College football winners and losers: Alabama’s dramatic win over Georgia shows regular season still has juice in expanded CFP era

The Crimson Tide had plenty to celebrate after Zabien Brown’s game-clinching interception against Georgia on Saturday night. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

The first top-five matchup of the 2024 season showed why college football is an amazing and incredibly chaotic sport.

No. 2 Alabama looked well on its way to an easy win over No. 4 Georgia as the Crimson Tide rushed out to an early 28-0 lead. But the Bulldogs somehow clawed their way back into the game throughout the second half and took their first lead of the game when Carson Beck hit Dillon Bell for a 67-yard TD with 2:31 to go.

Common sense would dictate that Beck’s bomb to Bell would serve as the highlight of the night. But college football is not bound by the rules of common sense. Freshman Ryan Williams caught a 75-yard TD pass from Jalen Milroe on Alabama’s first offensive play after Bell’s TD to give the Crimson Tide a lead they knew they wouldn’t relinquish after freshman corner Zabien Brown picked off Beck with 43 seconds to go and seal a 41-34 win.

Alabama’s win came in the Tide’s first home game as an underdog in 17 years and snapped a 42-game regular-season winning streak for Georgia that dated back to Nov. 7, 2020. The only team to beat Georgia during that streak: Alabama, as the Tide beat Georgia in both the 2021 and 2023 SEC championship games.

Both of those contests served as quasi-College Football Playoff quarterfinals in the four-team era. Since there was just one other one-loss power conference team, the Bulldogs were able to still get in the playoff in 2021 and got their revenge on Alabama in the national title game. A season ago, Alabama’s win over Georgia knocked the Bulldogs out of the playoff entirely and Georgia had to take out its frustration on an undermanned Florida State team in an Orange Bowl blowout.

This year, the 12-team…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-09-29 04:38:41

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