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O’Gara: How Jalen Milroe can do something against Kirby Smart that only Joe Burrow did

Connor O'Gara

By Connor O'Gara

Published:

It’s a unique fraternity.

If you were a diehard college football fan in the 2010s, you remembered the quarterbacks who beat Nick Saban. Whether that was guys like Bo Wallace and Stephen Garcia or transcendent talents like Deshaun Watson or Joe Burrow, the fraternity was wide-ranging, but also extremely exclusive.

To run it back against him was virtually impossible, even if you were Heisman Trophy winners like Tim Tebow, Johnny Manziel or Jayden Daniels. The only quarterback to ever accomplish that feat was LSU’s Jordan Jefferson, who won consecutive starts against Alabama in 2010-11 … but then was part of LSU’s infamous 92-yard showing in the 2011 BCS National Championship. In other words, Saban still got the last laugh.

In the post-Saban college football world, Kirby Smart is now held in that regard. To beat him once is a rare feat. To beat him twice is a group of 1.

Here are the starting quarterbacks who beat Smart:

  • 2016 at Ole Miss — Chad Kelly
  • 2016 vs. Tennessee — Joshua Dobbs
  • 2016 vs. Vanderbilt — Kyle Shurmur
  • 2016 vs. Florida — Luke Del Rio
  • 2016 vs. Georgia Tech — Justin Thomas
  • 2017 at Auburn — Jarrett Stidham
  • 2017 CFP National Championship — Jalen Hurts (Tagovailoa rallied in relief)
  • 2018 at LSU — Joe Burrow
  • 2018 SEC Championship — Tua Tagovailoa (Jalen Hurts rallied in relief)
  • 2018 Sugar Bowl — Sam Ehlinger
  • 2019 vs. South Carolina — Ryan Hilinski
  • 2019 SEC Championship — Joe Burrow
  • 2020 at Alabama — Mac Jones
  • 2020 vs. Florida — Kyle Trask
  • 2021 SEC Championship — Bryce Young
  • 2023 SEC Championship — Jalen Milroe

To recap, Burrow is the only starting quarterback who beat Smart twice. Hurts and Tagovailoa both needed each other to step in and pull off late comebacks in their respective wins against Smart. Young couldn’t accomplish that feat, either.

So yeah, you get what I’m saying. With a win on Saturday night, Milroe adds quite the feather in his Alabama cap.

Milroe beating Smart twice in 2 different offenses — another similarity to Burrow — would silence a whole bunch of critics. To be fair, those critics weren’t very loud when Smart couldn’t push the right defensive buttons to get Milroe off the field in the 2023 SEC Championship. That performance helped Milroe finish 6th in the Heisman Trophy voting, but more important, it allowed Alabama to steal UGA’s Playoff berth.

Smart has had 10 months to think about that loss. Knowing the way he’s wired, you can bet there have been plenty of moments in which that consumed him. How could they not? Milroe played a massive role in UGA missing out on becoming the first team to 3-peat since 1934-36 Minnesota. That would’ve been an untouchable feat for Smart. Instead, he had to settle for beating up on the shell of Florida State’s roster in the Orange Bowl.

An untouchable feat for Milroe is hanging in the balance, albeit with some different stakes. Finding the right answers against Smart and Glenn Schumann’s defense for a second consecutive year won’t guarantee a Playoff spot for the Tide, but in the expanded field, that would be the most impressive win of any team so far.

And yeah, doubling down on last year’s showing would be the stuff of legend. Milroe is trying to back it up after saying “they looked defeated. They didn’t want any more. Our team knew it was gonna be a 60-minute game and Georgia didn’t believe in that.”

Here’s the thing: Georgia can treat that as bulletin board material if it wants. Knowing how rarely the Dawgs actually get bulletin board material, it wouldn’t surprise me if Smart did what @HamDawg115 suggested by playing that clip non-stop.

At the same … was Milroe wrong?

In the final 10 minutes with Alabama clinging to a 20-17 lead, Milroe was 4-for-4 for 57 passing yards on a touchdown drive that made it a 2-score game. When the Tide got the ball back after UGA responded with a touchdown, Milroe had runs of 30 and 9 yards that moved the chains and ultimately prevented the Dawgs from getting the ball back for a go-ahead drive.

That was just the third time all year that Georgia played in a game decided by 1 score. In the 29-game winning streak that ended at the hands of Milroe, the Dawgs had only played in a 1-score game 4 times. In other words, it’s not like 60-minute games were routine.

Milroe getting the last laugh became routine. He even got the last laugh on his own quarterback room after his early-season benching. And for what it’s worth, that laugh might be even better than Milroe’s quarterback progression.

If we hear that laugh and Milroe’s 1-of-1 postgame “Roll Tide,” it’ll mean that the best coach in the sport didn’t find the answers in a revenge game.

Of course, it would also be quite the feather in the cap of Kalen DeBoer. His biggest Year 1 question was how he’d develop Milroe into his offense. So far, so good. Milroe has the No. 3 quarterback rating in FBS (213.4) and he’s T-No. 2 among FBS quarterbacks with 6 rushing scores. Milroe hasn’t thrown an interception, yet he’s averaging 11.3 yards/attempt on 67% accuracy.

Here are the “Core 4” quarterbacks who have 0 interceptions, at least 10 yards/attempt and 67% accuracy:

  • Jalen Milroe, Alabama
  • Kurtis Rourke, Indiana
  • Tyler Shough, Louisville

Granted, it’s a small sample size. Milroe’s 2024 story is mostly unwritten. This new chapter with DeBoer was never going to be defined by whether he looked the part against an overmatched Wisconsin defense (which he did). It was going to be defined by showing up in moments like this. It’s diagnosing what an elite defense like Georgia offers and combating whatever sort of exotic blitzes/unique coverages/stunts that Smart throws at him.

Again.

The alternative is that the Milroe skeptics puff their chests by night’s end because he looks overwhelmed in the new offense. That crowd will point to Milroe’s shortcomings as an intermediate passer and say that his processing skills weren’t quick enough. Shoot, that crowd might even try to lessen last year’s SEC Championship performance if Milroe delivers a clunker Saturday night.

But at this stage of Milroe’s career, why would that be the assumption if for no other reason than Smart typically gets the last laugh?

Well, Smart didn’t get the last laugh on Saban with their final meeting last year in Atlanta. A 1-5 mark against the G.O.A.T. won’t change unless a 72-year-old Saban shocks the world by leaving his College GameDay gig — one in which he’s thriving on a weekly basis — to return to the sideline. Don’t hold your breath on that.

Whether they admit it or not, Georgia fans might hold their breath every time Milroe touches the ball. After all, last year’s wound still hasn’t healed yet. This time around, Smart has an opportunity to take the life out of Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

And if he doesn’t, a Milroe belly laugh awaits.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.

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