The last time these two teams met – which was just over two months ago, as these two programs seem to spend more time around each other these days than do some married couples – TideFans.com gave a three-point edge to Georgia, largely on the strength of it being a Georgia home game.
This time around, the game will be played on a neutral field. Or, semi-neutral at least, as a lot of Georgia fans will simply be able to hop on a bus or train, get to the game and get home in time for a regular dinner meal.
Even though Georgia is somewhat hosting the game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Alabama has been the dominator of this series when it is played in this venue. But neither team is truly the same as it was back in September.
Alabama’s offense, which was on full display that night and well-balanced, has morphed into a pass-heavy attack, thanks to a running game that has become barely functional. On top of that, QB Ty Simpson isn’t as sharp as he was against the Bulldogs back then, largely due to injuries suffered during Alabama’s gauntlet run through the middle of the season schedule.
Georgia, though, has battled injuries of its own, the waxing and waning of QB Gunner Stockton, and continued vulnerability in the secondary.
Rather than completely re-evaluate this matchup, we’re going to roll out a new format that we will apply going forward any time there is a postseason rematch of an earlier regular-season battle. We’ll look at how we picked things the first time around, whether our picks were accurate, and how we feel things have changed, if at all.
OFFENSE
Like the first time out, Georgia will lean hard into a physical pro-style attack that strives for balance. Alabama is banking on the passing elements of its Air Raid-flavored spread attack, especially with recent injuries within the running back group. Georgia ranks 40th in total offense, 28th in rushing offense and 67th in passing offense, and is 35th in scoring. Alabama is 52nd in total offense, 103rd in rushing, 17th in passing and 26th in scoring.
QUARTERBACKS (Sept. 24 – Advantage: Alabama; Accurate (Y/N): Y)
We took Alabama’s Ty Simpson over Georgia’s Gunner Stockton then, and we’ll take Simpson again now. Yes, Simpson has been feeling the effects of multiple hard hits and isn’t as sharp as he was in September, when he peeled apart the Georgia defense and was as close to perfect as a quarterback could be against a top-flight SEC opponent. But Stockton’s performances over the year, while solidly on the bullseye of being a game manager, have shown he may not be able to take over a close game when Georgia needs him to. Stockton is a great fit for what Georgia wants to do on offense, but we like Simpson better for what he has the potential to do. Stockton’s only significant edge over Simpson comes when he is called on to run the football, but we bet Simpson would have similar numbers if Alabama made wider use of the QB run. In the event this one goes to the backups, we strongly prefer Alabama’s duo to Georgia’s Ryan Puglisi. Advantage: Alabama
RUNNING BACKS (Sept. 24 – Advantage: Georgia; Accurate (Y/N): Y)
Georgia’s Chauncey Bowens carried 12 times for 119 yards and a touchdown in the first matchup, and if anything Georgia didn’t run the ball enough. Alabama split its work between Jamarion Miller and Kevin Riley, neither of whom is likely to play in this game. Riley is out altogether, and while Miller is listed as questionable, we think he’s actually out. Miller did play an important role late in the game, icing it with a big reception for a first down on Bama’s final drive, but neither he nor Riley were able to do much above their season averages. Georgia ran almost at will from the tailback spot, almost doubling Alabama’s rushing output, but didn’t stick with it enough to really leverage it. In this one, Georgia returns Bowens and his backup, Nate Frazier. Alabama will be starting Daniel Hill, with little-used freshman Akylin Dear and senior third-down back Dre’lyn Washington backing him up. Hill has shown flashes down the stretch but has just 217 yards rushing on 57 carries (3.8 avg.) on the year. He does have 5 rushing touchdowns, though, and is a good receiver. It might come down to what Dear and Washington are able to add from the bench. Advantage: Georgia
WIDE RECEIVERS (Sept. 24 – Advantage: Alabama; Accurate (Y/N):Y)
This is a bit of a flip from the running back category; in September, Georgia was led in this game by Colbie Young, who will miss the rematch with an injury. That leaves Zachariah Branch, who has accumulated 68 catches but averages just at 10 yards per catch and hasn’t been the downfield threat he was advertised to be, and Dillon Bell, who only seems to show up when Alabama is the opponent. The third starter will be Noah Thomas, who has just 17 receptions on the year. Alabama basically returns everyone that it had in September, although Ryan Williams’ season hasn’t turned out the way he planned it. Like Bell, though, Williams always seems to find a way to show up in this series. Alabama’s biggest issue is at tight end, where Josh Cuevas probably won’t play. Danny Lewis Jr. could help mitigate the problem substantially if he’s ready to go, but he’s on the “Questionable” tier along with Cuevas. That leaves a pair of true freshmen, Kaleb Edwards and Marshall Pritchett, as the starters with Jay Lindsey and Brody Dalton the backups. So which matters more, the loss of Cuevas for Alabama, or the loss of Young for Georgia? Each are key absences but for different reasons. We think the loss of Cuevas is worse, but Alabama had a fairly significant edge in this category in September and it’s probably not enough to flip it to Georgia now. Advantage: Alabama
