Originally Posted by
thomorino
+23.4 Units
I hit Alabama on the spread and moneyline in the SEC championship, I'm on the over at 51.5 in this game.
Georgia's defense is solid but overrated, and Alabama still has issues defensively as well. The only 2 good quarterbacks that Georgia faced all year were Hooker and Young. Any team or unit like the defense can have 1 bad game, but if you look back at Georgia's weak strength of schedule and then see what Tennessee and Alabama both did to the Georgia defense its clear the Georgia defense is good but overrated.
Tennessee had nearly 400 total yards of offense against Georgia and Tennessee converted nearly 50% of their third down conversions. The only reason Tennessee didn't score score more was because they started going for every 4th down once they got down big in the second half, and many of their drives didn't lead to scores even though they were deep in Georgia territory. Alabama converted 50 of their third down conversions against Georgia and they had over 500 total yards of offense.
These were the only 2 good offenses Georgia played all year, and both went up and down the field on their defense the whole game.
Alabama's defense has been inconsistent all year too. Georgia should have scored more than 24 points against them in the SEC championship game since they had 450 total yards of offense, the main reason they didn't is once Georgia got down big they had a number of drives that went deep in Alabama's territory that didn't lead to points since they went for it on 4th down. Alabama did a good job containing Georgia's run and some of the yards were because they were up big, but Georgia should still be able to get between 20-30 points on the Alabama defense. Alabama's defense gave up around 400 total yards of offense or more in multiple games this year, including against Texas A&M, Georgia, and Arkansas.
The weakness of both defenses is also their pass defense, both teams are strong against the run, so neither team is likely to have long drawn out drives.
I lean to Alabama on the side, Bryce Young played one of his worst games of the year against Cincinnati, he should be better here. Georgia will also have a whole game to learn from and find better ways to attack the inconsistent Alabama defense.