I have a lot of thoughts about the National Championship Game. Some of them contradict each other, others complement each other.

Whatever purpose they serve, they are thoughts that my brain keeps coming back to leading up to the all-SEC College Football Playoff National Championship between Alabama and Georgia tonight (in case you forgot that was happening).

Here are those thoughts:

Don’t throw the losing quarterback under the bus

Part of my job is to anticipate narratives. That bothers some people. What bothers people like me is when fans bash incredible players whenever they aren’t performing like All-Americans. I fear that will happen Monday night to Jalen Hurts or Jake Fromm.

The losing quarterback is going to face unwarranted criticism for not being dominant against one of the nation’s top defenses. Both Fromm and Hurts have been subject to their fair share of criticism despite the fact that they’ve played in a combined three seasons … and earned three national championship berths. That ain’t just because of the defenses and running games, people.

It’s one thing to criticize a player for not meeting expectations within a given game. It’s another to make a dumb sweeping generalization about two quarterbacks who have done nothing but win. If you think that’s a bit overblown, search the name of either losing quarterback on Twitter and see what I’m talking about.

Better yet, just don’t. Those takes aren’t worth your time.

Georgia can get smoked and I’ll still be a believer

Another hot take that’ll be firing in the event of a Georgia loss will be that the Dawgs are just pretenders, and that they aren’t really back. Hogwash. If the Dawgs weren’t back, Oklahoma would be playing in the title game after a blowout victory. Shoot, Auburn might be playing in the title game.

I’m sold on the idea that Kirby Smart is going to make Georgia the best competition for Alabama in the Nick Saban era. Yes, that includes Clemson. That won’t change if the Dawgs lose by 3 touchdowns. It won’t take away that No. 1 recruiting class. It also won’t take away the previous 14 games which, in my opinion, said that Georgia was the best team in the country.

All a blowout loss would say to me is that Georgia isn’t quite on Alabama’s level yet. But just by getting to Atlanta — in January — Smart’s squad proved it was the furthest thing from a pretender.

Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

There’s one Alabama stat that I can’t get over

I know what you’re thinking, but believe it or not, it isn’t that Saban is 11-0 against his former assistants. If I could draw up the perfect former assistant and the perfect program to be the first to beat Saban, it’d be Smart. So if I’m a Georgia fan, that’s not what’s making me anxious.

What I’d be more worried about if I’m a Gerogia fan — or excited about as an Alabama fan — is the fact that the Tide have gone 38 consecutive games without allowing a team to run for 4.0 yards per carry. That’s astonishing.

Now obviously Alabama isn’t undefeated in that stretch. Auburn and Clemson managed to beat the Tide without rushing for 4.0 yards per carry. But it took Auburn playing essentially a perfect game and Deshaun Watson delivering the performance of his historic college career for that to happen.

Can Georgia really play perfect outside of the running game? The Dawgs aren’t beating Alabama with anywhere close to the defensive performance they had against Oklahoma. And even though I question the Tide’s offensive firepower, this unit is still plenty capable of capitalizing on mistakes.

I know the other thing that you might be thinking. Wait … the last time that Alabama allowed 4.0 yards per carry in a game was against Georgia in 2015. Nick Chubb and Sony Michel were both there that night. They’ll be there again on Monday night. Why can’t Chubb and Michel do it again? Well, they could.

But if I’m a non-running back on Georgia’s roster, I’m assuming that it’s not going to be one of those nights that you can rely on Chubb and Michel to roll.

Can Alabama keep that Clemson edge?

I loved it. Nick Saban changed up the practice schedule to keep guys fresher and the Tide played an “us against the world” game. But that was against Clemson. The ultimate question is if Alabama can keep that same juice against Georgia. A lot of people have been saying that if Alabama plays at that level, Georgia doesn’t have a shot.

Ah, and therein lies the beauty of rat poison.

How does Alabama flip on that Clemson film and humble itself? It was an absolute beatdown. Saban can say, “this is what happens when you play with that edge” all he wants, but the reality is that the 4-point favorite isn’t “against the world” anymore.

The Alabama believers said before the Sugar Bowl that you never bet against angry Saban. Will Saban will be angry on Monday? Methinks it won’t be so easy for Alabama to replicate that Clemson effort.

That one thing that The Boz said …

You read that right. Yes, Brian Bosworth shared some insights with us about who he thinks has the edge on Monday night. He, the former Oklahoma All-American who watched his Sooners fall to the Dawgs, offered up this thought.

“I just don’t see Georgia being able to stand toe-to-toe with Alabama for 4 quarters and come out on top,” Bosworth said, “unless Alabama does something to themselves to lose the game.”

He defined that second part earlier in our interview, but mainly kept it to special teams. It could be a blocked kick (like Georgia’s against Oklahoma) or fumbling a punt. That’s what this game could come down to, according to Bosworth. I agree with that. These teams are so evenly matched that it wouldn’t surprise me if it was something like a special teams gaffe that proved to be the difference.

Bosworth outlined why this figures to be a different battle than the one his Sooners played in a week ago. Points figure to be at more of a premium than they were in Pasadena, where it felt like a “last team with the ball wins” game. This feels more like a “first team to blink” game.

So basically, the team that stares the best will win.

That one thing Tebow said …

It’s one thing for someone like me to say that Georgia is Alabama East. It’s another thing for someone like Tebow to say that. I asked the ESPN/SEC Network analyst before the Rose Bowl about whether Smart was truly following in Saban’s path of success.

“Boy, I’ll tell you what. It looks like it,” Tebow said. “I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s gonna stop anytime soon. Three years in a row, they get the No. 1 quarterback (recruit), they’ve got the top recruiting class so far this year, got a lot of young players … obviously you’ve got a long ways to go to put (Smart) in Nick Saban’s class.

“But he’s got a great start.”

Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Why is that significant for Tebow to say? In addition to being one of the biggest personalities in the sport, Tebow was also someone who played in the beginning of Alabama’s decade of dominance. In 2009, his Florida squad was in that Alabama role and Saban’s squad was more like 2017 Georgia. What happened? Florida passed the torch to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game and the rest is history.

Tebow doesn’t throw out a comparison like that often. For him to say that anybody can get on Alabama’s level says a lot. The question is if Georgia makes good on that as soon as Monday night.

I think we see history

It will be a historic night in Atlanta. What kind of history will be made, you ask? Scoring history, which is the best kind of history (not really, though).

I think this becomes the first time in which the winner of the title game in the Playoff era fails to score 35 points. It’ll also be the first time in which the teams fail to combine for 60 points. That’s actually not saying very much considering the over/under is down to 45.5.

Speaking of Vegas, the line really hasn’t moved very much. Alabama opened as a 4.5-point favorite and that line is down to 4. Maybe that was after rumors of Minkah Fitzpatrick’s health surfaced, or maybe it was simply that Georgia fans got their money in. Whatever the case, it’ll be interesting to follow that in the hours leading up to kickoff.

I’ve said all year that history doesn’t win ballgames. By “history,” I mean anything that happened before 2017. This game is about how these teams’ 2017 rosters match up against one another for a single game. It’s ironic that my final pre-title thought is about history.

Oh, you wanted a real prediction? I’ll go with Georgia winning 31-28. Is that satisfying enough? Probably not. Instead, I’ll close with the words from great Jeff Brohm.

Let’s play football.

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