Siri, what’s the opposite of schadenfreude?

Assuming David Ubben’s take here ($$) comes true…

Georgia closed the season with a cathartic victory over Alabama that also will serve as major motivation for the Crimson Tide this offseason. There’s no need to play the video of that game in the team facility, but don’t be surprised if it makes an appearance at some point. It has been a while since Alabama had something to prove in an offseason, but that’s where it stands.

… I can’t help but wonder what Jermaine Burton’s reaction will be watching that.

Nixing NIL

Leaving Nick Saban at a recruiting disadvantage?  Inconceivable!  And in this case, the Alabama legislature knows exactly what that word means.

The lawmaker who last year pushed a state law to allow college athletes to be compensated whenever their name, image or likeness is used in promotional material is now trying to undo it.

House Bill 76 was approved by the House State Government Committee without any debate on Wednesday.

“It’s just a straight repeal of what we did last year,” sponsor Rep. Kyle South, R-Fayette, told Alabama Daily News. “We were thinking that the NCAA last year was going to go in one direction and they ended up adopting basically a different rule that was kind of a blanket for everybody. 

“And it left us in a place where our state law was more restrictive than what the NCAA adopted,” South said.

So, states that adopted nothing, including Michigan and Texas, are now at a recruiting advantage for college athletes now because they’re working solely off the NCAA guidelines, South said. Twenty other states passed legislation related to student-athlete compensation in 2021, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“That’s kind of the gist behind (the bill),” South said. “It may be the shortest-lived law on the books, passed one session and repealed the next.”

I would assume, Kirby being his usual on-the-mother self, that Georgia will follow.

An alternate theory of the crime

Watching the ESPN+ ‘Inside the College Football Playoff’ series and Alabama players seriously looked in a camera prior to the Cotton Bowl and straight-faced said they were the underdogs and everybody disrespected them… against Cincinnati. The Bearcats.

😐😐😐

— Logan Booker (@LoganMBooker) January 16, 2022

Maybe ‘Bama lost the natty because they didn’t feel disrespected enough.

We wanted ‘Bama.

Pretty good piece from Jane Coaston at the NY Times reminding us that beating any Alabama team during the Saban era is an accomplishment.

On Monday night, the Alabama Crimson Tide lost to the Georgia Bulldogs for the national championship in college football. Which was different from four years ago, when Alabama defeated Georgia for the title. Since 2010, Alabama has appeared in the title game nine times and won six of them. Since the College Football Playoff system was instituted in the 2014-2015 season, in part to produce a more competitive environment that would let the non-Alabamas of the world aim for a title, Alabama has competed in six title games and won three.

How good is this team? On Monday night, Georgia beat Alabama for its first national title since 1980. Georgia was fantastic — way better than my Michigan Wolverines, which Georgia crushed in the national semifinal game on New Year’s Eve — and has every chance of being extremely good next season, too. But that very same night, ESPN senior writer Mark Schlabach released his top 25 rankings for the upcoming season and put Georgia third. In first place? Alabama. Because, in general, if there is a college football season taking place, Alabama is going to be either the best team competing, or it’ll be playing the team that is in the national championship. The Tide is as certain as, well, the tide.

She goes on to call Alabama a “behemoth”, which is an apt description:  “And Alabama, like any good villain, is fully sentient, always learning, always improving, always finding new and even more terrifying ways to decimate its opponents.”

And this is particularly telling:

I need to be clear here for those of you who do not follow college football: For the last decade, Alabama has been so good that it has become almost more of a concept than a team. There’s a habit some fans of other college football teams have of chanting, “We want Bama!” or wielding signs bearing the same words at games where their team is winning, because the truest sign of superiority wouldn’t be to beat the team you’re already beating — it would be to beat Alabama.

You can beat Nick Saban, but you can’t hope to contain him.

Gracious in defeat

Need some cheering up?  Say hi to Fred from Alabama.

Fred From Alabama has entered the chat…and he's refusing to acknowledge Georgia's victory in the CFP Championship pic.twitter.com/sCulzJLBxX

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) January 13, 2022

At least it took several years for Gator fans to sound like we used to once upon a time.  Fred’s leaped across that threshold in record time.

Not everybody hurts.

