ESPN’s Alex Scarborough calls this season’s Georgia-Alabama match up “more (a game) of interest than of importance”. Does that seem like a fair characterization, given that the loser will likely be working with a razor-thin margin of error the rest of the year to win its respective division?
- Bloviation for the Dawgnation
-
Quote Of The Day
-
“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
Search
Categories
Archives
Blogroll (ND)
- 82 Sluggo Win
- And The Valley Shook
- Banner Society
- Black Heart Gold Pants
- Black Shoe Diaries
- Blatant Homerism
- Braves & Birds
- Brophy Football
- College Football Talk
- EDSBS
- Eleven Warriors
- Lost Angeles
- MGoBlog
- RazorBloggers Network
- Rock M Nation
- Rocky Top Talk
- Saturday Down South
- Saturday Tradition
- Shakin The Southland
- Smart Football
- Team Speed Kills
- The National Championship Issue
- The Wizard of Odds
- Tide Bits
Dawg Blogs
Dawg Links
Media Links
Stats/Info Links
- All-Time Division 1-A CFB Standings
- American College Football
- American College Football – Rankings
- cfbstats.com
- College Football at Sports-Reference.com
- College Football by the Numbers
- College Football Data Warehouse
- College Football Recruiting Map
- College Nicknames
- Football Outsiders – College
- Football Study Hall
- GBE College Football Ratings
- MapGameDay.com
- NCAA Division I Football Statistics
- SEC Statistics
- Statistically Speaking
- Strangestbrew's College Football Schedulizer
- The Helmet Project
- Varsity Numbers
Useful Links
Time, time…
GATA
Blog Stats
- 73,804,630 hits
Get The Picture · Bloviation for the Dawgnation
Get The Picture 
Doesn’t the importance generate the interest? Just saying..
I believe Mr. Scarborough is doing a little Dawg grading.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Not only the division but a loss there can severely hamper any CFP aspirations. And to think, ESPN actually pays him money….
LikeLike
Sour grapes? They don’t have the SEC contract until 23, right?
LikeLike
You can bet that game will be hyped to the hilt, with ESPN gameday virtually guaranteed to be there, along with a week’s worth of every talking speaking ad nauseum 24/7 right up to kickoff.
LikeLike
Other than being on the road, I like the timing of the game. Early in the season to recover from the loss (though yes, it likely means running the table but with our talent that shouldn’t be an issue). But more importantly, I like that it isn’t a championship setting and maybe we can just coach and play without the pressure of playing Bama for a championship of some sort. Maybe that helps us play looser. Get the whole “Gotta Beat Bama” and Saban assistant monkey off our back with less high stakes.
LikeLike
The consequences of a loss to a top cross-division rival are less than the consequences of a loss to a top in-division rival, and being early in the year, neither team will be facing a must-win situation.
LikeLike
It’s must win for UGA. Bama can lose and still compete for championship. UGA will not be afforded the same luxury.
LikeLike
So what do you think happens if our only loss is in Tuscaloosa, then we beat Bama in Atlanta?
LikeLike
Thinking isn’t high on the list for “MNC or Bust” type folks. Win the SEC, and all your hopes/dreams are in front of you, it hasn’t changed. Now that is tougher if you lose in Tusky, but it isn’t a season lost should you lose. It is all about the SEC title, then making that Final 4; and you should not reverse that order.
I want to beat Bama that weekend. I want to beat everyone, every single Saturday we play, but this is an important game, not a critical game. Should we lose it, I promise will have one much more important later in the season (and I will bet good money on that!)
Game should be close because because of our defense, but it will be a tough one for our offense. I hope we get it all worked out before mid-October but there is so much to come together with a new OC, some additional wrinkles, and less experienced players. Lot of Kool Aide drinking among the fans, completely ignoring the storm clouds on the horizon. Some if been too negative in the past, but there are more too optimistic now given the severe uphill climb I see ahead of us. Let’s get some solid intel before we start worrying about the CF Playoff, or even Atlanta.
LikeLike
Hot Take here…wrong, but HOT none the less. LOL
LikeLike
Proven to be true in the past.
LikeLike
When has a 1 loss UGA team been left out? In the Playoff Era?
LikeLike
That UGA can’t beat Bama
LikeLike
I agree. We lost IN division last season and if we’d (miraculously) beaten LSU, we would have been in the playoffs.
I think I get what Scarborough is saying in that the game isn’t make/break for either team. There will still be a path forward to the playoffs for either one, just less margin for error.
LikeLike
Agree with the timing. I know this is a game we can win, if only we’ll do it. With the admission of botched calls and the attention it brings, the refs may feel they have to be careful and call an honest game.
And, as you suggest, this game is not necessarily for all the marbles. We need this win to get the monkey off…
LikeLike
Agreed with getting the monkey off. Need to take care of business this time and close the deal.
LikeLike
If one is convinced 1 SEC loss won’t keep you out of the SECC game and a 1- loss SEC Champ won’t be left out of the CFP, then he’s right. As are you — a very thin margin for error.
Most fun spin of his statement: “Hey Gators, the Dawgs may lose to Bama, but they ain’t losing to you.”
LikeLike
So a top-10 game, probably top 5, in the SEC isn’t important. LOL
LikeLike
Well, They’re probably playing a rematch in the SECCG so there’s that. Sort of a “The first one doesn’t really count” thing.
LikeLike
I HATE it when people say a game isn’t important or is meaningless. They are ALL important to me. Of course, I know they mean in the overall scheme of things…but still.
LikeLike
That game is potentially as consequential as 2015 was for both programs.
