don’t lose sleep over that.”
Oh, his fan base does. The looks on their faces as they trudged out of Sanford Stadium reflected dismay, dissatisfaction—perhaps even outright disgust over the chronic Bama bugaboo. It’s now 22 years and counting since Georgia fans walked out of this magnificent edifice after a win over the Tide.
In the 2020s, Georgia is the program most capable of looking Alabama in the eye on a yearly basis. Yet somehow the Bulldogs always avert their gaze to the ground when this game is over.
With every defeat in this series, Smart owes a greater debt to cornerback Kelee Ringo for his pick-six that sealed his only victory over Alabama. It was a whopper, coming in the College Football Playoff championship game. But Kirby has lost other whoppers before and after that one—the 2017 national title game, the ’18 SEC championship, the ’21 SEC title, and another one of those in ’23.
For the longest time, this looked like a Nick Saban issue for Smart—and hey, there is no shame in having a losing record against the GOAT. But he’s now 0–2 against Kalen DeBoer, doing his part to keep Alabama’s second-year coach off the hot seat that Tide fans have set up for him. DeBoer is an alarming 6–5 at Bama against power-conference competition other than Georgia.
In two DeBoer vs. Smart games, the Bulldogs led for a total of 13 seconds. They fell behind 28–0 last year, scrambled back for the briefest of leads at 34–33, then immediately gave up a 75-yard touchdown to lose. Saturday night, Alabama jumped to a 14–0 lead and doggedly held on all night, earning its first major road win under DeBoer.
Smart cited his team’s slow starts—in addition to surrendering two 14-play touchdown drives in the first quarter Saturday, the Dawgs also gave up 21 points in the first to Tennessee this month. This simply isn’t a vintage Smart-coached Georgia defense, even if it played better against the Tide as the game wore on. Georgia isn’t covering well enough or pressuring the quarterback well enough, allowing Alabama to convert 13 of 19 third downs.
“I’ve coached a lot of years and I don’t know that there’ve been [an opponent going] 13 of 19 on third down,” Smart said. “That tells the tale of the game.”
And yet, Georgia had a chance to tie the game in the fourth quarter. When that opportunity arose, here came another moment when Smart’s otherwise astute brain seemed to malfunction against the Tide.
There was an infamous, fourth-and-11 fake punt that fizzled in the 2018 SEC championship game. And now there is the fourth-and-1 play that resulted in no points on the Dawgs’ last deep drive of Saturday’s game.
Trailing by three early in the fourth, Georgia needed a yard at the Alabama 8 to keep a drive going. Instead of kicking the chip-shot field goal for the first tie since 0–0 and shifting all the pressure onto a visiting team that controlled the game early but was losing its grip, the Bulldogs opted to run a hurry-up handoff to fourth-string running back Cash Jones.
Alabama end LT Overton blew through the line and blew up the play, dropping Jones for a three-yard loss. Even in an era when coaches routinely disdain field goals, this had the feel of a very bad decision in real time. Smart defended it staunchly postgame.
His explanation: Georgia faced a third-and-4, and if the Dawgs gained positive yardage they were prepared to go for it on fourth-and-short. They had practiced the situation during the week and were ready to go with the quick snap.
“There’s a thing called sequencing, where you sequence plays to try to set up, and know that you’re going to go for it,” Smart said. “We got it to fourth-and-1 and that play has been really successful for us. I think we got Tennessee on it three times for conversion. We run it earlier in the night and run it for conversion. We missed a block you got to make, and they ran through and made a really good play. I’d do that 10 out of 10 times.”
Maybe so. But he’s also lost seven out of eight times against Alabama. So take that conviction for what it’s worth against this particular opponent. If you give Smart a 50-50 chance of being right against the Tide, he’ll be wrong 87.5% of the time.
To be clear, these are first-world problems. Every other program in America would love to win an average of 12 games a year from 2017 to ’24 and have one bogeyman.
And in the 12-team College Football Playoff era, a single loss to a high-caliber opponent is just a flesh wound. After losing this game last year, Georgia still went to the SEC championship game and won it, advancing to the playoff as the No. 2 seed.
The same opportunities exist this time around. Georgia has a road win over Tennessee that should resonate all season, and it has a host of other big opportunities remaining—particularly at home against undefeated Ole Miss on Oct. 18, home against Texas on Nov. 15 and in Atlanta against unbeaten Georgia Tech on Black Friday.
Among one-loss teams, Georgia probably is behind only Alabama at this point in the playoff pecking order. Maybe Penn State or Texas, but neither of those teams have a road win (yet) like the Dawgs secured in Knoxville, Tenn.
I’d still anticipate seeing Georgia in the playoff bracket come early December. But the Bulldogs better hope Alabama isn’t in it, because we know the existential dread that would provoke yet again.
