Georgia has Alabama monkey off its back but will not rely on last game for confidence
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia and Alabama have played five times in the era of Kirby Smart as the UGA head coach. While the first four (2018 College Football Playoff Championship Game, 2018 SEC Championship Game, 2020 regular season in Tuscaloosa, 2021 SEC Championship Game) didn’t go Georgia’s way, the last one did.
The Bulldogs beat the Crimson Tide 33-18 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on the night of January 10, 2022 to claim the program’s first win over Alabama since 2007 and the first National Championship in 41 years.
“It meant that the University of Georgia got a National Championship,” Smart said on Monday. “That’s the significance of that.”
Simple, and straight to the point. That’s what Smart’s answer was, but the win meant so much more than that. Smart had beaten his former boss. Georgia had beaten Alabama. Even former players felt the relief of that weight removed.
“At that time, it was more getting the monkey off our back. It felt like an accomplishment,” Sedrick Van Pran said of the National Championship win over Alabama. “I can still remember, in the locker room after, Nick Chubb, I went up to him and thanked him for everything he did for the University, and I remember him telling me, ‘Nah man. Thank you. I can finally sleep again.’ That was one of the coolest moments I’ve had at Georgia with a legend like that come to me and be thankful for something we had accomplished as a team.”
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Of course, as Van Pran would continue on to point out, the outcome of the last meeting has no barring on the outcome of this Saturday’s top-10 showdown. All four coordinators (Alabama OC – Bill O’Brien, Alabama DC – Pete Golding, Georgia OC – Todd Monken, Georgia DC – Dan Lanning) from January 2022 are elsewhere now, and many of the impact players from that game are in the NFL, including 12 of whom were selected in the first round of either the 2022 or 2023 NFL Draft. However, having that monkey off the back certainly gives Georgia one less thing to think about.
“I think the two teams are very different. I mean you look at who they were then and who we were then. I don’t know that they could be the polar opposites in terms of what they do offensively, and even us from a standpoint and who we were defensively then,” Smart said of trying to use that matchup for creating confidence going into this one. “So I don’t think the two — not a lot — in college football today, not a lot of players that played in that game are playing in this game. If they did, they were probably a minor role.”
“That game doesn’t matter at all to me,” Georgia cornerback Kamari Lassiter added. “That was two years ago, I was a freshman, I barely even played. That game doesn’t really matter to me or anyone else on either side. The only thing that matters is today really and trying to put your best foot forward to prepare for a game like this.”
Kickoff time for Saturday is slated for 4:00 p.m. ET on CBS. Georgia opened as around a 4 or 4.5 point favorite, and according to VegasInsider, that number has risen to around 5 or 5.5.