Alabama needs to beat a credible opponent. Kirby needs to beat his mentor.
0-3 ain’t a good look for Kirby.
Losing another game to a top 5 team will start rumblings in Tuscaloosa.
Of course, there is a great chance at a rematch in ATL.
LikeLike
I think we lose in Tuscaloosa, but beat their asses in ATL. Under Kirby we tend to play better on revenge tours.
I’d love to be proven wrong, but a new OC and a new QB facing Bama in week 3 on the road is as big a test as any.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ll take it!
LikeLike
It’s ultimately a compliment. He’s assuming neither team is going to lose another game.
LikeLike
Actually, now that I’ve read it, he’s just differentiating between rivalry games and national games of interest. Clunkily.
LikeLike
He can sandbag all he wants, but CBS will be picking this game.
LikeLike
Plausible path to these teams meeting 3 times next season. Not likely, but plausible.
LikeLike
^^This
LikeLike
Interesting at Georgia-Florida did not make his list–that one will at least have some major division implications.
LikeLike
I tend to agree. The team that loses still has a clear path to the playoff (assuming both teams enter undefeated). The most Georgia thing ever would be to win in T-town and lose to Saban in Atl.
LikeLike
That’s why Kirby has this game circled…to throw it. We’ll play vanilla O again, especially since it’s early in the season. Tenacious D but fine with Bama winning. Then he has the team on edge instead of over confident for the rest of the season and ready for the rematch win in the SECCG where it matters most to him, the team, the fans, and…recruiting.
LikeLike
Or maybe we win in T Town. Lost in Atl, and win round three on the playoff. Gotta break through at some point.
LikeLike
Assume this is facetious, but if that is the way Kirby coaches, we should pay out his contract and immediately hire someone who looks at winning every game as critical, and coaches like his hair is on fire every week. I feel like that is the king of guy we have as a coach already. He just has to work on that “play all sixty minutes full out” and don’t begin running the clock out until there is less than 2 minutes left. These other guys are serious all the time, we have to match that—not like we did the 2nd half in January, 2018.
LikeLike
In 2017 Kirby threw Auburn Part 1 with this strategy, then whipped them in the SECCG. In 2018, we let LSU win but they failed to take out Bama for us…stupid corndogs. In 2019 he gave his friend Boom a coaching job lifeline and needed to fix some internal problems in the locker room with attitude only to discover his offense absolutely sucked. He’s fixed the offense now and will resort to the same strategy for the 4th year in a row.
Surely the rest of you see how obvious this is? 😉
LikeLike
It’s not a division game, so the loss doesn’t have the potentially devastating implications of putting you two games down in the standings that a division loss does. But still, it’s a conference game and it absolutely is one of the three or four games that matter most on the conference slate. I think it’ll go a long way towards determining the champion.
Georgia probably has a better opportunity to weather a loss in that game and still get to Atlanta than Alabama does. The East doesn’t really look like world beaters and we get Auburn at home. Beat Auburn and Florida and I think you get to Atlanta with one league loss. But it’s certainly pressure packed if you take that Alabama loss. On the flip side, if Georgia beats Alabama in Tuscaloosa in the third game for a fully revamped offense I think it’s going to raise some major concerns about Alabama’s ability to ride out the rest of the schedule unbeaten in the West. Winner of that game is in the driver’s seat for the league crown. Loser is going to be hanging on for dear life.
LikeLike
If you only lose to Bama you go to the SECCG (by definition you win the tie breaker with any other one loss team in the division)
LikeLike
For this answer I’m assuming neither team loses any other games. The loser of Georgia-Bama has to win their division and then the SECCG to make the playoff. The winner theoretically could still get into the playoff without winning the SECCG. I think that’s a big reason to want to win the regular season game.
LikeLike
Here are the scenarios….the dawgs lose, win out and have to play bama again. The winner of that game will be in, the loser will be out. 2. Dawgs win, have to play bama again….only the winner goes on. 3. Dawgs beat bama, lose to UF and miss the secc game but win all other games. Bama beats an undefeated uf in that game. Dawgs go to playoffs along with bama. 4. The same could happen with bama winning but losing to a western division rival.
LikeLike
Refs call an honest game? Dude who are you kidding ? They are not playing Vanderbilt, they are playing the czar of CFB.
LikeLike
If that happens and it’s Bama’s only loss. Then Bana goes above UGA. I haven’t seen anything that indicates that UGA can beat Bama, unfortunately.
LikeLike
He goes on to chide Clemson and their schedule and then proceeds to say that if they lose the game to Notre Dame in South Bend they are out of it. Makes no sense. Ditto with Alabama and LSU. In fact if Bama loses all three of their “games of interest”, they might make it to the Taxslayer Bowl. Really dumb sentence, not only for our game with Bama.
LikeLike
Both teams will be ranked in the Top 10 or better, so a loss this early in the season to a high ranking opponent that’s out of division will not be catastrophic. However, I think the game is extremely important from a perception standpoint. If UGA losses again to Bama, the media narrative will be predictable – Georgia cannot beat Nick Saban and Bama, period… ever! If Bama losses then questions about the Tide Dynasty being over will be asked ad-nausea.
LikeLike
I think we lose, win out and get a shot a redemption when it matters most. I’d like to think we’ll win but we’re implementing a new offense, players and staff. It’ll be interesting to see if they can actually improve over the course of the season.
LikeLike
Yeah I’m with you. Our season comes down to beating the living hell out of Florida and not sleeping on UT, who I think will be considerably better next season.
LikeLike