Once again, Georgia’s pursuit of nemesis Alabama comes up empty

ATHENS – The answer for Georgia is out there somewhere.

There is some potion, game-plan wrinkle or game-breaking star that will undo the spell that Alabama has cast upon the Bulldogs.

But, judging by Saturday night’s outcome, it’s apparently not dominating the Crimson Tide in the running game, not having three second-half possessions to take the lead and not equipping the Sanford Stadium faithful with fancy LED wristbands that sparkled in the stadium bowl.

No. 5 Georgia’s pursuit of No. 17 Alabama continued unfulfilled Saturday night, the Tide proving as unclutchable as a vapor in a 24-21 decision. The Bulldogs have now lost 10 of the past 11 meetings with the Crimson Tide, UGA’s least successful 11-game span in series history. In his second season, Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer is 6-5 against non-Georgia power-conference competition but somehow 2-0 against arguably college football’s preeminent power, continuing the crimson reign initiated by the great Nick Saban.

Smart, quite arguably the premier coach in the sport, is 107-13 against all opponents against all non-Tide foes but 1-7 against Forrest Gump’s alma mater.

“I mean, what’s everybody else’s record against them?” Smart asked of a questioner about his record against the Tide. “You’ve got it? I don’t (have it), either. I don’t lose sleep over that because those games have been, like, championship-caliber games, right?”

With the College Football Playoff a 12-team affair, it’s hardly the end of the world for Georgia (3-1 overall, 1-1 SEC). But the Bulldogs nearly lost to Tennessee and did lose to the Tide (3-1, 1-0). The defense is assailable. And there’s eight games yet to play, three against teams in the top 25.

“The lesson I take is we’ve got a good football team that’s got to get better,” Smart said.

With a sellout crowd urging them on, the Bulldogs seemed ready to earn their breakthrough win. They had an open date to prepare for the Tide. They were in their Sanford fortress, where they had won 33 games in a row. DeBoer’s Tide had demonstrated a pronounced difficulty with winning away from Tuscaloosa.

But as was the case in the win over Tennessee and in the loss last year in Tuscaloosa, Georgia started slowly. Alabama took a 14-0 lead by converting all eight of its third downs in the two drives, six of them third-and-5 or longer. Georgia’s pass rush was often late to arrive, giving Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson time to deliver on-target passes to an array of targets.

Alabama finished 13 of 19 on third downs, the most conversions against a Smart-coached team in his UGA tenure.

“We’ve got to do a better job of affecting the quarterback,” Smart said. “I mean, we’ve got more packages than the man on the moon to affect the quarterback, but we’ve got to do it.”

Despite the slow start, Georgia had a chance to take a halftime lead after closing to 17-14 with 2:08 left in the first half. The Tide started the next series on their 25-yard line with no timeouts left. But it proved no obstacle, as Simpson drove Alabama the full 75 yards with time to spare to take a 24-14 lead into the half.

Undaunted, the Bulldogs relied on their run game to close to 24-21 with 6:30 left in the third quarter. With Georgia’s defense asserting itself, including a stop on fourth-and-1, the Bulldogs had three possessions to tie or take the lead.

On the first, freshman wide receiver Talyn Taylor dropped a pass down the seam that looked very much like it would have gone for a touchdown had he caught it.

On the second, the Bulldogs drove inside the Alabama 10, but running back Cash Jones was stopped on fourth-and-1 from the 8 when Alabama defensive lineman LT Overton blew through the right side of the Georgia offensive line to bring down Jones behind the line. Smart passed on what would have been a 25-yard field goal try to tie.

“We missed a block that we got to make and they ran through and made a great play to stop it,” Smart said. “But I’d do that 10 out of 10 times in terms of going for it.”

On the third and last possession, begun with 8:10 left in the fourth quarter from the Georgia 5, quarterback Gunner Stockton lifted hopes by converting a third-and-11 from the Georgia 14 with a 22-yard pass play to wide receiver Zachariah Branch.

Maybe Georgia could summon the comeback magic that had enabled the Bulldogs to escape Neyland Stadium with a win two weeks ago. But the drive stalled. With 3:30 remaining, Brett Thorson punted away, and Alabama retained possession the rest of the game. The final nail was, fittingly, a third-down conversion.

On a third-and-5 from the Alabama 43 with 1:51 left and Georgia out of timeouts, Simpson flipped a pass to running back Jam Miller on a misdirection pass play to convert the first down.

Alabama went into victory formation, Georgia fans headed for the exits and Smart congratulated DeBoer at midfield.

The 33-game winning streak at home, the second longest in SEC history, was over.

Said Simpson, “I don’t think we were aware of that at all, honestly.”

“They controlled the tempo of the game outside of maybe the third quarter,” Smart said. “They controlled the time of possession. They won the turnover battle, and really, special teams seemed like it was not even relevant. So, a lot of credit to them.”

Georgia outrushed Alabama 227-117, a seemingly surefire formula for victory.

How about this?

Prior to Saturday, when a Smart-coached UGA team rushed for 200 or more yards and held its opponent to 125 rushing yards or fewer, the Bulldogs were 39-0, according to Stathead, winning each game by double digits and 31 of them by three touchdowns or more.