Betting Stuff: Storylines to consider ahead of colossal Alabama-Georgia clash

It simply does not get better than Georgia and Alabama. There is not a regular-season matchup that can halt the sports world the way this one can. During the 2023 season, these 2 sides battled for the SEC Championship in a game that served as a de-facto College Football Playoff knockout round. In January 2022, these 2 sides met for the national championship about a month after playing each other for the SEC title. In 2018, they began the calendar year facing each other for the CFP National Championship and ended the year playing each other for an SEC crown.

Since Kirby Smart took over as the head football coach for the Dawgs, we have gotten 1 regular-season meeting between Georgia and Alabama. It came in Tuscaloosa in 2020, when Alabama handed Georgia a 17-point loss.

Georgia has dropped just a single regular-season game since that defeat.

But the participants have changed. Nick Saban was the ubiquitous face of the SEC even when Smart was winning titles. With a 1-5 record against his former mentor, Saban was Smart’s Everest. With Saban’s retirement, Smart has an opportunity to step beyond that shadow.

That storyline is possibly only the equivalent of the table bread waiting when we sit down for our meal. There are Playoff implications. There are national championship discussions to be had. This will be Kalen DeBoer’s first real test as Saban’s successor. Should he fail, he will be questioned. Should it look ugly, it might get ugly in the “knee-jerk reaction” markets.

Both these teams are coming off an early bye week. Smart is just 8-6 against the spread after a bye in his coaching career, and Georgia is a 2-point road favorite according to the most recent betting odds from ESPN Bet. Assuming that doesn’t flip, Saturday’s game will mark the first time since 2007 that Alabama will kick off at home as an underdog.

Here are a few things I’m thinking about as we approach the game.

What’s the plan for Jalen Milroe’s legs?

The brilliance of Kalen DeBoer is that he won’t force a system upon a roster that won’t fit it. DeBoer became a household name in Washington last season with Michael Penix Jr. and fans who tuned in were treated to beautifully explosive football wherein Penix fired to any and every spot on the field. Washington had a Joe Moore Award-winning offensive line that excelled at pass-pro, a quarterback who loved to sit in the pocket, and wideouts who could win 50/50 balls when they didn’t beat their man.

At Alabama, DeBoer has an offensive line that is rolling teams in the run game, 2 quality running backs, a quarterback who can damage defenses with a dedicated run game, and burners at receiver.

Quarterback Jalen Milroe has been one of the best deep-ball passers in the country through his first 3 games (50%, 7 completions, 5 touchdowns, 0 turnover-worthy plays) but he has rarely looked to the intermediate levels of the field. Alabama has been a little all-or-nothing from that standpoint.

The Crimson Tide have built their attack off the read-option game and Milroe has cut out a ton of improv scrambles. He’s getting drawn-up quarterback power runs or he’s chucking it downfield to wherever Ryan Williams might be. Alabama’s excellence has been in testing teams’ edge defenders in the run game. Those players have needed an athleticism to try and contain the players in the Alabama backfield, but they’ve also needed to be sturdy enough to hold up against Alabama’s caliber of blockers.

So far, Alabama has won that battle. Edge Mykel Williams’ status this week is incredibly important in that regard. Smart said Williams did some light work late last week in practice. He has been hampered this season by an ankle injury.

Jalon Walker was wonderful getting after the quarterback in the opener against Clemson. Georgia has a ton of bodies to throw at Milroe if it wants to turn up the heat and try to make him uncomfortable. And one of the early storylines of the season for Alabama was its offensive line performing below expectations in pass-pro because of all the shuffling that was being done. Injuries prompted several different configurations of the Alabama offensive line, and for an uncomfortable portion of the South Florida game, Alabama wasn’t getting the push it needed.

Milroe finished that game with 2 rushing yards. He had 79 in the opener and 75 against Wisconsin in Week 3. He has multiple rushing scores in all 3 games.

Brock Vandagriff gained 26 yards on 13 carries against Georgia. Milroe had 29 in the SEC title game last season. Georgia has given up more than 30 yards rushing to a single quarterback only once in its last 12 games. And only 2 quarterbacks have run for at least 50 yards on the Dawgs in a game since the start of the 2021 season.

Who wins the early-down battle: Alabama’s run game or Georgia’s front?

