Psychology of the rematch: Bulldogs talk different mindset, Tide talks Alabama standard

INDIANAPOLIS – You can hear it in the voices of the Georgia players, see it written across their unlined faces. They promise a different mindset Monday night against Alabama in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game than they had against the Crimson Tide five weeks ago.

“These teams are pretty much evenly matched when it comes to personnel and physicality,” Georgia nose tackle Jordan Davis said. “The thing that really sets us apart is mentally and who does things better.”

Georgia didn’t do things better in the SEC Championship Game five weeks ago. The Dawgs got several questions Saturday morning about playing Alabama again. The Georgia players seem to be saying, “We’re not that team, the one that took a 10-0 lead and then got steamrolled 41-24. We’re not the team that allowed 536 total yards, got no sacks, turned the ball over twice. We’re the team that won the other 13 games, the team that dominated Michigan 34-11 in the Orange Bowl.”

Alabama players didn’t get many questions about playing Georgia again. On the topic of motivation against a team that the Crimson Tide has beaten once, the response sounded a whole lot like, “We’re playing for a national championship. What else do you need to know?”

“What he’s talked about, and what we understand,” quarterback Bryce Young said, referring to coach Nick Saban, “what we’ve done in the past, obviously, it’s good to watch film. It’s good to learn from that. But we don’t start with any more points because of anything that happened in the past. You don’t get any carryover. It’s going to be a new game. We have to earn the outcome that we want.”

The team that has adopted karate poses for celebrations can sound awful Zen.

“I can’t really speak on what other teams think they have to do,” Alabama linebacker Will Anderson Jr. said. “But I know as far as Alabama, we’re just going to take the same preparation and the same way we do things from each game into this game, and we’re going to play to the Alabama standard and play Alabama football.”

You want to define the Bama standard? Fifth-year running back Brian Robinson Jr. will suit up for his fourth national championship game. Someone asked him the advice he gives his young teammates.

“I want those guys to be as prepared as they possibly can for it,” Robinson said. “This is a big stage. Two great teams playing against each other. You don’t want to be that one player on the team who lets the team down because you weren’t prepared enough or you make mental errors or mistakes on the field that affects your side of the ball.”

Georgia has bad history with Alabama

Georgia has seen the Bama standard up close. Coach Kirby Smart is 0-4 against the program where he coached for nine seasons and won four national championships as a defensive assistant under Saban.

“It’s the truth. You can’t really run away from the truth,” Georgia offensive tackle Jamaree Salyer said. “That’s our record. But we’re not trying to make it an emotional thing, where you go out playing with emotions.”

That may be the difference between the emotion of a defensive lineman and the even keel of the offensive lineman. For instance:

“They threw a lot of haymakers. We didn’t really respond,” Davis said. “This time around it will definitely be different.”

Salyer quibbled with the boxing metaphor.

“Everybody says we haven’t been, quote/unquote, punched in the mouth,” Salyer said. “I think every Saturday you line up in the SEC, everybody’s throwing punches. You line up in those man fronts and you turn around and hand the ball off, it’s a bloodbath out there pretty much every Saturday, just like it is on their side. I think it’s interesting everybody makes that narrative.”

There is room for both attitudes on the Georgia sideline. Alabama cost Georgia two national championships in the past decade, denying the Dawgs in the most painful way possible.

In the 2012 SEC Championship Game, Alabama won 32-28, the game ending with Georgia inside the Tide 5-yard line, helpless to stop the clock. Given that Alabama won the BCS Championship Game 42-14 over Notre Dame in a game not as close as the score indicated, it’s safe to describe that as a missed opportunity for Georgia.

In the 2017 national championship game, of course, Alabama won 26-23 in overtime, on Tua Tagovailoa’s 41-yard pass to DeVonta Smith. Want to see a Georgia fan wince? Whisper “second-and-26.”

Davis grew up in North Carolina. But as a senior suiting up for his last Georgia game, maturity has sharpened his appreciation of the stakes Monday night.

“I’ve had three shots at Alabama, and I haven’t beaten them yet,” Davis said. “As a team, winning a national championship is what we’re grinding for, what we’re working for all season. So of course it’s going to be an amazing feeling. We haven’t won a national championship since 1980. … You come to Georgia to be the best and be elite. When you win the national championship, you’re considered the best and the elite. We have a chance on Monday.”