NCAA Football Championship Preview

While an all SEC title game was not really my first choice, it should provide a good match up of ultra talented teams that we didn't watch play this year yet.  Alabama has the experience on their side, having appeared in the playoffs every year so far and reaching the title game in three straight years now.  Georgia is the upstart, a team that now has a freshman orchestrating the offense with the two electrifying senior backs.

Looking at the two young signal callers, its pretty evident both teams rely on the run game to carry the offensive load. as neither average more than 19 attempts per game.  While both have found success going downfield with 25 plays of more than 25 yards fro Hurts and 27 for Fromm.  Fromm however has hit more big plays, with 63 of at least 15 yards.  Fromm has also been the QB to rely on in third down situations, moving the chains on 40% of his attempts while Hurts has done so on just 35%.  This might be key, because for two games in a row now the Dawgs have only converted 19 and 28% of their third down attempts.  The Tide's normally formidable defense has struggled the lat few weeks on third downs, with Miss. State, Auburn and Clemson all converting 40% of their third downs.

The Dawgs defense has been solid this year, which a fairly poor performance against Oklahoma has skewed.  They allowed more than 20 points just twice this season outside of the Oklahoma game, and those were the only to games where offenses gained more than 300 yards.  The Tide have matched this performance, while being a bit better on a per play basis (3.92 vs 4.65).  Alabama though has been hit with the injury bug all season, and it didn't stop against Clemson.  They lost Anfernee Jennings, an exciting pass rusher and player as well as having a pair of DBs as questionable.  Lester Cotton also left the game on the offensive side of the ball and is questionable to play. 

The backfields will likely determine the outcome of the game.  The Tide rank near the top of Bill Connelly's S&P rankings in the run game, coming in at 12th overall with a success rate of 48.6%.  The Bulldogs are just a bit better, ranking 7th overall and doing it through explosive plays, where they are 4th.  The Bama run defense though is easily the best, allowing a success rate of just 32.8%.  With the injuries mounting though, especially in the LB corps, even Mercer was able to gain ovr 100 yards on the ground.  This has also left the Tide vulnerable in power stuations, where the D ranks 119th.  Georgia's defense actually ranks 24th in power success, but they're going to face an offense that utilizes the QB run much like Oklahoma did, and we all saw the issues there.

THis is going to be a tight game, the program separates the teams by just a single point in Georgia's favor.  The game is in Atlanta, which is roughly a neutral site.  I'm in line to believe Georgia can pull it off.  The Alabama injuries hurt in the run game especially, and Jake Fromm I think is the better passer than Hurts.  So, I think the Dawgs take it, just barely though in a defensive struggle with a limited number of plays.  24-21 Georgia.