Georgia Outlasts Alabama 20-17 and Stays Unbeaten
Four sacks and a 209-yard rushing day. That is the short version of how Georgia stayed 6-0 against an Alabama team that had been scoring at will all season.
It did not start like a squeaker. Peyton Woodring kicked a 43-yard field goal in the first quarter, and Gunner Stockton hit London Humphreys from 20 yards out to make it 10-0 with 7:09 left in the second. Then Alabama woke up. Keelon Russell found Marshall Pritchett for 22 yards 80 seconds later, and EJ Crowell punched in a one-yard run as the half expired to put the Tide up 14-10. Georgia, which had led for most of the half, walked into the locker room trailing.
The second half was a trade of one score each, then a kick. Stockton ran in from 14 yards to retake the lead at 17-14, Conor Talty answered with a 39-yard field goal to tie it at 17-17 in the third, and that was the last Alabama scored. Woodring's 23-yarder with 5:25 left in the fourth was the whole difference. Three points. Flip any one of those field goals and we are talking about overtime.
The totals lean Georgia: 458 yards to 346, 36 carries to 29, and 209 yards on the ground to 161. Georgia threw the game's lone interception, and Alabama lost a fumble, so neither side can say the turnovers did it. The sacks (4 to 1) probably did more than either.
Georgia is 6-0 and Alabama drops to 5-1. For fantasy, Stockton's day was good, not great, and Russell's was well under his usual. Winning ugly counts the same as winning pretty.