Alabama Football vs. Georgia and Epic Sweet Irony
By Ronald Evans
Alabama Football vs. Georgia could end in one sweet irony for the Crimson Tide. Whichever team wins on Saturday night, there's a good chance the Tide and the Bulldogs will not be finished with each other for the 2024 season. The two teams could play again in Atlanta, and possibly even a third time in the CFB Playoffs.
Forget the odds, the most honest of college football experts can only guess about which team will win. The loser will be knocked out of nothing, but the winner will get a major resume boost.
In an eloquent 'open letter' to Kalen DeBoer, Blake Toppmeyer offers a caution to the Crimson Tide coach, "Your initiation to SEC football begins Saturday. Prepare for your life to change.
This conference can make you a legend or recast you as a fool." Toppmeyer explains that DeBoer has won everywhere he has been, but at those places "people don’t pin their hopes, dreams and entire sense of self-worth to what happens in the span of three hours on fall Saturdays."
Toppmeyer adds that DeBoer's honeymoon could end Saturday with his first real test, "There’s a mean machine in red and black rumbling down the tracks all the way from Athens, and these Dawgs aren’t just coming to beat you. They’re coming to wreck the spirits of an entire state."
Alabama Football has a stunning record of wrecking the spirits of Georgia fans. It could happen again on Saturday night. If it does, the irony will come close to being too sweet, even for always-hungry Alabama Crimson Tide fans.
What Kirby Smart has done at Georgia is impressive by any reasonable standard. Smart left Tuscaloosa with Nick Saban's formula for building a championship program. He wisely chose to inject it into the Bulldogs without any modification. The decision has served him well.
A newer Alabama Football Model
Kirby will bring his Saban-designed Georgia model to Bryant-Denny. Alabama will counter with a newer model; one that is offensively superior to Georgia. What irony it would be if a highly successful Saban clone can't match football wits with a definitely not Nick Saban, Kalen DeBoer. The spirit-wrecking would be epic.