Do Kirby Smart and Georgia still have an Alabama problem? It's time to find out
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Despite being ranked No. 2 by the pollsters, Georgia is probably the safest answer right now to the question of who's the best team in college football.
If you're measuring everything — offense, defense, talent, experience, coaching and consistency — there is a week-in, week-out reliability to Georgia that hasn't really changed in a decade.
They are who they are.
Except when they see the crimson helmets with numbers on the side.
On one hand, Saturday's showdown in Tuscaloosa between the SEC's two dominant powers will have all the trappings of a massive event: "College GameDay" in the morning, a prime-time television slot at night and even a scheduled visit from the President of the United States.
On the other hand, an early October meeting between Georgia and Alabama feels a bit like a warm-up act given the strong possibility they'll see each other again in the SEC championship game or the College Football Playoff with a lot more on the line.
But from a Georgia perspective, the biggest source of intrigue might be whether coach Kirby Smart has finally solved his Alabama problem.
"I see every game in the conference as a big game," Smart said this week. "This one has a more storied recent history because of the matchups and two divisions where they ended up pitted against each other and the meaningful games we've played against each other in the recent 10-15 year history."
Yeah, Kirby — and because you've lost most of them.
At this stage of Smart's career, we could shower him with almost endless praise for restoring his alma mater to glory. In fact, of all the accomplishments that will one day land Smart in the College Football Hall of Fame, the most impressive might be how he's powered Georgia right through all the changes in college football and pretty much has the same program now that he did in the pre-NIL/transfer portal era.
If you look around college football, all the major contenders have gone through some level of upheaval as they adapted to the new world — some for better, some for worse. But Georgia? It's basically the same product, year after year, draft pick after draft pick, championship after championship.
And Alabama loss after Alabama loss.
What once seemed like a Nick Saban-specific issue has oddly extended into Kalen DeBoer's tenure, with Smart entering Saturday's game just 2-7 against Alabama.
In the broader context of Smart's career, it's mind-blowing. He's 8-2 against Florida, 9-1 against Tennessee, 10-1 against Auburn, 8-1 against Georgia Tech, 3-1 against Texas and 2-0 against both Clemson and Oklahoma.
In 11 seasons, Smart has lost a total of 21 games. Seven of them have been to the Crimson Tide.
That's why Georgia winning the rematch with Alabama last season in the SEC championship game, 28-7, was such a big deal. Though it didn't ultimately amount to much in the playoff, as Georgia lost to Ole Miss in the quarterfinals, it would have been a major demerit on Smart's résumé to be 0-3 against DeBoer after losing in both the 2024 and 2025 regular season with a superior team on paper.
This time around, you can't really claim Georgia is better than the Crimson Tide. As rock solid as the Bulldogs have looked, they haven't beaten anyone that will be consequential in the playoff picture. You could say the same of Alabama, but both the eye test and DeBoer's track record would suggest the 49.6 points per game they're scoring with 19-year-old sensation Keelon Russell at quarterback is the culmination of everything he's been building in Tuscaloosa.
It looks very real, almost like a super-charged version of what DeBoer had in 2023 with Michael Penix leading Washington to the national championship game.
"There's a lot more similarities to what he did there, but a lot of that has morphed into SEC pictures now because he's been in our league so long," Smart said. "They're really hard to defend because you don't feel like there's a play they don't have. They've got all of them in terms of the plays you have to stop."
Alabama has never looked better under DeBoer coming into a game against Georgia. That makes Smart's task more difficult Saturday. It also gives one of the great coaches in college football history a chance to completely change the trajectory of the only rivalry he's been on the wrong side of.
With Saban out of the picture, Georgia fans would have expected that process to already be well under way. Aside from the national championship game in 2021, when Smart finally broke through against his mentor — a good time to do it, no doubt — the Alabama matchup really terrorized him and often pressured him into bad decisions he wouldn't make against any other opponent.
Though Alabama is always going to have great talent, DeBoer is a totally different kind of coach and one who wasn't as innately familiar with Smart's tendencies as Saban after more than a decade working together.
But lo and behold, here came DeBoer in 2024 landing an uppercut on Smart with a 28-0 lead early in the second quarter that eventually became a wild 41-34 victory. Then, last year in Athens, DeBoer snapped Georgia's 33-game home winning streak with a 24-21 win. In that game, Georgia looked like it was driving for the go-ahead score early in the fourth quarter but couldn't convert a fourth-and-1 inside the 10-yard line and kind of sputtered out after that.
Though it was a poor performance by Georgia, it wasn't a significant loss. Georgia got its chance at revenge two months later and both teams ended up in the CFP. The same could very well happen this year, regardless of result. They can thank the 12-team playoff for ensuring that these games aren't all-or-nothing.
But for a competitor like Smart, who has maintained Georgia's program at the absolute highest standard for a decade, there is no great explanation or excuse for having such an anomalous record against a particular rival.
If Georgia is indeed the safest bet in college football this year, finally getting rid of its Alabama problem would be a great way to prove it.
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