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All bark, no bite: Georgia put back in its place by resurgent Alabama

ATHENS, Ga. – It was cute, really.

The way the Georgia players rushed over and crowded the sideline to woof at Alabama when the Crimson Tide took the field for pregame warmups Saturday – it was like watching a 10-year-old boy put on his father’s suit. Like the Bulldogs were all grown up now, big and bad enough to intimidate the Tide.

So much posturing. So much bravado.

So little substance to back it up once kickoff came.

Georgia came out talking the talk, then walked the walk – straight into a brick-wall Alabama defense. Final score of this soggy mismatch: Alabama 38, Georgia 10. Not only was the final score embarrassing to the nation’s No. 8 team, so was the display of fake juice.

“We embraced it,” Alabama cornerback Cyrus Jones said of the pregame dust-up. “We liked that. We knew it was going to be a fired-up game.

Are Georgia fans happy enough with Mark Richt? (AP)
Are Georgia fans happy enough with Mark Richt? (AP)

“The clock started, and you saw what happened.”

Everyone saw what happened. Once again, the Bulldogs stepped confidently into a big moment, a big spotlight, a big opportunity, and flopped. Once again, Nick Saban came in between the hedges for a hugely anticipated game and gutted Georgia. The Tide authoritatively avoided playoff elimination, while the ‘Dogs remain Team Tease.

“I’m disappointed for us as a team, players and coaches,” Richt said. “But I know our fans are sick about it and I don’t blame them.”

They were sick enough to start booing in the second quarter. Perhaps because they’ve seen this movie before.

They saw it the last time Alabama came here, in 2008, the infamous Blackout Game. Georgia put on black jerseys for that fever-pitch night game and promptly took a 31-0 ‘Bama punch to the gut on the way to a 41-30 loss. The scar tissue is still visible here from that one.

The fans saw this in an 18-point loss as a 10-point favorite last year against rival Florida, blowing the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division title in the process. They saw it in four losses as a favorite in 2013. They saw it in a 28-point loss to South Carolina in 2012, when the Bulldogs were ranked No. 5. They saw it in an upset loss in the Outback Bowl to end the 2011 season.

It’s these chronic clunkers that diminish Mark Richt’s accomplished career record and drive Bulldogs fans crazy. He’s 140-49 in 15 seasons, trailing only Vince Dooley in all-time victories at Georgia – but his teams have a long history of finding at least one important game per year to completely fall apart.

As that list of fall-apart games goes on, Georgia eventually must ask itself if Richt’s tenure should go on.

There is an excellent chance that the school would regret getting rid of Richt the same way Tennessee regrets getting rid of Phil Fulmer. You could do a lot worse.

Richt is a class guy who is highly unlikely to ever embarrass the program, and he’s highly unlikely to ever have a losing season again (there was one, 6-7, in 2010). He’s won at least 10 games in nine different seasons.

There are at least 110 lesser coaches at the FBS level. But Georgia aspires to win a national title more often than every 35 years or so – that’s the current gap since the last one, and it was 38 years before that when the Bulldogs won their first. Given the mother lode of talent within range of Athens, that doesn’t seem unreasonable.

With this year’s team unmasked by Alabama – particularly at the quarterback position, where two overmatched QBs went a combined 11-of-30 passing – we have a lot of data to suggest Richt isn’t the guy to get a team to a championship. They've won just two SEC titles, in 2002 and 2005, and that’s it. Because there’s always that nightmare performance lurking somewhere on the schedule.

Saban’s presence on the opposing sideline only underscores the coaching gap between Alabama and Georgia.

Saban obsessed over the 83-yard touchdown his defense gave up to Nick Chubb in what amounted to garbage time, holding a 35-point lead – he mentioned it six times in his postgame remarks. And while Richt downplayed the pregame confrontation, Saban did not. He was furious with his team.

Alabama's defense held Georgia's Nick Chubb in check with the exception of his 83-yard TD run late in the third quarter. (Getty)
Alabama's defense held Georgia's Nick Chubb in check with the exception of his 83-yard TD run late in the third quarter. (Getty)

Saban believes Alabama lost focus by getting too emotional before the upset Mississippi loss Sept. 19, and it showed when the Tide fumbled the opening kickoff and made other early errors in falling behind 17-0. He wasn’t going to tolerate that happening a second time.

“I got really pissed [at the pregame jawing],” he said. “I said, ‘Are we going to go through this again?’ We’re focusing on playing football and doing our job.”

Alabama settled down and did exactly that. After a conservative start by both teams produced a 3-3 tie early in the second quarter, the Tide blew the game open. And they did it in all phases of the game.

There was a long drive for a Derrick Henry touchdown. There was a special-teams score on a blocked punt. There was a one-play drive – a lovely play-action bomb from maligned Jake Coker to promising freshman Calvin Ridley.

That made it 24-3 at halftime, and when Georgia backup QB Brice Ramsey served up a pick-six just five plays into the second half, the Sanford Stadium stands began emptying in a hurry.

“We got whipped, we all know it and we’ve got to do something about it,” Richt said. “We’ll watch film and face the truth and look for ways we can improve.”

Some truth to chew on: Georgia might still win the SEC East this year, but it’s hard to envision the Bulldogs being good enough to beat the SEC West representative if it comes to that. (And it could come to be a rematch of this mismatch.) And so there’s that ceiling again.

Mark Richt can take a team pretty far. But it’s hard to take a team all the way when there’s always at least one awful performance waiting to happen at just the wrong time.