Paul Finebaum previews national championship game, key difference in rematch

SEC football analyst Paul Finebaum shared his take on the upcoming rematch of the SEC title game on Jan. 10. The Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs face off once again but Finebaum expects to see a different game play out.

“I think conventional wisdom would say it wouldn’t be the same game,” Finebaum said. “Still not really sure it is going to change dramatically, I mean it’s obvious what the big difference is between today and a month ago, it’s probably John Metchie. We saw indications of that Friday afternoon in Dallas.

“I think the buildup will be similar, other than there really is a lot of pressure on Georgia. You can never say Alabama is playing with house money, but they’ve beaten Georgia. Whether a rematch is an advantage or a disadvantage can be debated until the end of time. The coaching matchup clearly favors one team, and I think we all know which one that is.”

Alabama beat Georgia 41-24 in the SEC Championship and since then, both squads took home impressive CFP playoff wins. While Nick Saban and the Tide held Cincinnati to 218 yards of offense, Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs kept Michigan to a field goal and a touchdown.

Finebaum seems to favor Nick Saban due to his experience and Alabama in general since they’ve already proven themselves again Georgia this year. He noted that Bama will be without John Metchie after the star receiver suffered a season-ending knee injury.

Without Metchie, the Tide split targets between six receivers. Jameson Williams came out on top with seven catches for 62 yards while Ja’Corey Brooks had four catches for 66 yards.

Georgia and Alabama will face off at 8 p.m. ET on Monday, January 10 in Indianapolis with a championship on the line.

Smart on bouncing back from Alabama loss

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart commended his team for their bounce back this weekend after losing to Alabama in the SEC title game.

“I really never had questions about this team. The resiliency, the bounce back, the amount of character, I’ve seen it all year. We didn’t play well (against Alabama), and we turned the ball over and didn’t get any turnovers and played poor in the red area,” Smart said. “You can list all the things we did in the last game.”

The Bulldogs flipped the script versus Michigan. The Bulldogs outgained the Wolverines with 521 yards of total offense compared to Michigan’s 328, all while dominating the turnover battle. Georgia’s offense did not commit a single turnover in the game. Michigan, on the other hand, lost a fumble and threw two interceptions.

Smart praised his team for bouncing back from the tough loss in the SEC Championship game, but he knows the toughest task lies ahead of the Bulldogs.

“That’s all our kids have heard about for three weeks,” Smart said of Georgia’s mistakes against Alabama. “Our focus has been on, OK, what can we get better at, where can we turn our energy, because it does no good to look backwards. It only does good to look forward and who was our opponent. We always say you can’t let a loss beat you twice, and we didn’t let that happen today and now we get to focus our energy on a really good football team, and that’s where we’ll turn our head and attention now.”

On3’s Simon Gibbs contributed to this report.