This Sunday afternoon should feel good in Georgia Bulldog country.
Georgia is 12-1 and headed to the College Football Playoffs. If you had offered that to any Georgia fan entering the season, not a single one of them would have reacted with anything short of joy and excitement.
You will not find much joy and excitement today.
Situations like the one the Bulldogs are in now do not exist in a vacuum; they are viewed through the lens of what has been seen from a team most recently. A season is not a single solid object; it's a fluid timeline with twists and turns and subplots.
And right now, there is one subplot that is becoming harder and harder for anyone who follows Georgia football to see beyond: these Bulldogs cannot beat Alabama.
That comment would be easy to dismiss as an emotional overreaction if it had been said in January of 2018 after the Crimson Tide broke Georgia's heart on a walk-off touchdown pass in the National Championship Game in Atlanta. Or even after they had rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit to knock Georgia out of the playoffs in the 2018 SEC Championship Game. Kirby Smart had only been on the job for two and three seasons, respectively, at that point.
You could have even brushed it off after they routed Georgia, 41-24, in Tuscaloosa last year in the regular season. After all, that wasn't Georgia's only struggle that year, and the Tide had one of the best offenses college football had ever seen.
But after Saturday's blowout loss in the SEC Championship Game by another 41-24 margin, it's becoming hard to argue with.
This time, you could not point to any glaring and easily solvable Georgia flaw. The Bulldogs were the top-ranked team for two months entering the contest with an undefeated record, the top defense in the nation and as much, if not more, roster talent than anybody in America. In fact, most of the nation expected Georgia to win the game. They were listed as a 6.5 point favorite by the Las Vegas oddsmakers.
There was no last-minute miracle like the aforementioned overtime touchdown or Nick Saban's quarterback switch in the 2018 SEC Championship Game to instead put the blame on some mystical "Georgia sports curse."
Georgia was as good and complete a team as they've ever been under Kirby Smart, and Nick Saban and Alabama pummeled them on a national stage with one of their most flawed football teams in recent memory.
For Georgia fans, it was as sobering a loss as you could have. Previous title game losses to Alabama left shock and heartbreak. This one left something far worse: a realization that as good as Georgia has gotten under Smart over the last six years, it may not be good enough to finally capture that elusive national championship.
They'll have a chance to prove that wrong. They are in the playoffs after all, but the road to a national championship will almost assuredly have to involve beating Alabama.
Georgia owes Kirby Smart a debt of gratitude. He has brought them to a period of sustained excellence over the last five years with three seasons with 12 or more wins, four eastern division titles, an SEC championship in 2017 and now two appearances in the playoffs.
But the honeymoon has ended. Don't get it twisted, Smart was brought to Athens to bring Georgia its first national championship since 1980. There is one team that they will have to go through at some point to reach that goal, and it's the one team Smart and Georgia can not get past right now:
Alabama.
