Paul Finebaum weighs in on Alabama's SEC Championship Game chances vs. Georgia

The Alabama Crimson Tide is walking into a rare situation on Saturday. For the first time since 2015, Nick Saban’s squad is playing the underdog. SEC analyst Paul Finebaum weighed in on the Tide’s chances versus No. 1 Georgia on the ESPN College Football Podcast.

“I would be surprised (if Alabama won), and I haven’t missed too many big Nick Saban games since he arrived in 2007, but this team has lived on the edge too many times,” Finebaum said. “What we saw Saturday in Auburn was similar to what we saw versus Texas A&M, what we saw versus Florida.

“We’ve seen this pedestrian team, even with the best quarterback in the country – I say pedestrian, I’m going to get yelled at by Nick Saban for being self-absorbed – they look pedestrian and they’re still one of the top three teams in the country, that’s just the standard they have there.”

The one-loss Tide are coming off of a four-overtime win versus the Auburn Tigers. However, quarterback Bryce Young hit the ground for a loss seven times, providing Georgia with the blueprint for the SEC title game. No team has scored more than 17 points on the Bulldogs defense so far this season.

Paul Finebaum is confident in the Bulldogs this year but the last time Nick Saban was an underdog versus Kirby Smart, the Tide dominated with a 38-10 performance led by Derrick Henry.

The kickoff in Atlanta is at 4:00 p.m. ET on Saturday.

Finebaum: Smart happy with Alabama’s win

Paul Finebaum thinks that the Iron Bowl gave Georgia head coach Kirby Smart everything he was hoping for this weekend.

Georgia finished the regular season undefeated. The Bulldogs are the unquestioned best team in college football right now with a spot in the College Football Playoff locked up. But Finebaum doesn’t think that Smart is content with that. In fact, Finebaum thinks that Smart wanted Alabama to win in the Iron Bowl.

“And for those who say out there that it doesn’t matter, they’re already in, you don’t understand Kirby Smart,” said Finebaum. “I can promise you that Kirby Smart was screaming his lungs out for Alabama to win that game Saturday. He did not want Alabama limping into the Georgia dome, he got what he wanted. He got a smiling Nick Saban for coming from behind to beat just an average Auburn football team. Now (Smart) has them where he wants him. He’s into perfection. This team, they just go out and it doesn’t matter who they’re playing. Georgia Tech is a terrible team, but they just destroyed them.

“They don’t take days off. And they’re not taking a day off against Alabama because this is an exorcism for Kirby Smart. The demons from Tua (Tagovailoa) to DeVonta (Smith). In the same game in 2018, Kirby Smart had I think an 18-point lead and just threw it away. That’s not happening in his mind going into this game.”

On3’s Jonathan Wagner contributed to this report.