Alabama vs. Georgia Week 5 showdown marks rare occasion for Crimson Tide as Kirby Smart and Bulldogs are favored
Any time Alabama and Georgia face off it's always special, but this upcoming Week 5 showdown marks a truly rare occasion for the Crimson Tide. Thanks to the decade+ dominance of Nick Saban, Alabama was almost never an underdog at home during his tenure. In fact, the last time that Alabama was an underdog at […]
Any time Alabama and Georgia face off it's always special, but this upcoming Week 5 showdown marks a truly rare occasion for the Crimson Tide. Thanks to the decade+ dominance of Nick Saban, Alabama was almost never an underdog at home during his tenure. In fact, the last time that Alabama was an underdog at home the year was 2007 and LSU was coming to town.
LSU was favored by 6.5 or 7 points (depending on the book) and won that day 41-34 in Nick Saban's first season as head coach at Alabama. Since then, the Crimson Tide have won six national titles and have become the preeminent dynasty in college football.
However, Georgia's won two national titles of their own here recently. When the betting lines opened for this epic SEC matchup between the Bulldogs and Crimson Tide it was Kirby Smart's squad that was favored. It took 17 years and Nick Saban retiring, but Alabama is finally not favored at home. But does this actually make sense?
Alabama is the only team to defeat Georgia in the past four seasons and they've done it twice. Despite all of the changes this off-season Alabama still has one of the highest blue chip ratios (of four and five star talents) and a potential Heisman quarterback in Jalen Milroe. But even still, sports books seem confident in Georgia.
As it stands, most sports books have the Georgia Bulldogs favored somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 points over Kalen DeBoer's apparent plucky underdog Crimson Tide. Georgia struggled just one week ago defeating a Kentucky team that has nowhere near the talent that Alabama does, but they pulled off a tight 13-12 victory. If that game is any indication, Alabama's chances look pretty good.
However, as our very own Kelsey Kramer outlined last week, Georgia is wildly dangerous coming off bye weeks. In fact, when they have more than a week to prepare, Kirby Smart has won 21 straight games with his Georgia Bulldogs dating back 2018.
Alabama is clearly going to have their hands full with a Georgia team looking for revenge from last season's SEC Championship.. And this time they'll have to overcome being a rare home underdog with new head coach Kalen DeBoer at the helm.
Georgia Bulldogs’ bye week is ‘very dangerous’ for the rest of college football
Kirby Smart’s kryptonite.
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