Georgia football: Three reasons why the Bulldogs can and will beat Alabama
Georgia football heads back to Mercedes-Benz Stadium this week to play the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2018 National Championship Game.
Don’t let the talking heads on TV fool you, Georgia football has more than a slim chance to defeat Alabama Monday night. In fact, the Bulldogs have many advantages over the Tide. Advantages that very well could lead to the Bulldogs defeating Alabama for the National Championship.
Georgia has superiorities on the coaching staff and certain players match-up well against their counterparts in crimson. But here are the three biggest reasons why Georgia can and will defeat Alabama for the National Championship.
Georgia succeeds against mobile quarterbacks
All year-long, the Junkyard Dawg defense has played very well against mobile quarterbacks. It doesn’t matter if they’re option quarterbacks or scramblers. Georgia has shown an ability to contain them and prevent them from running free.
More from Dawn of the Dawg
- Georgia Football: Top 5 Nick Chubb Moments at Georgia
- Georgia Football: Know the enemy UAB Blazers
- Nick Chubb is America’s running back, and he will return
- Georgia Football: Should laundry list of injuries be a cause to panic?
- Georgia Football: Report cards for Week 3 game against South Carolina
Jalen Hurts for Alabama is a mobile quarterback. You don’t need me to tell you that. But as we’ve seen some this year, he’s great at the mobile part, but he’s not fantastic at the quarterback part. He’s good no doubt. But he’s much better when he can run freely.
In 13 games this year, Hurts has completed 61-percent of his passes for 2,125 yards with 17 touchdowns and only one interception. He also has 808 rushing yards. However, in games in which he wasn’t able to run, he struggled.
Against LSU, he had 3.1 yards per carry, way below his average of 5.1. Hurts also completed only 11 of his 24 pass attempts with one touchdown. Against Florida State he had only 3.7 yards per carry and just 96 total passing yards. Auburn shut his legs down in the second half and he was never able to pass Alabama back into the game.
Georgia versus mobile quarterbacks
That poses a problem for Alabama because Georgia can shut down Hurts. They’ve shut down mobile quarterbacks all year. It doesn’t matter it if’s Notre Dame’s Brandon Wimbush or Georgia Tech’s Taquon Marshall. Georgia shut them all down. Just look at the stats.
- Brandon Wimbush – Notre Dame
- 1,870 yards passing and 16 touchdowns; 804 yards rushing and 14 touchdowns in 2017.
- Against Georgia: 210 yards passing, one yards rushing with just one touchdown.
- Nick Fitzgerald – Mississippi State
- 1,782 yards passing and 15 touchdowns; 984 yards rushing and 14 touchdowns in 2017.
- Against Georgia: 83 yards passing and two interceptions; 47 yards rushing.
- Taquon Marshall – Georgia Tech
- 927 yards passing and 10 touchdowns; 1,146 yards rushing and 17 touchdowns in 2017.
- Against Georgia: 38 yards passing with one touchdown and one interception; 72 yards rushing.
Georgia also contained scrambling quarterbacks such as Stephen Johnson and Baker Mayfield. So the talking heads might not want to admit it. But here is a clear edge that Georgia has over Alabama. If Jalen Hurts can’t run free, and chances are, he won’t against Georgia, then he’ll have a bad night. That also leads to the next advantage…