Alabama, Georgia on collision course
The No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs are firmly focused on a team from Alabama.
No, not the mighty Crimson Tide.
After locking up a spot in the SEC championship game for the second year in a row, Georgia briefly celebrated but quickly turned its attention to Saturday night’s game against Auburn, the 122nd meeting in the Deep South’s oldest rivalry.
“There’s not anybody on our team that’s going to be worrying about anything but Auburn,” head coach Kirby Smart said Monday. “That’s the next task at hand. That’s what we have to be focused on. Our goal is to play the next team, whoever the next team is, and we try not to have real big highs and no real big lows. We want to stay neutral, right in the middle.”
The Bulldogs will get another shot at the team they faced in last year’s national championship game. Top-ranked Alabama, which hasn’t been seriously challenged this season, clinched the SEC West title with another dominating win, 29-0 over LSU.
Both Alabama (9-0, 7-0 SEC) and Georgia (8-1, 6-1) are heavily favored to win their remaining regular-season games. The SEC title game is Dec. 1 at MercedesBenz Stadium in Atlanta — the same spot where they played their classic title game almost 10 months ago.
In that one, the Crimson Tide switched quarterbacks at halftime, overcame two 13-point deficits and pulled out a stunning 26-23 victory in overtime. After Georgia settled for a field goal on its first possession of the extra period, Tua Tagovailoa threw a 41-yard touchdown pass to DeVonta Smith on 2ndand-26 to win the game.
Though the Bulldogs are certainly eager to get another crack at Alabama, no one wants to talk about that matchup. Not yet, anyway. Clearly, the players made available to the media Monday had been coached to talk about only Auburn (6-3, 3-3).
“We clinched the East — that’s great. Now it’s back to work,” defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter said. Big Game kickoff: The Pac-12 announced that the 121st Big Game between Stanford (5-4, 3-3 Pac-12) and Cal (5-4, 2-4) will begin at either 4:30 or 5 p.m. Nov. 17 at Memorial Stadium. The decision as to which time it will be will come no later than Sunday. John Taylor honored: Former 49ers receiver John Taylor (Delaware State) and Hugh Douglas (Central State) are among the seven inductees to the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Joining Taylor and Douglas in the 10th class are Emerson Boozer of Maryland Eastern Shore; Rich “Tombstone” Jackson from Southern; Frank Lewis from Grambling State; Timmy Newsome from WinstonSalem State; and Arnett “Ace” Mumford, who coached Southern to 11 Southwestern Athletic Conference championships.
Taylor scored 42 touchdowns for Delaware State from 1983 through ’85 and won three Super Bowl titles with the 49ers. Douglas had 42 sacks in 32 games playing in NAIA before being a first-round draft pick by the New York Jets in 1995. Falcon on the mend: An Air Force falcon named Aurora is resting and the school remains optimistic for a recovery after she was injured at West Point during a prank before the annual rivalry game.
Sam Dollar, Air Force’s falconry team adviser, told the New York Times that two West Point cadets took the academy’s two falcons, threw sweaters over them and stuffed them into dog crates. Dollar said the cadets turned them over Saturday morning, with Aurora’s wings bloodied.