OFFENSIVE LINE (Sept. 24 – Advantage: Georgia; Accurate (Y/N): N)
Our first miscue. Alabama’s offensive line didn’t blow Georgia’s doors off in the running game, but Ty Simpson spent the night virtually untouched in the pocket. We didn’t trust the tape back then that showed Georgia with significant issues in its DL getting to the quarterback, but Alabama was able to move the Georgia line around when it mattered. Surprisingly, Alabama used more line combinations in this game than any other non-blowout this year. Alabama played three right guards, two left guards and two right tackles and everything the Crimson Tide dialed up seemed to hit. Since that time, there has been the normal amount of wear and tear on both teams. For this one, Alabama seems to have settled on Wilkin Formby at right guard, Michael Carroll at right tackle and Kadyn Proctor at left tackle. Parker Brailsford will start at center, but Geno VanDeMark is going to play a lot there due to a foot injury that is slowing Brailsford a bit. The question will be at left guard, where Kam Dewberry suddenly showed up as “Questionable” Thursday. If he can’t go at all, Alabama will probably use VanDeMark and Will Sanders in some sort of rotation there. But Georgia has a bigger loss to deal with: center Drew Bobo is listed as out, which will leave a pair of freshmen, Malachi Toliver and Cortez Smith, at the spot. Georgia has already been struggling in tackles for loss allowed (74th) and having the signal-caller out of the mix can’t help. It’s enough for us to flip our pick. Advantage: Alabama
DEFENSE
Alabama fans still have clear memories of a 3-4 over/under scheme, and Georgia is now the standard-bearer for it in the SEC. Georgia ranks 13th in total defense, 6th in rushing defense, 44th in raw pass defense, 39th in pass efficiency defense and 12th in scoring defense. Alabama’s 4-2-5 Swarm defense came alive in the weeks following the first matchup, and finished the regular season ranked 12th in total defense, 36th in rushing defense, 7th in raw pass defense, 17th in pass efficiency defense and 11th in scoring defense. Two completely different philosophies, but basically identical results.
DEFENSIVE LINE (Sept. 24 – Advantage: Georgia; Accurate (Y/N): Y)
This pick ended up being sort of borderline. Alabama couldn’t stop the run, but it did get two critical stops late, and this was the game that Kelby Collins and Yhonzae Pierre really started playing key roles. Now here comes the bad news: Collins is out for this game, and so is DE L.T. Overton, who had one of those critical late stops in September. On the other hand, Tim Keenan played his first real action of the year in the first matchup, and he’s 100 percent now. What we don’t know is how Jordan Renaud is going to do as Overton’s replacement, as Renaud is a completely different body type. Keenan and James Smith will start in the middle, while it’s going to be some kind of mixed bag of Renaud, Keon Keeley, Fatutoa Henry and LB Qua Russaw handling the Bandit spot. With Collins out as a pass-rush specialist, Edric Hill’s role will probably increase, but that’s not a bad thing given that the first Georgia matchup may have been his best game of the year. London Simmons and Isaia Faga will help Hill off the bench, and Steve Mboumoua might actually get some work. Why was this pick borderline? Because Georgia didn’t really do much up front, either. The Bulldogs got just 1 sack of Ty Simpson, and while they bottled up Miller and Riley for much of the night, it seemed like Alabama got every critical conversion it needed. Georgia ranks just 114th in sacks and 118th in tackles for loss on the year, and they’ll be without key reserve Jordan Hall for this game. If you want to see the difference in productivity, Alabama has three DL among its top 12 tacklers. For Georgia, the leading lineman tackler is Christian Miller in 14th place on the Bulldog stat list. So now we get to try to figure out how much losing Overton’s 33 tackles is really going to be, and our initial reaction is that it’s going to be substantial. Renaud has a single QB hurry and 0.5 tackles for loss, and has just 13 tackles in 12 games so far, despite getting a lot of work. As a result, we’re keeping this one as is. Advantage: Georgia
LINEBACKERS (Sept. 24 – Advantage: Georgia; Accurate (Y/N): Y)
