Joel Klatt gave his Championship Weekend picks during his podcast on Thursday, and the FOX Sports college football analyst doesn’t care that Kirby Smart is 1-7 against Alabama in his otherwise prolific career at Georgia.
During The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast 2 days before the powerhouse rivals collide in Atlanta (4 p.m. ET, ABC), Klatt proclaimed that the Bulldogs will buck the trend of losing to Bama and be the ones raising that SEC trophy on Saturday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Yes, Klatt knows that Alabama has won 10 of the past 11 meetings and 3 in a row, including both regular season clashes the past 2 years. He pointed out both trends in the leadup to his SEC Championship Game pick, and he still went with Georgia, emphatically, pointing specifically to Alabama being a 1-dimensional offense that’s carried by its passing game.
“I trust Georgia in a big game,” Klatt said. “Georgia is favored by only 2.5 (points). I believe that’s because of the 1-7 record that Kirby has against Alabama, and yet this is the better team. Bama is 1-dimensional.”
Klatt doesn’t even think it’ll be a 1-score game in Atlanta.
“I think that Georgia wins this game, 27-17, and they win the SEC championship,” Klatt said.
Alabama fans can take some solace that Klatt hasn’t exactly been spot on when picking Crimson Tide games this season, going just 4-4, according to Roll Tide Wire.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
