The Alabama Crimson Tide have been the oft-disputed, yet primarily confirmed Kings of College Football for over a Decade. Over the course of that run, the University of Georgia (which has also experienced a sustained level of success rarely seen in the program over that span) has continually slammed its head against the wall that is the Tide. 2012. 2017. 2018. 2020. 2021. 5 games which all ultimately had title (either Conference or National) implications, have all gone the way of Bama. The narrative is locked in, Georgia just can't beat Bama. The common knowledge will tell you that there's a very simple reason for that - Georgia's offense is just flat out never good enough to do it. The only recipe to beat Alabama is to outscore them in a shootout. It's obvious.
Since falling to Alabama once again on December 4th, the UGA football team has come under incredible fan scrutiny, with continued calls for the benching of Stetson Bennet and replacing of him with JT Daniels. To their credit, the loudest of these fans have been consistent with their criticism of Stetson all season - it's hardly a new development. Through game after game, no matter the result (all wins), it was said that Stetson would fail when presented with a better challenge. He would not be able to "keep up" with the better offenses in the country. If put in the situation of needing to move the offense and score, he just wouldn't come through.
And it seems that was the case. When it all came down to needing to drive down and score consistently, this team was not able to do it, and people are very willing to place all of that blame on Stetson Bennett. People are willing to do that, mostly, because they believe that the guy sitting on the bench is far and away better, and has the tools to sling balls all around the field against Bama while Stetson just plain can't. And like we said - you have to beat Bama in a shootout. You have to chase them down and outscore them.
It's what you HAVE TO DO.
I find that hard to believe. So, the idiot that I am, I decided to look into the narrative a little bit.
In the past 6 seasons (I decided to stick to the Kirby Smart era of UGA football because a: he wouldn't have been at Bama to have anything to do with their results and b: that's where the majority of the heartbreak has existed), Alabama has lost a total of 6 games. So, let's see what kind of information we can glean from those 6 losses.
In four of the six losses suffered by Alabama in the past 6 years, the winning formula has been "get a lead, hold it." In one loss, it was a see-saw the whole way, and in exactly one out of the six losses, a team has been able to chase Alabama down after falling into a big hole.
Ok, so that's been in the games they lost. But we're talking six seasons worth of games here, so there must have been a number of close games in which Alabama was simply able to out-leg the other team. In those 6 years, Alabama has won a total of 9 games within 7 points or less. They haven't been dealing with a large number of shootouts.
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