Here's why Georgia might be best suited facing Alabama wrecking ball

November 30, 2018 at 12:01 a.m.

Alabama has been so unthreatened, so in charge, so completely dominant that it’s hard to remember the last time the Crimson Tide was under duress in a football game.

Georgia remembers.

It was 326 days ago, and it happened in the same stadium where they will play the Southeastern Conference championship Saturday, and the Bulldogs were the team that scared ‘Bama within an inch of their championship life. In many ways, Georgia had Alabama beat on Jan. 8, 2018, with the College Football Playoff title on the line — the Bulldogs led by 13 at halftime, and there was legitimate panic for Tide fans. But then Tua happened, and he has remained a happening, and here we are approaching a rematch that some believe will be a mismatch.

Alabama is better than last year.

Georgia is not as good.

But it would be a considerable surprise if this isn’t the Tide’s toughest game of this season. Alabama has won every game by a minimum of 22 points thus far, and this will not be a 22-point game. It might not be half of that.

The gap between the two programs has not grown exponentially since Alabama’s three-point, overtime, white-knuckle, desperation-substitution, come-from-behind victory in January. The Bulldogs are good enough, tough enough, well-coached enough, confident enough and hungry enough to apply the first fourth-quarter stress test of the year to Nick Saban’s team.

“I think that they’re going to give us their best game,” said Alabama offensive lineman Jonah Williams. “So it’s on us to give our best game as well.”

Alabama’s best has been historically great up to this point. Its average scoring margin of 35.2 points per game ranks among the largest in FBS history, and its offense is close to shredding the school record book. Averages of 49 points scored per game, 538 yards gained per game and 8.04 yards gained per play are all on pace to set new school standards.

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart reacts during a game this season. (AP)

Individually, Tua Tagovailoa remains on track to break Baker Mayfield’s single-season NCAA record for pass efficiency. His current efficiency rating is 212.51, about six points ahead of Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray and 14 points ahead of the mark Mayfield set last year (198.92).

Of course, it was Georgia that first felt the impact Tua was going to have on college football, on that fateful night when Saban summoned him from the bench at halftime to replace Jalen Hurts and save the season 326 days ago. What he did in Mercedes-Benz Stadium was the stuff of Hollywood screenplay legend: leading a double-digit comeback to get the game into overtime, then throwing a walk-off touchdown bomb to win the thing.

It’s tantalizing to think how different everything could have been if the Bulldogs had made one tackle a few seconds earlier on one particular play.

Tua’s first series after replacing Jalen Hurts went nowhere — three-and-out. After a Georgia punt, it appeared the second series was destined to end the same way — two plays netted three yards, and the Tide faced a third-and-7 from its own 44-yard line. Tua dropped to pass, found nothing, started to scramble to his right, was hemmed in, hit twice, and seemingly about to be dropped for a loss that forced a punt.

Then he escaped. The freshman reversed field to the left, picked up blockers, picked up speed, and dove ahead for the first down. Four plays later Alabama scored its first touchdown of the game, and from that point on it was a matter of the Crimson Tide slowly and agonizingly prying the Bulldogs’ paws off the championship trophy.

If ‘Bama had had a second straight three-and-out, would Saban have ditched the Tua experiment and gone back to Hurts? It became a moot question after that scramble, and after the rest of the game unfolded the way it did.

On that single scramble, and the plays that followed, Georgia found out what Tua Tagovailoa was made of. There was very little film of him, and nobody expected him to play an integral part in the game.

“We really didn’t have anything to go off watching Tua,” said Bulldogs defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter. “It was in-the-game adjustments we had to make. We didn’t know he was that elusive or had an arm like that. I think watching tape on anybody kind of gives you a sense of comfortability, knowing kind of what they’re doing, knowing their tendencies. And the tape doesn’t lie. Once you look at that, you see what people do, you can kind of gauge what kind of player they are and what they like to do.”

Now, of course, Georgia has the full book on No. 13. That should help. So should the fact that a younger Bulldogs defense than last year’s unit has gotten better since the breakdown in Baton Rouge that led to a 36-16 loss to LSU. Thanks to that improvement, Georgia’s defensive numbers for the season look a lot like last year’s.

Points allowed per game then: 16.4. Points allowed per game now: 17.2

Yards allowed per play then: 4.69. Yards allowed per play now: 4.86.

Takeaways per game then: 1.33. Takeaways per game now: 1.25.

“I mean, we come to play with anybody,” Ledbetter said of the Georgia defense.

The ‘Dogs are not just playing anybody Saturday. They’re playing the best team in the country, and the team that took the national title from them last season in startling, crushing fashion.

The last team to make Alabama look something less than invincible was Georgia, 326 days ago. The Bulldogs are capable of doing so again Saturday.