Edges: Georgia vs. Alabama

Please allow me to commence the takedown. One-loss Alabama is No. 13 and hearing talk that the sun is setting on the Nick Saban dynasty that has produced three national titles since 2009. This is the lead paragraph of a story in a national newspaper.

Florida and Florida State have done it with two different head coaches.

The AJC’s Seth Emerson writes that Greyson Lambert has experience in big games.

Yes, we wrote it. Despite the fact that the Bulldogs are the home favorite in this SEC affair most media outlets will report the Georgia win as an upset. Additionally, it must not have anything to do with academic rigor since Georgia Tech’s academic standards for athletes are the same as for regular students.

Despite the insistence of Lambert and his teammates that Saturday’s collision with the Crimson Tide is merely “the next game on our schedule”, a date with the reigning SEC champs at this particular juncture, for this particular Georgia team, feels like it belongs to a much larger story, unfolding along a much longer timeline.

They’re frustrated, alright. It’s nearly like they’re grasping at straws to explain it away.

Ah HA! It’s the pesky “institutional ethos!” “They don’t play quite as aggressively and that is always helpful but I am just pleased with the way Jake played today in both halves”. “I’m pretty sure it won’t be that stagnant”.

“Yeah, um, I was excited to go back and play against Georgia”, Lee said. Do go on about these higher standards…

It’s for that reason that Georgia seems to be going out of its to downplay the magnitude of Saturday’s game. On the ground, Nick Chubb rushed for 131 yards and two touchdowns in 15 attempts while Sony Michael added 75 yards and two touchdowns in six attempts. Earlier this summer, Alabama was willing to take on another dismissed Georgia player in defensive lineman Jonathan Taylor, whose offenses included a pending domestic violence charge. He was accused of another domestic incident at Alabama and dismissed shortly thereafter.

They won’t be able to move the football as easily against the best teams in the nation. Whoever wins, it’s not going to be a blowout.

It must be because Zach Mettenberger was dismissed for getting handsy with a judge’s daughter in Valdosta.

It is hard and maybe a bit unfair to pinpoint why Georgia hasn’t become a championship-winning machine like Alabama despite sitting on more fertile recruiting territory, but it is undeniable that, in the pure competitive sense, the Bulldogs handicap themselves in a variety of ways. “He knows what to do and gets the other guys lined up”. This is the game of the week in college football and will determine if the injury bug has caught up to the Irish or if they are a legitimate college football playoff contender. Wasn’t he dismissed from a few program that’s won 3 titles since Georgia’s last? And if so, who will be in the SEC Championship?!

This is definitely the game of the weekend in the Big 12, at least on paper.

We can’t make this more than what it is. We have got to play with more passion and aggressiveness on a consistent basis and be confident in what we are doing.

That would say something in what might be the ultimate statement game in the SEC this season. “I just don’t think that’s an excuse”.

I don’t either, Greg.

Georgia has plenty of backfield depth, too, in what Saban calls as strong a running team as the Tide has faced in a while.

You remember that confidence thing I talked about yesterday and how it had gone slightly up as the week progressed?

“Yeah, my mom went to Georgia”.

Supporting Mark Richt has nothing to do with a “loser’s mentality” (the barb so often tossed by opposing fans or Richt opponents), nor does his (usually) calm and even-keeled demeanor.

Please be kind and use good grammar.