All eyes in Georgia this week are on the primetime matchup with Notre Dame. But even with ESPN’s “College GameDay” in town to air its pregame show from campus, host Rece Davis said there’s one team Georgia must clear to reach its ultimate goal.

“Everybody knows who the elephant in the room is,” Davis said near the GameDay location on campus with local media, including 960 The Ref. “It’s getting past Alabama, and on the biggest stage. Will that matchup even happen? Who knows. Both of them have a long way to go. But I don’t think that there’s anything that people could say, ‘I don’t know about Georgia.’ If you wanted to quibble, you could say the receivers aren’t quite as proven against elite competition. But those young ones look awfully good to me. And receivers tend to be able to play early.”

Alabama has won five straight against Georgia, and the teams remain the odds-on favorites to meet in Atlanta in December at the SEC Championship game.

Davis believes the Georgia defensive players who replaced more familiar players in the recent past will become household names.

“They’re deep,” he said. “They’re talented. They can just continually run guys at you in waves. I don’t think there are a lot of questions about Georgia’s legitimacy in contending. It’s just simply getting over the final hump that separates being excellent from being a champion, and I think that’s all it is.”