For younger fans, the words “Alabama versus Georgia” conjure up images of national championships, Southeastern Conference titles, and two programs that have dominated college football for nearly two decades.
Older fans will recall, however, a series that features its fair share of classic games not played for titles, several legendary coaches not named Nick Saban or Kirby Smart, and a rivalry that is truly one of the SEC’s most storied, even though the teams do not play that frequently.
The Crimson Tide and Bulldogs will play game No. 74 on Saturday when No. 2 Georgia visits Tuscaloosa for only the 11th time in the series with No. 4 Bama holding a 43-26-4 advantage overall. And while it won’t decide the national title or an SEC championship like six of the last eight meetings between these two powerhouses, it seems certain to be another classic nonetheless.
What follows is a look at a few other milestone moments that have made this series great.
Alabama 21, Georgia 6 – Sept. 17, 1960 | Legion Field, Birmingham, Ala.
Nowadays, ABC is generally considered one of the leaders in college football broadcasting. Well, ABC got its start carrying college football with Alabama versus Georgia live from Legion Field in Birmingham in 1960.
Under Wally Butts, one of Georgia’s two College Football Hall of Fame coaches, the Dawgs came in ranked No. 13 in the preseason off a 10-1 season and a Top 5 finish in the final Associated Press poll of 1959. Entering its third season under Paul “Bear” Bryant, Bama came in off 5-4-1 and 7-2-2 marks in his first two years and looking for much bigger things.
Georgia was favored, but what announcers Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman called that day was a dominating performance by the Tide. Led by quarterback Bobby Skelton, Bama jumped out 21-0 in the first half, and it was never close. A Fran Tarkenton touchdown pass in the second half was UGA’s only score of the game, and six of only 12 points the Bama defense yielded in the second half all year.
Georgia 18, Alabama 17 – Sept. 18, 1965 | Sanford Stadium, Athens, Ga.
One of only six meetings between the “Bear” and UGA’s other Hall of Famer, Vince Dooley, was as notable for the off-field circumstances surrounding it as it was for the on-field result.
The circumstances stemmed from a national scandal that had developed in 1963 when The Saturday Evening Post published an article which alleged that as UGA’s athletics director, Butts had given Bryant the scoop on the 1962 Bulldogs, then in their second season under Johnny Griffith.
Butts and Bryant eventually sued Curtis Publishing Co. for libel and won, with Butts receiving $460,000 and Bryant $300,000 in a judgment that put The Saturday Evening Post out of business.
The final margin of victory in 1965 was determined by a controversial flea-flicker play executed by Georgia, but the real story was that it was the last time UGA and Bama met as annual opponents after playing each other every year since 1944.
Alabama 20, Georgia 16 – Sept. 2, 1985 | Sanford Stadium, Athens, Ga.
ABC selected the Tide and Georgia, playing “Between the Hedges” on Labor Day night, as the season opener in 1985. And for 99 percent of the game, the national TV audience must have been wondering why.
Then came the final minute and a truly momentous finish.
With Bama leading 13-9 and set to punt from deep in its own territory, UGA linebacker Terrie Webster blocked Chris Mohr’s kick, and Calvin Ruff swatted the ball toward the goal line – illegal touching was not called – and into the end zone where he fell on it for the TD. The point after made it 16-13 Georgia with 50 seconds remaining.
The Bulldogs celebrated a little too much, however, and were hit with an unsportsmanlike penalty, forcing them to kick off from the 25 and giving Bama the ball on its 29 after the return. That’s when Bama QB Mike Shula rang the bell for the win.
Shula went to Greg Richardson for a first down at the Bama 45, then threw to flanker Al Bell, who made a leaping, one-handed grab for 26. Then Shula went back to Richardson for 17 to the UGA 17 to set up one of the greatest comeback cappers in Tide history.
On the next play, Bell, playing his first game for Bama, faked out the DB to get wide open over the middle, and Shula found him for the score and one of the Tide’s 13 wins in 20 trips to Sanford Stadium.
Georgia 26, Alabama 23 (OT) – Sept. 22, 2007 | Bryant-Denny Stadium, Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Four games into Nick Saban’s tenure with the Tide, Mark Richt’s Dawgs handed him his first loss. Matthew Stafford, Thomas Brown, Knowshon Moreno, and the Bulldogs kept inching in front, but John Parker Wilson and the Tide kept coming back, and after 60 minutes the game was tied at 20. In overtime, the Georgia defense stepped up and forced Bama to settle for a 42-yard Leigh Tiffin field goal that made it 23-20 Bama.
Then on first down, Stafford found Mikey Henderson for 25 yards, and just that quickly UGA had sealed the deal in what is still one of its only two victories in Tuscaloosa ever and the first of six losses by Bama that season.
Clash of the Titans
Then there are the championship tilts in this series which, since 2012, have decided four SEC titles and two national championships.
In the 2012 meeting in Atlanta, Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray threw a pass from the Bama 8-yard-line with 9 seconds remaining, but Tide linebacker CJ Mosely tipped the pass to UGA’s Chris Conley, who fell down in bounds at the 5 yard line as time expired.
In the 2017 national championship game, again in the Georgia Dome, the stakes were even higher when Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa came in at quarterback to relieve starter Jalen Hurts. The Tide, trailing 13-0 to start the second half, needed a spark and Tua, seeing the first significant action of his career, guided Bama to a 26-23 overtime win, capped by a beautiful 41-yard TD pass to Devonta Smith on second-and-26.
The next season, Hurts returned the favor in the 2018 SEC title game, bailing out Tagovailoa and Bama in one of the most inspiring performances in Crimson Tide annals. After losing his starting job and playing only sparingly that season, Hurts came on with 11 minutes left after Tagovailoa was injured and threw for one TD and ran for another with just over a minute to go to lift Bama to a 35-28 win.
Bama won the 2021 SEC Championship game by a comfortable 17-point margin 41-24 on Dec. 4, 2021, but just over a month later on Jan. 10, 2022, Georgia led by quarterback Stetson Bennett returned the favor to claim the national championship 33-18 in Indianapolis.
Finally, Bama pulled off what was considered an upset when it took down the Dawgs in a 27-24 thriller in the 2023 SEC Championship game in Atlanta – a loss that knocked Georgia out of the four-team College Football Playoffs and ended the Dawgs run of two straight national championships.
Now fast forward to 2024 and Georgia comes into Bryant-Denny as the favorite, marking the first time since that 2007 season that Bama has been a home underdog. In its ninth game that year, Bama hosted No. 3-ranked LSU as the underdog to Saban’s former school, and LSU walked away with a 41-34 win.
Alabama under new coach Kalen DeBoer hopes to avoid a repeat of that scenario, which happened so long ago that current freshman phenom wide receiver Ryan Williams wasn’t even a year old when it occurred. If it does, it most likely will be another magic moment in what is currently the most significant rivalry in college football. TG
