Georgia vs. Alabama headlines a loaded Week 5 slate in college football.

This top-5 matchup will be historic for a number of reasons. First, it’s Alabama’s first SEC game without Nick Saban since the 2006 season. It’s also the first time Kirby Smart will go up against the Crimson Tide without his former boss on the opposing sideline.

Alabama has had Georgia’s number in recent years, winning 8 of the last 9 meetings in this series — including the 2023 SEC Championship Game. Alabama is responsible for the only 2 losses the Bulldogs have suffered since the start of the 2021 season.

Let’s break down some historical betting trends, advanced stats and some other useful info about these teams:

Georgia vs. Alabama betting lines

Lines via DraftKings:

Spread: Alabama +1 (-112) | Georgia -1 (-108)

Total: Over 49.5 (-112) | Under 49.5 (-108)

Betting trends to know for Georgia

Georgia is…

  •  1-2 against the spread this season
  • 20-12 against the spread as a road favorite under Kirby Smart
  • 17-13 against the spread on the road in SEC games under Kirby Smart
  • 3-3 against the spread vs. Alabama under Kirby Smart

Betting trends to know for Alabama

Alabama is…

  •  2-1 against the spread this season
  • 3-7-1 against the spread as a home underdog since 2000

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Advanced Stats preview 

Success rate will be the most important stat referenced in this section. Whether or not a play is “successful” depends on the down and distance of a given play. Here’s a breakdown of how much yardage is necessary for a play to be deemed “successful” depending on the context:

  • 1st down: Teams must gain at least 50% of required yardage
  • 2nd down: Teams must gain at least 70% of required yardage
  • 3rd or 4th down: Teams must gain 100% of required yardage

Defensively, numbers are presented as what the defense allowed the offense to achieve. So on defense, a 35% success rate is better than a 40% success rate.

Let’s dig into what success rate says about this matchup:

Rushing success rate

  • Georgia rushing offense success rate: 44.4% (65th)
  • Alabama rushing defense success rate: 35.3% (35th)

This is one area where both teams likely expect some improvement over the next couple of months. Georgia is just 65th nationally in rushing success rate entering this game after finishing last year in the 91st percentile in that metric. Individually, none of Georgia’s running backs have been great to start the year. After serving a suspension in the opener, Trevor Etienne has amassed a 42% success rate over 24 carries per GameOnPaper. That’s far from an elite mark, but it is above what Nate Frazier (35%) and Branson Robinson (25%) have produced to this point. It’s not a big enough sample size to hit the panic button over, but it is notable. 

Alabama’s rush defense has been good but not great in 2024 — especially considering the competition. Alabama has faced Western Kentucky, South Florida and Wisconsin so far this season. Last season, the Crimson Tide had a 38% rush defense success rate. So while this year’s raw number is marginally better, the Tide have yet to face SEC competition this year — meaning they will likely need to improve their play in order to keep this number under 40%.

  • Alabama rushing offense success rate: 44% (70th)
  • Georgia rushing defense success rate: 42.9% (82nd)

Down-to-down, Jam Miller has been Alabama’s best running back this season by a significant margin. He has a success rate of 52% per GameOnPaper while averaging north of 9 yards per carry. Justice Haynes has also been a significant factor at over 8 yards per attempt, but he’s been more of a home run hitter — his individual success rate is at just 32%. Quarterback Jalen Milroe actually leads the team in carries with 31 entering this game and has also scored 6 times on the ground. Alabama’s other ball-carriers — Daniel Hill, Richard Young and Kevin Riley — have all been much less efficient. Hill, Young and Riley have accounted for about 25% of Alabama’s total rushing attempts this season. Eliminating that usage would significantly improve Alabama’s rushing success rate — which I think is an adjustment we can reasonably expect Alabama to make in SEC games moving forward.

What’s going on with Georgia’s rush defense? It may be as simple as not being healthy up front. Defensive linemen Mykel Williams, Warren Brinson and Jordan Hall have each missed UGA’s last 2 games with injuries. As of Georgia’s Thursday night availability report, Williams and Brinson remain questionable for Saturday while Hall is listed as probable. Georgia did have a pretty mediocre rush defense last year, too, though. Per GameOnPaper, the 2023 Bulldogs ranked 67th in rush defense success rate and 99th in rush defense EPA. It was the only glaring weakness in Georgia’s profile last season, and it showed up in Alabama’s SEC Championship Game victory. The Tide had a 48% success rate on early-down rush attempts in that win.