I honestly, sincerely, don’t have an ounce of snark in me this week.  Watching Georgia win a natty by finally getting past the GOAT has left me in a serene state of mind.  I don’t think I need to convince anyone that Alabama and Georgia were the two best teams in the country this season.

So, trust me when I tell you that I’m linking to this Roll Bama Roll post not out of a sense of mockery, but because it may be the greatest example of damning with faint praise that I’ve ever read.  I mean, this is how to give grudging credit:

Man, it just sucked not having 2,700 yards worth of receiving talent out there tonight. It really, really did.

And look, I was around in 2009 when Alabama defeated Texas after the Longhorns lost Colt McCoy. I won’t take anything away from Georgia or their defense. It was a phenomenal effort from them— particularly their linebackers, who made play after play going horizontal against the Alabama offense intent on trying to stretch them out— and they deserve all the credit and joy for their win. They’re the best team in the country this season.

For Alabama fans, though, it makes things a little easier to swallow to accept that playing with an entire squad of back up pass catchers, one healthy running back, and 40% of the offensive line injured just isn’t (nor should be expected to be) a recipe for success.

… Most of us knew this game was over as soon as Jameson Williams’ knee blew out in the open field. There have been much, much more painful losses in championship games under Nick Saban.

*** Chef’s kiss ***.

Coach 30 wins a natty.

Come for the first minute of ‘Bama mockery; stay for the final thirty seconds.

Film Session w/ Coach 30 – Alabama vs. Georgia #CFBPlayoff @matchpconnect pic.twitter.com/eQFs1G2JFD

— Brenden Clinton (@MrGo30) January 12, 2022

That’s the way to finish a college football season, Coach.

Your national championship drinking game

Andy Staples ($$) outlines a list of prop bets for the game, but I think they serve just as well for the header’s purpose.  They are:

• 1980, the last time Georgia won the national title game
• Second-and-26: Replays and mentions
• Nick Saban remains (nearly) unbeatable against his former assistants
• Nick Saban smiles … during the game
• Mentions of Stetson Bennett as Baker Mayfield
• Cutaway shots to J.T. Daniels
• Tagovailoa-for-Hurts in 2018 (and vice versa the next season)
• In-game shots of Uga X

Bottoms up!  (Add any additional suggestions that come to mind in the comments.)

Will second time be the charm?

Football Outsiders:

Bennett is probably not quite as good as his numbers (10.1 yards per attempt, 27 TD, 7 INT) indicate, and we saw why when Georgia met Alabama—their first top-15 opponent of the season by the most recent rankings. Like any quarterback, Bennett isn’t as good under pressure (7.9 yards per attempt, 4 TD, 3 INT), and the Tide produced a little more of that than usual (28.3% of dropbacks to Georgia’s season average of 25.0%).

But what proved to be the Bulldogs’ undoing on offense wasn’t the Alabama front seven; it was the secondary. On non-screen pass attempts, Bennett was downright impressive this season, averaging 10.4 yards per attempt with 22 TD and 7 INT. PFF graded him better on those plays than on screen passes, and his non-screen numbers are surprisingly close to Heisman Trophy finalists CJ Stroud (10.1 yards per attempt, 41 TD, 6 INT) and Kenny Pickett (9.1 yards per attempt, 36 TD, 6 INT). But Alabama tore Bennett apart on these more difficult attempts: he went 20 for 41 for 263 yards, 6.6 yards per attempt, one touchdown, and two interceptions. It was surprising stuff from a pass defense that had, to that point, not really looked all that great: Alabama’s secondary ranks 13th in EPA per pass, 47th in success rate, and 46th in havoc rate. All of those figures have soared recently as a result of overpowering both Bennett and Desmond Ridder (17 for 32, 144 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT) in their last two games.

How much of that do we chalk up to general improvement on the part of Alabama and how much to making the Georgia offense one-dimensional after the offensive onslaught that put the Dawgs in a two-touchdown hole from which they never recovered?

Still playing the fake juice card, I see.

Jeez, Will.  It’s not like Vegas is making it personal.

Will Anderson Jr. says Alabama is using the noise as motivation 💪

"Us being underdogs, us not being respected … That just fuels everybody up." pic.twitter.com/Eh7qEMo5xi

— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) January 8, 2022

Yeah, disrespect.  That’s Alabama’s problem, alright.