Alabama vs. Georgia May Look Familiar, but This SEC Championship Promises to Be Different

The Crimson Tide have a chance to change the perception about the balance of power in the SEC, but will have to overcome the new standard the Bulldogs have set.

Alabama vs. Georgia for the SEC title, and a likely College Football Playoff berth. Sound familiar?

It’s a last-of-its-kind SEC championship game featuring East vs. West. Of the Power 5’s title games: The Pac-12 title game is a unique swan song, the Big Ten has its Harbaugh hysterics, the wind is out of the ACC’s sails, and the Big 12 has the likelihood to be a blowout, while the SEC’s run-up feels the most familiar. It’s two good teams getting together in Atlanta. We’ve done this particular game four out of the last six seasons. If Georgia wins, they’re into the four-team Playoff field. If Bama does, they have a compelling case, although a loss at home to Texas looms very large. The confines may feel familiar, but the teams playing are built differently than the last time these teams met twice in a month at the end of 2021.

Beck (15) has turned this year’s Georgia team into an offensive juggernaut :: Brett Davis/USA TODAY Sports

If you haven’t watched a ton of Georgia, don’t expect to turn on the TV and see the defensive juggernaut of the last two seasons. Yes, it’s still plenty good. But these Dawgs have been flexing their offensive muscles thanks to quarterback Carson Beck. They don’t have to sit on you; they’re built to run a track meet if need be. And the need may arise in this one. The last time Georgia lost a game, it entered as a touchdown favorite against an Alabama team, and Bryce Young made magic with his arms and his legs for the Tide to triumph. This year, the Dawgs are favored by around five points, and Alabama QB Jalen Milroe possesses the ability to dazzle with his legs and go over the top with his arm to Isaiah Bond and Jermaine Burton. The element nobody can plan for with Milroe is the former as he’s as electric as any player in the country toting the rock.

After crushing Kentucky a few weeks ago, Nick Saban waxed philosophical about this Tide team. This is really all you need to know about how they got here:

“I think that it seems like every team we’ve had in recent years there’s these huge expectations and you never want the expectations to impact you, but because there were such high expectations there was almost like you were relieved to get the players to where they needed to be so they could have success,” Saban said to reporters after the game, which Alabama won 49–21. “With this team, I didn’t have those kinds of expectations. I knew we could be good. I believed in them, but I knew it was going to be a work in progress. So it was like every day you’re just trying to teach lessons that will help them grow and develop and they’ve done a great job with that. And it’s been fun and I didn’t put any expectations on them or myself, and they’ve sort of blown it out of the water in terms of how well they’ve done.”

Saban has been impressed by his team exceeding his own expectations for the season :: John David Mercer/USA TODAY Sports

There always seems to be a relative softness about Saban toward a team that has to fight through the Bama-adjusted adversity. It’s easier for him to motivate a team that isn’t told every week that it’s the best thing ever and can’t coast. With a loss against Texas and a clunker against USF with a quarterback situation in flux, the motivation was simple. There were no laurels to rest on. This Tide team has found itself through October before peaking in November. But is their highest level high enough to compete with the Dawgs?

Any team with little expectations is dangerous, especially one with Bama’s talent. Georgia is the standard by which all have been judged the last three seasons. It’s up to Alabama to change the perception.