Bulldogs in familiar place against Tide

Great offense, great defense and a healthy team hosting an Alabama squad that – at the moment at least – appears to be good but not great.

Yes, it’s just the first Saturday in October and there will still be two-thirds of a regular season left to be played when it’s done, but this game is a biggie. “We were just going back-and-forth, back-and-forth”. “He knows what to do and gets the other guys lined up”. Expect something similar to the ULM-Georgia game with Alabama jumping on the Warhawks quickly in route to a big win. The Bulldogs are favored by 2.5 points. And what about Alabama being the gauge to answer this? Georgia. For the season, Alabama is one of three FBS teams allowing under twoyards per rushing attempt. “That’s been the focus each week”. We can’t make this more than what it is.

Scouting the pass defense: Alabama coach Nick Saban expressed confidence in the Crimson Tide’s young defensive backs.

“That game, I’m still trying to get over it, that’s how much emotion we poured into it”, Murray said. “We’ve got more younger guys who need to get a grasp of the game, but they’re coming along for us and playing well”. “I think we should handle it like we handle the majority of the games”.

An AFC director of scouting said George senior edge rusher Jordan Jenkins is “like a [Nick] Saban rush end but with more juice”. “You can play mentally tough all day, but if you don’t have the right mindset and you’re not mentally strong out there and still looking at your keys and knowing what’s going on with the play and what call you’re in, it doesn’t matter”. If the Bulldogs can pull off the win over Nick Saban’s boys, it will basically eliminate the Crimson Tide from SEC West contention and give Georgia a stranglehold on the SEC East. If the Bulldogs win their division, the team wouldn’t have to face Alabama within the SEC Title Game in December. Alabama still has that potential this time around, but Pruitt has noticed a few different characteristics to this year’s Tide. In the second half, Alabama was able to put the game away. As a Georgia sophomore, he caught a pair of passes against Alabama and the ball was in his hands, 5 yards from go-ahead score, when the game ended. Granted, the Tide have been played two ranked teams, so it will be interesting to compare these numbers again after Saturday night.

It’s quite the challenge for Georgia in Pruitt’s second season, as well as for Ganus, a former two-star quarterback prospect who will be competing in a sea of five stars.

Georgia went on to beat Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl and finished as the nation’s highest-ranked two-loss team, fourth in the coaches’ poll, fifth by The Associated Press. “My goal the whole time was to play and start and do everything that I thought I could do”. But one of these team’s marquee-match-up toss-up performance seems to be trending down, while the other’s is roughly trending up.