Nick Saban is as qualified to analyze a showdown between Alabama and Georgia as anyone on the planet.
The legendary Alabama head coach who led the Crimson Tide to 6 national titles had to go through Georgia and longtime assistant Kirby Smart during many of those seasons. Saban usually got the better of the Bulldogs, but not all the time, with Smart and Georgia beating Alabama to win the national title in the 2021 season.
Fast-forward to the present, where Saban has retired from coaching and watches the action from a different view as an ESPN college football analyst. On Friday afternoon, Saban was a guest on The Pat McAfee Show, and he was asked about the keys to the latest Tide-Dawgs battle on Saturday night in Athens. Not surprisingly, the first words out of Saban’s mouth had to do with the guys in the trenches.
“First of all, I think the line of scrimmage is going to be very important,” Nick Saban said. “When Alabama has struggled, especially on the road with some of these games last year and this year at Florida State, they had a hard time stopping the run. Kirby Smart is going to be stubborn about running the ball, because he doesn’t want to put his quarterback in situations where they can tee off on him.”
Saban also pointed to the strong play of Alabama first-year starting quarterback Ty Simpson, who will be under the primetime spotlight in Week 5.
“Ty Simpson has played really well for Alabama. They’ve made a lot of explosive plays since the Florida State game,” said Saban about Simpson, who has thrown for 862 yards with 9 touchdown passes and 0 interceptions for the 17th-ranked Tide.
For Saban, it’s also going to be about who can affect the quarterback the most with their pass rush, with Georgia signal-caller Gunner Stockton also in his first season as the starter.
Everybody knows about Smart’s past struggles against Alabama, aside from that national title game victory a few years ago. He’ll be trying to get past those demons and keep the fifth-ranked Bulldogs unbeaten in 1 of the most anticipated games of the 2025 season.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC. The Bulldogs are a 2.5-point favorite, per BetMGM.
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.
