TURN THE TIDE
Georgia 'D' out to reverse course against Saban's crew
For 12 games, the unit was indomitable. It was impenetrable. It was utterly dominant. It didn’t allow a first-half touchdown until its seventh game. The Georgia defense was being compared to the greatest college football defenses of all time.
Then the SEC Championship game happened. Bryce Young, Jameson Williams and Alabama happened. The defending nationalchampion Crimson Tide rolled up 536 yards and 41 points in a onesided victory.
That feeling of invincibility vanished.
“Want the honest-to-God truth? I cried,” Georgia junior linebacker Nolan Smith said.
The star-studded defense, loaded with future NFL draft picks, was humbled. The group that allows a nation-low 9.6 points per game, is second in total yards and third against the run, couldn’t get stops. For the first time this season, massive defensive tackle Jordan Davis, do-it-all linebacker Nakobe Dean and Co. were soundly beaten. The Bulldogs entered the game having allowed 83 points. Alabama scored on five consecutive drives, ripping apart the Georgia secondary. The bully was bullied.
But now the Bulldogs will get another shot at the Crimson Tide, a chance at revenge and the school’s first national championship since 1980. An opportunity to turn that first game into a footnote.
“Same approach, but different attitude,” cornerback Derion Kendrick said. “You’ve got to go out there, do what we do because we didn’t play a good game at all on the defensive side of the ball.”
Getting to Bryce Young, the Heisman Trophy winner who threw for 421 yards and three touchdowns in the first meeting, will be essential. He wasn’t sacked at all in the SEC final, one of the big surprises of that game. Georgia’s 45 sacks are tied for the fourth most in the country and it has five different players with at least 4.5 sacks.
Its front seven has manhandled everyone — except Alabama.
“We say all the time here the best rush is the best coverage, and we’ve got to get to the quarterback,” Smith said. “There’s nothing else about it. Last game, we did not do that. And I know a lot of people felt hurt after that one. I hold myself and my room accountable and also the [defensive] line. It’s our job as pass rushers to get after the quarterback and we didn’t do that. The difference between this game and that game is we just have to do it. We have to find a way.”
Georgia rebounded well from the Alabama loss by dominating Michigan, 34-11. It had four sacks and forced three turnovers. The Bulldogs got some of their swagger back in the Orange Bowl. But that was only the first step. The far tougher one comes Monday night.
“You can only judge a man by what he does next and how hard he gets hit and gets back up,” Smith said. “I think we got hit pretty hard. And I thought we got up pretty well because guys didn’t sweat it from Day 1.
“Guys said we know we need to work, we know we have an opportunity. And now that we’re here in the national championship, I think we bounced back pretty well. Now it’s time to go finish the job.”
It obviously won’t be easy. Georgia has lost seven straight games to Alabama. Across the board, the Bulldogs played down any mental edge the Crimson Tide owns over them. Coach Nick Saban’s juggernaut was just better in the first encounter. But that doesn’t mean the rematch won’t be different. The loaded defense, which includes the Outland and Bednarik winner (Davis) and Butkus winner (Dean), gets a mulligan.
“If we play our best game,” defensive coordinator Dan Lanning said, “we feel confident that we can win that game.”