Legge's Thoughts: Georgia Buries Alabama | Dawgs Look Formidable | Irish Tears Flow
ATLANTA - The last 24-hour fight of the college football season was set of be a big one. Texas Texas was in; BYU was trying to do the same. Georgia and Alabama, who have matched up against one another more times than any two schools in the sport since 2021, were to fight again in Atlanta; And the nightcap was a No. 1 vs. No. 2 game - Ohio State against Indiana.
Those games set the table for what was perhaps the most memorable reveal in the College Football Playoff’s history. This weekend wasn’t just about the games on the field, but also the debate off of it - should Notre Dame, with no win of consequence, be in over a team is lost to with the same record? Do results matter anymore?
Is Santa real?
It was set to be awesome; and it was in many ways it was. The best game in terms of overall drama was the least important, but one that shed even more light into the flaw of this sport: 8-5 Duke triumphed over Virginia in overtime to take away the ACC’s right to a playoff spot.
DESTRUCTION AT THE DOME
On the micro level, Georgia’s destruction of Alabama wasn’t only impressive, but it seems like it foreshadows a different time in the league. The Dawgs’ 28-7 win over hapless Alabama was the sort of win Georgia fans had been expecting Kirby Smart to deliver over Bama for years.
It finally happened - no matter how many media stooges picked Alabama for no reason that made sense. How could this game look so different than the first game? Georgia outmanned, outplayed and outcoached Alabama in Atlanta.
How could the two games be so different? 1. Georgia has gotten better; Alabama hasn’t. 2. Alabama was fortunate to win in Athens. 3. The Tide made mistake after mistake in this game; Georgia made three in Athens - mistakes matter.
This was about things slowly changing for both teams during the season until there is a tipping point. Saturday was well past the tipping point for the Tide. Y’all, Bama hasn’t played well since beating Tennessee in October.
As Adam Duritz put it: “The feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls.”
It’s going to be A Long December for Alabama. It is clear now Alabama isn’t what it used to be. They still have great qualities, and the best win of the college football season. But this isn’t Nick Saban’s Alabama. It was bound to happen, but it is now clear that’s the case. These two seasons Alabama has lost to: Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Florida State, Oklahoma (again) and Georgia.
A third loss to Oklahoma wouldn’t just end this season - it would mean Alabama… with its nose in the air for so long… would miss playing in a meaningful bowl game in the first two years of Kalen DeBoer’s time there - and that Bama has only played in a CFP semifinal once in the last four seasons.
That would be a pretty big departure from Saban’s time. But, again, this isn’t Nick’s Alabama. It isn’t, and that’s clear. Georgia whipped them all day long on the line of scrimmage. Not only was Bama’s negative three yards rushing embarrassing, it was a school record for being inept running the football.
Meanwhile, Bama had a punt blocked and dropped a fair catch. Special teams’ plays matter a ton, and those mattered, too.
The only thing Alabama was better at Georgia than was not getting called for infractions. The Tide was only penalized once for five yards.
TURNING THE CORNER
Meanwhile, we’ve stepped clear into Stetson Season for Gunner Stockton and the Bulldogs. This is a Georgia team that’s surging towards the finish line. Ohio State doesn’t look so unbeatable after all, and Oregon, Texas Tech and Indiana are on the other side of the bracket.
Georgia hasn’t allowed more than ten points in a month of games. Georgia Tech, with all of the jibber jabber about the Jackets, were the No. 1 offense in the nation the week before facing Georgia. They didn’t score a touchdown. In fact, Georgia has allowed two touchdowns in 16 quarters of football lately.
You aren’t losing many games forcing field goals.
Sometime between the fourth quarter in Jacksonville and halftime in Starkville, Georgia went from turning the corner this season to smashing through the wall that was holding up the corner.
The work of practice is coming to fruition when the band is playing. What would have been hard to accomplish in September is now very possible in January. You can’t fake reps. Experience isn’t gained without the scars of mistakes. Georgia had to practice and play its way to this point. The only way to do this was to do it; that won’t be the case as much in 2026 because that team will be loaded up and probably the favorite to win it all going into next season.
This team wasn’t that. But this team also isn’t at all the 2024 team. That team was defiant, but it was only adequate to bad at the run game. That’s not the case this season. Georgia’s defense had worked its way back to the way it played in its heyday. The Georgia offense has been running against everyone not named Auburn the entire season.
