Georgia visits Alabama on Saturday night, as you might have heard. The Bulldogs will bring a No. 2 ranking with them to Tuscaloosa, while Alabama will look to defend its home field and improve upon its No. 6 AP ranking. Saturday night will mark the 14th consecutive game in which both the Bulldogs and the Crimson Tide are ranked entering the matchup, which begs the question:
Is Alabama-Georgia the defining rivalry of our time?
There are two obvious rebuttals to this. The first is that Alabama and Georgia don't play every season, thereby allowing their streak of ranked matchups to artificially inflate. Oklahoma and Texas met annually as ranked opponents 13 times in 14 seasons from 1971-85, and 12 times in 13 seasons from 2000-12. Michigan and Ohio State have a 9-game streak and a handful of 5-game streaks, which is more difficult given that they play at the end of November, not the middle of October. Likewise, the longest streak I could find in the Notre Dame-USC (RIP) rivalry is nine. In years where they don't play, Bama and UGA could only meet in the SEC Championship, guaranteeing they're either both good or they don't play at all.
The rebuttal to that rebuttal: Find me a time when Alabama and Georgia are not ranked. Alabama has been ranked in 301 consecutive AP polls, second longest all-time, and Georgia's 154-poll streak is ninth.
The second rebuttal, related to the first: Are Alabama and Georgia even rivals in the first place? Fair point. Georgia has historically been more concerned with Florida, Auburn, and Georgia Tech. With 30 SEC championships, every program in the league has some level of animosity toward the Tide, but Alabama has traditionally been most concerned with beating Auburn and Tennessee.
My rebuttal to the rebuttal: Considering the level with which these two programs compete for recruits and trophies, I don't know what else to call them.
These programs have combined for eight national championships, met each other in the CFP title game twice, and have won 11 of the last 12 SEC championships (again, playing each other four times, including two of the last three). Needless to say, they are the only pair of opponents to do so over that time span, or in the history of college football.
Simply put, when the Crimson Tide and the Bulldogs meet on the field, the college football world comes to a stop.
2007: No. 22 Georgia 26, No. 16 Alabama 23 (overtime). Matt Stafford to Mikey Henderson for the win. Not especially notable in terms of on-field ramifications (although Georgia did finish 11-2 and might have won a 4- or 12-team playoff had one existed back then), but unforgettable for Mike Patrick's Britney Spears moment.
2008: No. 8 Alabama 41, No. 3 Georgia 30. For all intents and purposes, the night Nick Saban's dynasty was born. The game was not nearly as close as the final score; Alabama led 31-0 at halftime.
2012 SEC Championship: No. 2 Alabama 32, No. 3 Georgia 28. Though everyone was preoccupied with Manti Te'o and No. 1 Notre Dame at the time, the de facto national title game was played on the first Saturday of December in Atlanta. The 2012 national title was decided at the 5-yard line, where UGA's would-be game-winning drive ended as time expired.
2015: No. 13 Alabama 38, No. 8 Georgia 10. Alabama came in as an underdog for the first time in 72 games, and led 38-3 five minutes into the second half. As if that wasn't miserable enough for Georgia, the game was played in a torrential downpour. The beginning of the end of the Mark Richt era in Athens, and the beginning of the beginning of the Kirby Smart era.
2017 CFP National Championship: No. 4 Alabama 26, No. 3 Georgia 23 (overtime). Tua Tagovailoa comes off the bench to spark a second half rally from 13-0 down, ending with a 2nd-and-26 strike to the heart to future Heisman winner DeVonta Smith. Bama's comeback was aided by a phantom offsides call that erased a punt block deep in Tide territory.
2018 SEC Championship: No. 1 Alabama 35, No. 4 Georgia 28. Another Alabama second half comeback, this time sparked by Jalen Hurts coming off the bench, and aided by another disaster by the Georgia punt team. This time, a failed fake punt on 4th-and-10 at midfield set up Bama's game-winning drive.
2020: No. 2 Alabama 41, No. 3 Georgia 24. Not especially memorable, except that Alabama would go on to win the national title, while the loss kept Georgia out of the SEC Championship.
2021 SEC Championship: No. 3 Alabama 41, No. 1 Georgia 24. Georgia will never, ever beat a Nick Saban-coached Alabama team.
2021 CFP National Championship: No. 3 Georgia 33, No. 1 Alabama 18. At long last, Georgia beats Saban and wins its first national title in 41 years (you decide which was more satisfying). The sound you heard during Keele Ringo's clinching pick-six return was 40,000 red-and-black souls escaping from hell.
2023 SEC Championship: No. 8 Alabama 27, No. 1 Georgia 24. Little did we know at the time, an outcome that changed history for multiple programs. In what would turn out to be Saban's final victory, Alabama rose from No. 8 to No. 4 in the final CFP rankings, while Georgia, winners of 29 straight until this game, fell from No. 1 to No. 6. In the process. Big 12 champion Texas rose from No. 7 to No. 3, and undefeated ACC champion Florida State sunk from No. 4 to No. 5. Had Georgia won, my personal theory is the selection committee rolls with the four undefeated Power 5 champions: No. 1 Georgia vs. No. 4 Florida State in the Sugar Bowl, and No. 2 Michigan vs. No. 3 Washington in a picture-perfect Rose Bowl. It's fair to say Florida State still has not recovered from Alabama winning this game.
2024: No. 4 Alabama 41, No. 2 Georgia 34. Alabama jumps out to a 28-0 lead in the first big game of the Kalen DeBoer era, Georgia storms back to take a 34-33 lead, and then Ryan Williams ends it with one of the most insane individual efforts in recent memory. Alabama did not go on to make the SEC Championship or the CFP, but this win extended Alabama's record streak to 17 consecutive season with at least one week as the AP No. 1-ranked team.
2025: No. 17 Alabama 24, No. 5 Georgia 21. In Alabama's first trip to Athens since the 2015 game, the Tide saves its season by opening the game with two straight 14-play touchdown drives. This remains Georgia's only home loss of the decade.
2025 SEC Championship: No. 3 Georgia 28, No. 9 Alabama 7. In the second-worst rushing day in Alabama history (minus-3 yards), Georgia becomes the first program to repeat as SEC champion since, of course, 2020-21 Alabama.
With back-to-back national titles in 2021-22 and back-to-back SEC championships in 2024-25, Georgia has become the Main Character of the SEC this decade. Alabama is trying to reclaim that status after owning it throughout the 2010s and early 2020s, and to do so they'll have to beat Georgia. Again.
Lord only knows what's in store for us when No. 2 and No. 6 meet on Saturday night (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC), but it's bound to be intense, likely close, and will set the stage for the next meeting, which is bound to be colossal.