{"id":83535,"date":"2025-12-07T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T14:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=83535"},"modified":"2025-12-06T23:59:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:59:05","slug":"bta-georgia-repeats-alabamas-cooked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/12\/07\/bta-georgia-repeats-alabamas-cooked\/","title":{"rendered":"BTA: Georgia Repeats. Alabama\u2019s Cooked"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Kirby Smart had a team meeting on Friday night. The Georgia players were asked to stand up if they had beaten Alabama. No one stood up. Sometimes actions speak louder than words. Coming into the \u00a0SEC Championship, Smart was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/12\/02\/georgia-vs-alabama-kirby-goes-for-two\/\" target=\"_self\">1-7 <\/a>\u00a0against Alabama and 0-4 in Atlanta. Saturday afternoon was different. Here is our summary: <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SECNetwork\/status\/1997479128358858787?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BTA<\/a>: Georgia repeats. Alabama cooked. Smart did a better job summing up the game. Not so much what happened on the field, but how a weight was lifted after Georgia&#8217;s 28-7 win. &#8220;These fans have been through a lot of heartbreak and agony, but not tonight, baby&#8230;.not tonight.&#8221;<\/div>\n<h2>BTA: Georgia Repeats. Alabama\u2019s Cooked<\/h2>\n<h3>Georgia Repeats<\/h3>\n<div>Quavo was on the Georgia sideline Saturday night. ESPN&#8217;s Marty Smith, no longer hostage in Oxford, asked the rapper how to describe what transpired after the game. &#8220;We call that BTA. Belt to (pause)&#8221;. Smith told him he could say it. &#8220;Belt to ass all day today. They went crazy. I&#8217;m proud of my Dagwgs, &#8221; Quavo finished. Georgia won the game in all three phases on Saturday afternoon and likely locked up at least the #2 seed in the College Football Playoff. While that doesn&#8217;t mean a home game in Athens, it does mean a New Year&#8217;s trip to either Miami or New Orleans. \u00a0Don&#8217;t get offended, but here are a few defensive numbers that illustrate the BTA.<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>-3: Georgia defense was ELITE. Sure, Alabama was without its top two running backs, but that didn&#8217;t stop the Dawgs from not taking their foot off the Tide&#8217;s throat. The -3 yards was Alabama&#8217;s lowest output since <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/GrahamCoffeyDC\/status\/1997467507448574205?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1940<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>8: Georgia&#8217;s biggest problem has been getting off the field on third and fourth down. In September, the Tide converted 13 of 19 third downs. On Saturday, they didn&#8217;t have as much luck. Eight of Alabama&#8217;s <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Dr_JWill\/status\/1997489440391098416?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eleven<\/a> possessions ended in four plays or fewer.<\/li>\n<li>3 of 5: The win Saturday was Georgia&#8217;s third SEC Championship in the last five years. We guess the lack of divisions hasn&#8217;t gotten in the way of Georgia stacking championships.<\/li>\n<li>7.25: That is the average number of points that Geogia has allowed in its last four games. Only Texas has reached double digits. The offense has shown an ability to get and stay hot. The defensive improvements make Georgia a deadly choice to make a deep CFB Playoff run.<\/li>\n<li>100 Celly: Hats off to the celebration <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SECNetwork\/status\/1997498230712447139?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">crew<\/a> after Georgia took a knee to put the game and the Tide on ice. Landon Humphrey, Dillon Bell, and Cash Jones gave an Anchorman &#8220;high-five&#8221; to end it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Alabama\u2019s Cooked<\/h3>\n<div>What do we do with Alabama? With the loss, the Tide fell to 10-3. Last year, no three-loss team made the playoffs. The Tide has seemingly felt they were comfortably &#8220;in&#8221; the field. Sure, the Florida State loss was embarrassing, but so was Rudy&#8217;s loss last year to NIU. The Oklahoma loss wasn&#8217;t great either. Turnovers doomed the Tide for a second straight year against the Sooners. Unlike last year, Oklahoma is a &#8220;Playoff&#8221; team (yes, we use quotes because that offense is bad) this year. So, what do we do with the third loss?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Championshp weekend has been referred to as a &#8220;bonus weekend.&#8221; The narrative has gone that it can help you see if BYU could have mustered anything against Texas Tech today (spoiler: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/12\/06\/big-12-title-now-resides-in-texas-techs-trophy-case\/\" target=\"_self\">they did not)<\/a>. But surely a loss can&#8217;t hurt a team. I mean, this is the SEC, brother, it&#8217;s not Conference USA or #MACtion. The 21-point loss is just not a good look. Alabama struggled last week against a bad Auburn team at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Regardless of what the committee tried to tell us, the facts are clear. Alabama is cooked. This is not &#8220;Alabama Jones'&#8221; team. Saban will do his best to politick for the Tide, but he should just stop. The coach always demanded excellence, and Alabama is far from it.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_83543\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-83543\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-83543 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/12\/USATSI_27758070_168400562_lowres-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/12\/USATSI_27758070_168400562_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/12\/USATSI_27758070_168400562_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/12\/USATSI_27758070_168400562_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/12\/USATSI_27758070_168400562_lowres-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/12\/USATSI_27758070_168400562_lowres-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/12\/USATSI_27758070_168400562_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/12\/USATSI_27758070_168400562_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-83543\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<h3>The SEC Championship Dilemma<\/h3>\n<div>Which brings us to our final point. Greg Sankey was on the SEC Network this morning stumping that &#8220;seven teams deserved to be in the Playoff.&#8221; Just stop. This is a bad take, even if you are the head of the conference. If the committee has the courage to do what is right, they will take Alabama out of the Playoffs and put Notre Dame and Miami in their place. IF that happens, and we stress IF, Sankey could go nuclear. The level of whining from PAAWWWLL and Sankey will be unbearable. But there is a bigger problem. What do we do with the SEC Championship?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Dan Wetzel summed it up after Saturday&#8217;s game. In 2024, Carson Beck got knocked out of the Playoffs and may have cost Georgia a run (we can debate that, and we have, but we will play along on this one). Now, in 2025, Alabama could miss the playoff for losing the game. Where is the incentive? Sure, Clark Lea was stumping for a 13th game. It&#8217;s easy to be loud and chirpy on social media. Harder in practicality. The SEC Championship was innovative and one of the best spectacles that Roy Kramer, <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/47213546\/roy-kramer-sec-commissioner-bcs-architect-dies-96\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RIP<\/a>, brought to college football. It is the goat. Hence, the SEC Championship is the only game on at 3:00 pm CT. The other two windows have games going against each other.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It is still culturally and monterailly significant, but it has lost its on-field meaning. There is too much to lose by playing in the game. It seems as if our favorite conference championship may be going the way of the Do Do Bird. At least it may end with the Dawgs on top.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Main Photo: Brett Davis-Imagn Images<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kirby Smart had a team meeting on Friday night. The Georgia players were asked to stand up if they had beaten Alabama. No one stood up. Sometimes actions speak louder than words. Coming into the \u00a0SEC Championship, Smart was 1-7 \u00a0against Alabama and 0-4 in Atlanta. Saturday afternoon was different. Here is our summary: BTA: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4424,"featured_media":83541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,35574,35578,17,3],"tags":[655,106],"class_list":["post-83535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-alabama-crimson-tide","category-georgia-bulldogs","category-news","category-sec","tag-greg-sankey","tag-kirby-smart"],"modified_by":"Kate Pearson Halyburton, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83535"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83544,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83535\/revisions\/83544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}