Passing success rate

  • Georgia passing offense success rate: 46.9% (33rd)
  • Alabama passing defense success rate: 26.3% (4th)

This stat shows that the floor for Georgia’s passing game is still relatively high, despite some struggles a couple weeks ago in Lexington. Georgia is clearly still trying to work through some things in the pass game without Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey on the field. And yet, Georgia is 33rd nationally in pass offense success rate. Beck is also 18th nationally in EPA-per-drop back, according to GameOnPaper. However, an injury to Tate Ratledge has complicated matters a bit. He suffered an injury in the second quarter of the Kentucky game and will not be available vs. the Crimson Tide. Georgia has had a bye week to figure out a solution, but the Bulldogs can’t let this injury hamper them as much as it seemingly did vs. the Wildcats. 

The top-5 ranking for Alabama’s pass defense success rate looks nice, but I’ll throw out some reasons to be cautious. Alabama’s secondary arguably did not have a good day vs. South Florida, but Bulls quarterback Byrum Brown simply wasn’t able to make them pay. USF coach Alex Golesh schemed open receivers all night, but Brown completed just 15-of-35 passes in that game. Three different Alabama DBs (with at least 30 snaps) received sub-65 coverage grades from Pro Football Focus for their effort in that contest. Against Wisconsin the next week, Alabama faced a backup quarterback for most of the game after knocking out Tyler Van Dyke with a knee injury early on. So despite the elite success rate numbers, this is a secondary that’s still largely untested going into this weekend’s game.

  • Alabama passing offense success rate: 44% (55th)
  • Georgia passing defense success rate: 25% (2nd)

Milroe has been solid this year as he transitions to Kalen DeBoer’s offensive system, albeit in a relatively small volume so far as a passer. Alabama has a rush rate of 60% (excluding garbage time) this season, so it’s still not an offense that is particularly reliant on Milroe’s passing ability. Milroe’s average depth of target is actually down so far this season (from 13.9 yards to 12.5, per PFF), but he’s also not putting the ball in harm’s way as often as he did a year ago. There’s nothing that’s a glaring red flag about this profile other than the fact that Alabama didn’t seem to trust Milroe enough to turn him loose against lesser competition. If Alabama wins this game because of Milroe, it’s likely to be because of his production on the ground. 

Georgia’s secondary has been lights out so far this season. The Bulldogs’ performance against Clemson in Week 1 has aged extremely well. The Tigers have since blown out App State and NC State thanks in-part to big-time passing performances from Cade Klubnik, who the Bulldogs easily contained in the opener. Georgia also limited Brock Vandagriff in Week 3, although that’s significantly less impressive considering Kentucky’s offensive struggles this season. Still, this phase of the game figures to be a big advantage for Georgia.

1 other key: Who wins the explosive play battle between Alabama’s offense and Georgia’s defense?

According to CollegeFootballData, Alabama enters Week 5 with the No. 1 most explosive offense in the country. On the other side, Georgia is No. 1 in that stat defensively. That makes this a fascinating matchup between 2 elite units.

It’s worth noting that this stat is not schedule-adjusted, although Georgia likely would still rank very highly even if it was considering what it did to Clemson (whose offense ranks 23rd in this stat despite the poor performance in Week 1). The best defense Alabama has faced so far this season is likely Wisconsin, who really hasn’t been tested yet outside of its game against the Tide.

On paper, it seems like this matchup should favor Georgia. The Bulldogs have elite personnel all over the field and Alabama’s wide receiving corps is inexperienced in games of this magnitude — 17-year-old Ryan Williams enters this game as the Tide’s leading receiver. As long as UGA can keep Alabama’s run game in check (look out for Haynes here), the Tide could have a tough time producing big plays.

Alabama is generating about half of its explosive plays through the air. That’s despite, as mentioned earlier, having just a 40% pass rate in non-garbage time snaps. That will be an interesting dynamic to watch as this game unfolds — can the Tide hit on a deep ball or 2 in-between long stretches of running the ball? The answer to that question will likely determine who wins this game. It’s difficult to imagine Alabama finding the end zone on too many occasions without hitting on some explosives given its mediocre success rates through 3 weeks.

With that in mind, it will be important for Alabama to stay ahead of the chains — the Tide have only been in passing-down situations about 27% of the time this season, which is a strong mark. But again, Georgia’s defense will present different challenges than anything Alabama has faced so far. If Alabama gets into too many 3rd-and-long situations, it will likely become too predictable to catch UGA’s secondary off guard.

Note: All advanced stats mentioned in this story exclude garbage-time statistics and are derived from CollegeFootballData.com unless otherwise noted. Trends are via BetIQ.