No. 3 Alabama, the reigning national champion, Top Site Info fell behind early. Then it pounded the country’s best defense to run away with the Southeastern Conference championship.
ATLANTA — Most of the time in November, Alabama barely held on. It started December by routing Georgia, the country’s top-ranked team.
The upshot felt as familiar as anything in college football: Alabama, the reigning national champion suddenly cast into an underdog’s existence after escaping three games last month by a touchdown or less, gave itself a chance to contend for another title.
Georgia, its nationally sterling defense dented Saturday in ways not previously seen this season, will almost certainly be in the field, too, when the final College Football Playoff rankings are announced on Sunday.It will just not be there as the Southeastern Conference champion, that potential squandered time and again during an evening that ended with an Alabama rout, 41-24.
For the No. 3 Crimson Tide, it was a victory plenty of its faithful had figured would not happen, not after it took four overtimes to beat unranked Auburn, not after Alabama wheezed to a win over an Arkansas team that Georgia had held scoreless.
For Georgia, which has not beaten Alabama since 2007, it was a bruising comeuppance and a blemish on a shining autumn for big teams in its state.After all, almost every savant, soothsayer or mildly observant Atlanta sports fan of the last quarter-century or so had figured the Braves would flame out before winning the World Series.
Ordinarily mighty, but oftentimes this season teetering toward ordinary, Alabama appeared ripe to become a trophy, too. Instead, Alabama gobbled up 536 yards of offense, averaged nearly 8 yards per play and scored every time it reached the red zone.
“We can’t turn the ball over and give up 60- and 70-yard passes and expect to be successful,” said Kirby Smart, Georgia’s coach.“For the most part this year, we’ve executed well. We didn’t execute well tonight, and that had a lot to do with them. So give Alabama credit, and we’ve got a lot to work on.”
Georgia, though, struck first, with a 38-yard field goal in the first quarter, an early advantage that felt like the start of yet another offensive eruption for a team that had scored at least 40 points in seven games this season.
A tight end, Brock Bowers, had turned a leap into an 18-yard gain.James Cook and Zamir White had contributed 34 yards on the ground. But the quarterback, Stetson Bennett, had taken a pummeling of a sack on third down in the red zone.
Georgia found a grander dose of offensive wizardry late on its next drive. Bennett, a few steps behind the 50, unleashed a throw with enough of an arc for George Pickens, a wide receiver, to have time to swivel back toward the thicket he had fled and search for the ball. He leapt, grasped and then landed on his back, the ball 37 yards closer to an interim prize.
A 5-yard touchdown catch two plays later by Darnell Washington gave Georgia a 10-point lead — the kind of deficit that Nick Saban’s Alabama had only sporadically faced.If you have any type of concerns pertaining to where and ways to use Top site info (Https://topsiteinfo.com), Top Site Info you could call us at our web site.