“There’s still an Alabama problem. There’s 100% an Alabama problem.” There has been since 2008. Kirby Smart once again walked away empty-handed in a one-score heartbreaker against Nick Saban’s heirs. Back-to-back losses to the Tide have Georgia Bulldogs looking unprepared. With 13:25 left in Q4, trailing 24-21, Smart rolled the dice on a fourth-and-1 at the Alabama 8. Instead of taking the points to tie, the Bulldogs gambled for glory. The decision backfired, and Georgia never scored again in a 24-21 loss that leaves fans muttering the same old refrain.

That was former Georgia QB Aaron Murray who still thinks they have hope as he discussed the game on The Players’ Lounge. “Okay, the defense got blasted again,” he said. But then he noted a shift. “I kind of felt like the confidence really started to emerge in the third and fourth quarter. Like you saw a lockdown. You saw some swagger to them a little bit. And I think that’s something that’s been lacking through the first part of the season.” His frustration, though, lies in the inconsistency. “Like those dudes look… they look scared. They don’t look like they’re having fun. They look like they’re stressed out.”

That’s where Murray wants Georgia to become the second-half version of its defense. “I saw energy. Like I said, I saw swagger. I saw like we are Georgia, we’re at home and I don’t care how good you are, what you did in the first half, we ain’t letting you score. And I think you got to somehow bottle up what they did there in the second half and hope that you can do that going forward.” For him, the excuses have run their course. No more “Georgia just doesn’t play well on defense in the first quarter. Georgia just doesn’t play defense in the first half… Why can’t you just show up and dominate for four quarters? Let’s get rid of this stupid narrative that oh we will just figure it out.”

The evidence against Alabama backs him up. Georgia was gashed early, then tried to steady themselves late, but in this league, that recipe does not cook. You can’t give up that many points and that much time and possession to an Alabama team and expect that you’re going to find a way to just win the game in the fourth quarter. It’s just not ideal in the long term.

The clearest evidence of that is the doomed 4th down play call. With everything on the line, Kirby Smart told Gunner Stockton to put the ball in the hands of running back Cash Jones on a read option over the right side behind two true freshman tackles. Jones had two carries for -7 yards all day and only one touch prior to that play. Predictably, Alabama’s LT Overton shoved him backward, blowing up Georgia’s hopes with a single play. Meanwhile, Chauncey Bowens (who gashed the Tide for 119 yards at 9.9 yards a pop and a touchdown) watched from the sideline.

Georgia did run for 227 yards and bullied the Tide on the ground, but in the biggest moment, the coach leaned on the wrong man. Smart tried to be too clever as he tried to break that “Bama curse”. It worked against him, as with just a slight push, Overton really just overturned the Dawgs’ whole week.

Kirby’s gamble: same old Bama problem, same old sting

After Georgia’s latest heartbreak against Alabama, Smart stepped up to explain the controversial fourth-down call that has dominated headlines. “We were third-and-4, I think. We had decided previous to that if we gained anything, we were going for it,” Smart said. “We were going to probably kick the field goal if we didn’t get anything. There’s a thing called sequencing where you sequence plays to try to set up and know that you’re going to go for it.”

Smart had mapped out the drive with the mindset of pushing the chips in if they got close enough. Georgia did, landing at fourth-and-1. The play, a read option to Jones, had worked before, against Tennessee and even earlier that night. But on this stage? Alabama blew it up. Smart admitted they missed a key block but doubled down, saying he’d “do that 10 out of 10 times.”

The proverbial elephant continues haunting Georgia. Rarely since 2008 have the Dawgs solved that puzzle. Even during their 2021 title run, they had to take the long way around, losing to the Tide in the SEC Championship before getting redemption.