One of the things that makes this matchup so fascinating is that on both sides, the defense is well-equipped to stop the thing that the offense wants to do. Alabama wants to run the football. Georgia is currently 11th nationally in EPA per rush allowed. Who wins the early-downs battle? Georgia’s dominance of Clemson was born in many ways on first downs. The Tigers got 3.3 yards per run on first-down carries and averaged 1.8 yards per play on their second-down snaps. You just won’t beat a good defense playing that way.

Kentucky was content to live with 3-yard gains against Georgia if it meant shortening the game and turning it into a masher. The Wildcats lived on third down (16 attempts), but half of them were short-yardage situations.

Alabama is using the run game to set up everything. In the Wisconsin game, the Crimson Tide averaged 7.7 yards per rushing attempt on first downs, with a 60% run rate. In the South Florida game, Alabama wasn’t as efficient on first downs (4.5 yards per carry) but still had a 70% run rate. Per college football insiders, Georgia’s early-down defense ranks fifth nationally in EPA allowed. Alabama’s offense ranks 10th in EPA. Which unit is

The Crimson Tide have been explosive on their successful plays but they’re not an uber-efficient group yet. At least, not to the level you’d expect from a unit that is viewed as one of the best in the country. Per game on paper, Alabama ranks just 48th nationally in success rate. If Alabama falls behind the chains, it might not be a death blow the way it would be for an offense like Kentucky.

What’s up with Georgia’s pass game?

Did Carson Beck look comfortable in the Kentucky game? He had his lowest QBR of the season (71.7, which isn’t bad) after completing 15 of his 24 pass attempts for 160 yards. He didn’t throw an interception. He didn’t produce a touchdown. Georgia only had 6 explosive plays (4 passing, 2 rushing) in 54 snaps. That was maybe the most off we have seen Beck look away from home in his starting career to this point.

What caused that? Beck was blitzed on 11 of his dropbacks. He was pressured 9 times, per Pro Football Focus, completing 3 of his 7 pass attempts for 43 yards. Beck was wonderful when the play-action game was there and really poor when he had to just drop back and beat the coverage.

Per PFF, he posted a 52.9 grade on dropbacks without play-action, completing only 53% of his throws for an average of 3.2 yards per pass. He averaged 15 yards per pass with a 90.2 passer grade on play-action attempts.

That’s been his season to this point. He hasn’t been good when pressured — 36.4% completion rate, 4.1 yards per pass, 1 turnover-worthy play. And he hasn’t been great outside of play-action.

My early impression is that Georgia just misses Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey. Stunning analysis, I know. But there was an assumption from some that the Bulldogs would be able to keep rolling because of the pieces they added. Ben Yurosek was a big portal get at tight end. London Humphreys, Michael Jackson III, and Colbie Young all joined the receiver room. But what Bowers and McConkey brought beyond their big-play ability was just a reliability and a comfortability. Beck could dump it to Bowers and know he was going to make something happen. Bowers has proven early in the NFL he’s just a difference-making player.

Humphreys has 2 catches thus far. Young has 5. Dominic Lovett and Arian Smith have been the most targeted players, but neither are providing what Bowers provided. Yurosek has only had 16 snaps as a receiver, and Oscar Delp has had an inconsistent start to the season.

Bowers had an average depth of target of just 6.5 yards last season, missed multiple games, and still ranked top 10 among all SEC players in first downs produced (34).

Is Alabama’s secondary legit?

The biggest question with this Alabama team was its secondary. That unit was the reason why Nick Saban went with Georgia and Texas as his preseason picks to make the league’s title game. (Which he later admitted were slightly self-serving.) Through the first 3 games, that group has looked better than expected. Alabama ranks fifth nationally in adjusted EPA per play and a huge reason for that is the pass defense. The Crimson Tide are second nationally in passing success rate allowed, per game on paper. Opposing offenses have a success rate of 25.4% against the Alabama secondary.

South Florida was completely shut down. Alabama sacked Byrum Brown 4 times and held him to 103 passing yards on 35 attempts. That’s 2.9 yards per pass. Wisconsin’s Tyler Van Dyke completed all 5 of his pass attempts before exiting with an injury, but those 5 passes went for a grand total of 16 yards. His backup averaged 4.8 yards per attempt.

Keon Sabb has been awesome. He’s floating between safety and the slot, had 2 interceptions in the Western Kentucky game, and has 3 pass breakups since. Alabama is still looking for a consistent rusher off the edge, but that hasn’t hurt the secondary.

Is that a product of who Alabama has played? Would Van Dyke have done more damage had he remained in the game? (I’m not the biggest fan of Van Dyke, so I’m not sure.)

Derek Peterson

Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.