Will Georgia beliefs of toppling Alabama Football be crushed again?

Old Georgia Bulldogs’ dreams of taking down Alabama Football have taken a turn this season. For the first time since 2012, the Dawgs are believing in a win rather than hoping for one. There was plenty of bold Georgia talk before each of the last five games between the Tide and the Dawgs. But despite the talk, for over a decade, there has been an undercurrent of doubt. As the Crimson Tide soared, the Bulldogs disconsolately watched.

The feeling is different in Athens this season and especially this week. This time the Georgia team and its followers steadfastly believe the Dawgs will win.

A good football coach and an even better man was cast aside by Georgia for not keeping up with the Crimson Tide. However Kirby Smart is best described, he has not fared any better than his predecessor.

More pressure on Kirby Smart than on Alabama Football

Believing in the old Faulkner premise of the past never being past is not required to understand how much pressure will be on Kirby Smart on Saturday. Only some deficiency in brightness could allow him to not feel it.

The college football world has predetermined the Bulldogs should win. Perhaps they will. If they don’t, the blow to the collective psyche of the program might even be worse than the one caused by a winning touchdown toss, now close to four years ago.

Coming back from that 2018 knockout was not easy for Kirby and the Bulldogs. Since that January night in Atlanta, the Bulldogs have gone 43-7 in college football’s toughest conference. But, that impressive rebound included two more losses to Alabama Football. Some Crimson Tide fans believe losing big games is in the DNA of the Georgia program. A less sensational opinion has more to do with doubt than DNA. Kirby and two of his assistants believe their lessons in Tuscaloosa give the Bulldogs an advantage. To the extent that is true, that knowledge also carries a weight of doubt. Can they deliver in a big game, against the most dangerous college football program ever built? They cannot be sure of the answer.

Fast forward to this week and the hunted has become the hunter. The greatest college football program of all-time has something to prove. Georgia fans should be wary of a wounded elephant but they are not. The Georgia football team should be neither wary nor worried, but the Dawgs will make a huge mistake by taking the Alabama Crimson Tide too lightly.

Georgia will not face peak-Alabama on Saturday. The Bulldogs are very good but not on the level of the 2020 Crimson Tide team. What Georgia will battle is an Alabama football team, plenty good enough to win, and players intending to prove all the pundits wrong.