Paul Finebaum made his regular Monday appearance on WJOX out of Birmingham, Alabama and visited with Greg McElroy and Cole Cubelic on “McElroy and Cubelic In the morning.”

McElroy brought up the idea that it will be more difficult for Alabama to beat Georgia the same way it did in December, and that psychology plays a factor in the national championship. McElroy expects Georgia to play harder this time around.

“I think that is correct, and I’m sure deep down Nick Saban is probably not thrilled about it, there are probably other guys where he says I like where we are,” Finebaum said. “But you can’t escape that, Greg, and you’re right. Even a month later, maybe you guys have come up with, I’ve asked a million people about that game and still have not had anything that comes close to a legitimate explanation of why they did not play with more urgency, other than sometimes you can get caught up.”

Finebaum then shared why this game is a gift for Georgia.

“You lose, you’re playing a team that has bedeviled you and you’ve got another shot at them on the biggest stage in sports,” Finebaum said. “Conversely, I’m wondering what Alabama comes into this game with as well. They’ve been here so many times before. Other than one time 3 years ago in California, they have always met the moment. Even when they’ve lost the 2 national championship games, one before that I should say, they’ve played well. They don’t always play perfectly in these games because there’s so much pressure, but they’ve been prepared and I think they will be. I’m sure Nick Saban is thinking to himself, ‘OK, we’ve beaten this guy many, many ways, the games have all been fairly weird, Georgia has led in every one of them. What do we do.'”

Finebaum even suggested the Cincinnati game for Alabama took a different approach, and, “it was almost like they were holding something back.”