Consider: Georgia has improved total run yards (offense and defense) by an average of 113 yards a game. That’s a 39% improvement on defense; and a 51% improvement on offense. More concerning for everyone else in the playoff?
Georgia’s run numbers look nearly identical to what they were in 2021:
2021 UGA Rushing Yards Allowed: 78.9
2025 UGA Rushing Yards Allowed: 79.2
2021 UGA Rushing Yards: 190.9
2025 UGA Rushing Yards: 186.6
Georgia took all of that into the game, and hammered Alabama over the head with it for 60 satisfying minutes. The Bulldogs outrushed Alabama 141 to -3. Perhaps more nuts was that Alabama managed only 27 yards gained rushing without sacks accounted for.
Yikes.
Bama’s offense wasn’t much better. When you shoot photos on the field with a 500 mm lens you get used to seeing just the quarterback, or the ball carrier until that person is tackled or throws the ball. All night there were flashed of white in the frame. Georgia was all over Ty Simpson. Too often he could not escape.
It is the only time in Simpson’s career that he’s thrown at least four passes and ended the day with a completion rate under 50%. He had drops; he had poor throws; he had his coach risking it all with eight minutes in the game in the shadow of his own end zone.
DeBoer must have been thinking: "To hell with it… if we can’t pick up two yards we can’t win.”
But that was a panic move that showed no confidence in his offense or defense. Cole Adams nearly fumbled the game away at the Alabama four-yard line on a fair catch he dropped. DeBoer decided to end it down only two touchdowns with more than half the quarter to play.
DeBoer must not have be aware of the comebacks Alabama has so often pulled off against Georgia. Or maybe he knows that this Alabama isn’t that one (it isn’t - see above). Maybe the staff and insiders at Georgia know it as well.
One coach stopped me with a big smile on his face to say with out prompting: “That’s the first back-to-back since Herschel.”
The players were not overly excited; they knew they were the better team, and that they should have won. Still, Mike Bobo’s embrace of Dillon Bell in the southwest corridor as the two left the field seemed close the loop on what has been a long two-year journey for those two.
This is Bobo’s second title as the offense coordinator at Georgia - more than anyone since Vince Dooley’s days. Bobo is only missing an elusive national title from his resume at this point. He was the one that called a reverse that was wide open for Bell, but the Texas native fumbled - setting up a score for Alabama. That score was the margin for the 2023 game - 27-24 Alabama.
That fumble occurred only yards away from where they embraced. Bobo and Bell were a critical part of a team that almost certainly dispatched Alabama to the wrong side of the bracket, and a nightmare run to Miami.
If Alabama plays for it all in over a month something has changed significantly.
Not quite an hour after the game ended Bryant Gantt jogged back onto the field with a large trash bag. For a minute he grabbed confetti that had been gathered in a huge trash can and stuffed the yellow, white and blue mix until it could be stuffed no more.
The frustration of the last three losses to the Tide - all determined on the final play of the game - seemed to fade away like the remnants of the confetti Gantt was was plowing through.
THE COMMITTEE GOT IT RIGHT
It appears the 12-team bracket, flawed with two teams that certainly don’t belong, worked out well for the Bulldogs. They await the winner of the Ole Miss-Tulane game in the Sugar Bowl. This scenario was one of the few ones that means Georgia won’t have the crowd when it plays in the quarterfinals.
That’s been rare, but Ole Miss will do its Sunday best to crowd the Superdome. Tulane played its home games there for four decades. As much tradition and familiarity as Georgia has with the Sugar Bowl - they’ll be outnumbered for sure. If last season’s game with mighty Notre Dame (more on that in a few) is any indication tickets will be available, too.
This game might not be a sellout even with one of the biggest brands in college football and one of the three local teams that will pour into the stadium. Might. Might not.
Even Georgia’s wealthy and mighty fanbase has to consider things. And after an SEC Championship Game, New Orleans and the possibility of Phoenix and then Miami - there’s only so much time and money. Georgia has already played in Jacksonville and Atlanta with ticket prices through the roof.
Still, at least Georgia will be there. In 2023, Georgia had the best team in the nation, but was upset by Alabama. That kept Georgia from completing a three peat. Again: a three-point loss kept Georgia out of the playoff that year. A three-touchdown loss couldn’t keep this Alabama team out this year - even several programs knocking at the door.