Virtually all of Georgia’s sack production has come from this level, and the Bulldogs are one of only a handful of teams that can leverage pressure from its inside guys just as well as it can its edge rushers. But that’s an issue, too: Quintavius Johnson has just 1.5 sacks from the Jack position this year, and his backup, Elo Modozie, has none. The Bulldogs have ended up asking a lot of C.J. Allen, Raylen Wilson and Chris Cole, and they’ve responded. Against Alabama the first time, the second level of the Bulldog defense was highly effective in run support, but as we’ve mentioned several times already, couldn’t get home against Ty Simpson. So this category should flip, right? The problem was that Alabama’s performance against Georgia, at least up the middle, was its second-worst showing of the year behind only the Florida State debacle. Alabama was terrible on run fits all night, but the silver lining there is that Alabama has improved steadily at ILB as the season has moved along. Justin Jefferson has put together a consistent season front-to-back, Nikhai Hill-Green is more comfortable in his role and Deontae Lawson has been able to get fully healthy, which he was not at the time of the regular-season matchup. The big development for Alabama, though, has been Yhonzae Pierre at Wolf linebacker, and now Alabama has Qua Russaw back. Justin Hill was getting his first real action at the spot in relief of the injured Russaw the last time these two teams played, and Noah Carter wasn’t even in the rotation; both players are now seasoned. This is one we could see flipping based on the emergence of Pierre and the way Bama’s ILB trio have come around, but there was a wide margin in Georgia’s favor the last time, as the Georgia ILB trio is elite in their own way. Tough call. Advantage: Georgia
DEFENSIVE BACKS (Sept. 24 – Advantage; Alabama; Accurate (Y/N): Y)
Georgia’s defensive backs aren’t statistically bad by any stretch, but they also aren’t dynamic playmakers and there just seems to be something missing in regard to instinctiveness. The two teams have about the same number of pass break-ups on the year but Alabama has been a tier better in intercepting passes and in generating turnovers in general. Georgia, for that matter, hasn’t forced a single fumble in the secondary this year. Each team has an elite safety; Alabama has Bray Hubbard and Georgia boasts K.J. Bolden, but Alabama is stronger everywhere else, especially in its cornerback rotation. The emergence of Rydarrius Morgan at nickel safety may have been the missing piece that brought it all together. Alabama will be without Dre Kirkpatrick Jr. again this week, notable because he made an impact late in the September game. But Georgia will be without a key figure from the September contest, too, as Kyron Jones has missed half the season now. With all that being said, there’s no reason to change the evaluation at this juncture. Advantage: Alabama
SPECIAL TEAMS (Sept. 24 – Advantage: Georgia; Accurate (Y/N): N)
Georgia didn’t really do anything wrong in September, but there was no edge to the Bulldogs, either. It ended up being a push situation, with Conor Talty hitting a short field goal. Since that time, though, Alabama has been devolving, while Georgia PK Peyton Woodring continues to be one of the best kickers in the nation. We expect the punting game to be well-executed on both sides, and Georgia to have a slight edge in returns. Talty had a nice bounceback game against Auburn, but we need to see more before we flip this pick. Advantage: Georgia
OVERALL
In September, Georgia led 5-3, while we called a split in the OL-DL cross-matchups, giving each team’s offensive line the edge over the opposing defensive line. It ended up coming out more like a 5-3 Alabama edge, with the Crimson Tide taking the lead in offensive line and special teams, but the cross-matchup evaluation was spot-on.
This time around, we have it 4-4, thanks to Alabama now getting the nod at offensive line. We think linebacker has gotten closer, too, but we think Georgia has extended its leads at running back and special teams, and may have made up a smidge of ground at quarterback and receiver, the latter due to the injury to Josh Cuevas. We still grant both teams’ offensive lines their respective edges in the OL-DL cross-matchups, but if L.T. Overton were playing for Alabama, we would probably give the Tide both OL-DL takes.
There’s a lot going on here: some categories tightening up, others extending their edges, and a lot of things affected by injury. The venue is changing, but the crowd won’t be 50-50. Can Ty Simpson be virtually perfect the way he was in September? Will Alabama perform better against the Georgia running game? Can Alabama do something to gloss over the injury to Cuevas, and can Ryan Williams have another big moment against Georgia?
And finally, there’s the issue of the College Football Playoff. Most believe Alabama has already played its way into the playoffs, and based on where the committee seeded Alabama this week, such a prediction appears accurate. But what if Georgia wins big? This one may not be over yet.
We hate to do this twice in the same year – we were glad to be wrong the first time – but with Simpson not completely healthy and not nearly as sharp as he was in the first half of the season, we feel Alabama will be more affected by its injuries than the Bulldogs will be by theirs. Just like the first game, though, it really could go either way.
Georgia 24
Alabama 20
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Addendum: SEC Preview and Predictions
Since the SEC Championship Game involves Alabama, there will be no standalone SEC Preview and Predictions article this week. Our 2025 predictions will conclude with this game. As we close out our 2025 prognostications, the Predictions Dept. had a strong showing, eclipsing the 80-percent mark with relative ease, something that will become more and more difficult with each passing season in a parity-friendly environment.
The final numbers (pending the result of the SEC Championship Game):
Last Week’s Record: 8-2 (80.0%)
Season’s Record: 105-22 (82.7%)
Follow Jess Nicholas on X at @TideFansJessN