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Alabama and Georgia are set to collide on Saturday in a highly anticipated, high-stakes Southeastern Conference (SEC) matchup. But the details of the battle are different this time around, with new Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer taking on Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs for the first time, and according to Paul Finebaum, Smart has the most to lose here.
Although Georgia has dominated college football for most of the last three years — UGA is 49-2 since its last regular-season loss in November 2020 — Finebaum said that the team's struggles with Alabama could prove costly for the Bulldogs this season.
“Kirby Smart did everything right at Georgia the last couple of years, but he couldn’t get by Alabama,” Finebaum said while on ESPN's ‘Get Up' today [h/t On3's Nick Kosko. “Remember: he lost in that championship game a couple years ago. He made up for it, but last year was really, probably the most painful loss of Kirby Smart’s career — other than losing to Tua on that walk-off in 2017. He was working toward a three-peat, (Mike Greenberg). This program has not lost a regular season game since 2020 and those two postseason games have been against, obviously, Nick Saban.”
Kirby Smart, Georgia football program looking for big win vs. Kalen DeBoer's Alabama
Of course, Saban, Smart's old boss, has since retired. The longtime Alabama coach announced he would stop coaching in January, clearing the path for Washington coach Kalen DeBoer to take over for the legend in Tuscaloosa.
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Saturday will be DeBoer's first meeting with Georgia and Smart, and the stakes are predictably high. Not only will the winner become the front-runner to make it to the SEC Championship Game, where Alabama last bested Georgia, and will widely be seen as one of the favorites to win the national championship in a few months, Finebaum said each program needs to win to calm their demanding fans.
“I think Kalen DeBoer doesn’t get a pass with a loss — it will shatter the psyche of Alabama fans who think they own Georgia, as crazy as that sounds,” Finebaum said. “But Kirby Smart can ill-afford [to lose]. And not only that, Kirby Smart then has to go to Texas in three weeks and Ole Miss in November, and his playoff hopes could be hanging by a thread, if he doesn’t get by this game.”
While Georgia is 89-11 since 2017 under Smart, five of those losses have come against Alabama. In that time, the Bulldogs have won just one game against the Crimson Tide (the 2022 national championship) and saw their three-peat chances go up in smoke in Atlanta last December against Bama.
No. 2 Georgia, which is slightly favored, and No. 4 Alabama will be in Tuscaloosa this Saturday for a primetime 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff.