Those two things are different circumstances, but that’s something that should be acknowledged as we move forward. The CFP committee makes different arguments each season for inclusion or exclusion. But this season the final result is the right one.
This has never been about fielding the best 12 teams. It has been about fielding some combination of five conference champions and the best seven teams that remain after that. This year that means the best ten teams.
Vanderbilt, Texas, Notre Dame, Duke… they didn’t earn their way in. Correct - even with a conference title, Duke didn’t earn their way in. The ACC’s failure since Clemson’s collapse is something else. That league has never been good. Its always been, and seems to be cemented to being little brother to the SEC.
But even with all of the bickering amongst league members, they know their seat at the table is secure. They have a conference title game, and that provides them a direct path into the CFP... unless the champ has five losses.
Notre Dame chooses not to take part in that path.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LUCK
I used to believe in luck - years ago when I was a child. But luck isn’t a real thing. Work beats out luck every time. In terms of the luck of the Irish… they don’t have any luck because they have two losses, one decent win and a stubborn streak that would make Winston Churchill seem flexable.
Here’s the thing, the two failures of this year’s college football playoff - Notre Dame and the ACC - need each other now more than ever. The ACC needs Notre Dame to provide the bump in revenue that happens because of the scheduling agreement between the Irish and the league.
Notre Dame needs the ACC because there’s not going to be anyone to play in October and November after a while outside of Navy. Here’s the truth about Notre Dame’s situation: The Irish are as weak, nationally, as they have ever been in football. The Big Ten and SEC have swallowed up the attention of the nation.
That’s not an opinion. That’s a fact.
Notre Dame, with its Stone Age philosophy about things, continues to beat its head against the wall. There’s nothing wrong with being conservative and holding on to your values. There is something wrong with sticking your head in the ground.
Notre Dame wants freeways to have lanes for carriages, desk space for their typewriters and a landline to fax with.
“MY PRECIOUS FREEDOMS!”
In the 1980s, Notre Dame pretty much opened the season with some combination of Purdue, Michigan State and Michigan. The traditional rivalries with Navy and USC were two other games the Irish played each season. Some of those games have gone away and been replaced by Boston College and Stanford.
But there was a structure to the season for the Irish. They could get to 11 games pretty quick. Then teams like South Carolina, Penn State, Miami and Pitt that used to supplement the schedule went into conference play. Folks said Penn State, which was also fiercely independent, would never go into a league, either.
Then schedules went to 12 games a year. Now USC is in the Big Ten, and the Trojans’ loyalty is the relationship it has with that league (good or bad). USC has a fiduciary responsibility to the Big Ten to play by the Big Ten’s rules, and that means playing non-conference games early in the season rather than late.
That’s what the money is for.
Notre Dame is being squeezed by reality. It continues to be the most important independent program in college football. Its just that we no longer live in a world where that matters. Now leagues matter most.
It just means more? Damn right it does, and that’s never been more clear - like it or not.
The Irish are trying to still live in a world where bowl games had loose arraignments with the likes of the Big Eight. Notre Dame was a needed. College football had to have them.
Now four leagues (really two) rule the college football landscape. Those two would have been happy to have Notre Dame join them in their league, but the Irish won’t join them because they won’t join anyone.
“MY. PRECIOUS. FREEDOMS!”
And the reality is that’s a huge mistake for Notre Dame. They need everyone else more than everyone else needs them. That’s the truth. The rest of college football is going to a model where nine-game conference schedules are here to stay. There will be fewer and fewer chances for Notre Dame to schedule teams.
And now the Notre Dame AD is calling out the ACC.
Bro, you need the ACC. They’ve all you got left.
All this drama; all this stupidity; all this false outrage; and the truth is Notre Dame didn’t earn it; they lost to Miami, the team that justifiably got in over them. Instead of taking notes from Clark Lea, who is also leading a program at a high-level research institution, Notre Dame is flailing away like a toddler.
All of this for a program that has the TV power of Auburn.
Not Ohio State. Not Michigan. Not Bama. Not Georgia.
Auburn.
Sometime soon reality is going to hit Notre Dame hard. The truth hurts, but reality finally hitting home is going to hurt worse. This is going to get worse for Notre Dame before it gets better. The best way to get out of a hole is to stop digging.
“MY. PRECIOUS. FREEDOMS!”
Have fun watching the world pass you by… again.
