Alabama vs. Georgia brings a matchup of compelling storylines

By Charlotte Wilder
FOX Sports Columnist

What if Georgia vs. Alabama actually is the best championship matchup?

A weary nation rolled its burned-out eyes on New Year's Eve, when the football teams from the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia destroyed, respectively, the teams from the University of Cincinnati and the University of Michigan in the College Football Playoff semifinals. 

Not only have all but one of the past five national championship games featured Alabama, but also the 2017 season’s championship was this exact matchup: the Crimson Tide vs. the Bulldogs. 

These days, even when it comes to college football, it turns out that we can’t have nice things.

If social media is any indication, everyone besides Alabama and Georgia fans seemed to be dreading this repeat. Especially when the Bearcats could have become the first team from a Group of 5 conference to make the national title game. Or when Michigan could have crawled back to the glory it once knew. 

Instead, the game we have been given is the one with the most depressingly predictable outcome.

But hear me out: What if the most boring potential matchup for the College Football Playoff National Championship is actually the most interesting?

I am not here to tell you this game will provide the most thrilling outcome. The Ship Of Massive Upsets has sailed, and we have been left with the two teams that dominated all season (all half-decade?). What's more, we saw this movie about a month ago, when Alabama beat Georgia in the SEC Championship. 

But this game will give us the best myth. No, it’s not a David vs. a Goliath. But it’s a Goliath vs. a Goliath Who Can’t Beat The Other Goliath. 

Georgia, despite having nine seasons with 10 or more wins and two appearances in the CFP, has just one SEC title and zero national championships under Kirby Smart — in fact, the Dawgs haven't won the whole thing since 1980. 

Alabama has eight SEC titles and six national championships under Nick Saban. Alabama has won seven straight games against Georgia, and in four of those games, Georgia has blown a lead. 

Alabama is Georgia’s kryptonite. Even after the Dawgs' undefeated regular season this year, it was Alabama that broke the winning streak to claim the conference title. 

So even though most of you reading this are going to tell me why I’m wrong (a situation I simply refer to as "a normal day at the office"), I’ll admit it: I was secretly hoping for Alabama vs. Georgia. 

Before you @ me, consider this: For both teams, the stakes are high, and this game is very likely to be close. That makes for the most tension. Now, unfortunately for Georgia fans, this tension comes largely at their expense because the stakes are undoubtedly higher for them. And while I feel sorry for the blood pressure of everyone rooting for the Dawgs, this makes for tremendous content. 

If Georgia wins, its sports curse is definitively broken. Atlanta United brought the championship-starved city its first title in 23 years when they won the MLS Cup in 2018, and the Braves brought the state glory again last fall, when they took the World Series for the first time since 1995. 

But if UGA wins this game, the victory will be only the third football championship in school history and will end a 42-year drought. It would be the final nail in the curse’s coffin. And against Alabama, it would be even sweeter. 

In 2018, I watched Georgia lose the national championship to Alabama in a Manhattan bar amid a crush of Dawgs fans. It was the world’s greatest party while UGA was winning. Fans were dousing each other in beer, hugging one another, nervously letting themselves begin to think about hoping.

And then, Georgia, well, Georgia-ed itself. 

Alabama came back to win on a dramatic, walk-off TD pass in overtime. The high-flying balloon of a crowd was popped. I’ve never heard a packed bar go silent so quickly — it was like the "Red Wedding" in "Game of Thrones:" Joyful nuptials became a funeral.

In 2018, the Dawgs were four-point underdogs. This year, however, Georgia is a three-point favorite (though given the history of both teams, I’m not sure how much stock I’d put in Vegas’ assessment).

Georgia’s defense is without question better, and after the team’s dominance this season, it’s a very real possibility that Georgia will capture its first trophy in four decades and defeat the brick wall into which it keeps running. 

If Saban finally loses to Smart, who was once his assistant, it would be another kind of modern-day myth: the father falling at the hand of the son.

(Here is where I must apologize to Georgia fans, who should probably stop reading now. If this column hasn’t already given you a stomachache, the rest of it definitely will.)

High stakes, however, are a double-edged sword. They make the joy of a win greater — and the pain of losing even worse. Which brings up an aspect of sports that I find anthropologically fascinating: Is it better to approach greatness and never win? Or to not even come close? Would you rather think you could push the boulder over the hill, only to be crushed by it, or sit at the bottom knowing that it will be years before you can move it even a few feet?

It’s a question Alabama fans have not had to wrestle with for decades. And while it might seem like a Bama loss would probably just result in another chance to win next year, I’d argue that for Tide fans, there is slightly more than just a championship to lose. There's also pride. 

Because if Georgia wins, one could argue that this is the changing of the guard. It would be only the second time ever — and the second time this season — that Nick Saban lost to a former assistant. It would be easy to proclaim the beginning of the end of Alabama’s Saban era, regardless of how true that might be.

But if Alabama does win, it’s still a more compelling outcome than it initially seems. Because a W prolongs the dynasty, and all dynasties must end. (Take it from a Patriots fan.) Even those who passionately hate the perpetual champions might subconsciously miss them when they’re gone — it’s special to have something you can hate so completely, so unequivocally. 

There’s a reason people go nuts for superhero movies: There’s no nuance with which to wrestle.

For fans of neither team, Monday's game provides a Bad Guy vs. a Bad Guy. Which means that either way, the majority of the nation will experience some schadenfreude.

Anyway, I’ve written far too much about the narratives because the tortured storylines are what I love most about sports. But perhaps the best reason to be excited about the way things shook out this season is we will most likely get to watch great football. I don’t know what story we’ll come away telling, but I do know that both teams will be ready, and both teams have one very important piece of hardware to win.

Both also have a lot to lose. Georgia just has more.

So even if you don’t have a Dawg in the fight, this is a popcorn-worthy, compelling watch. And if you’re a Georgia fan? Well, if worse comes to worst, just watch out for the boulder on its way down.

Charlotte Wilder is a general columnist and cohost of "The People's Sports Podcast" for FOX Sports. She's honored to represent the constantly neglected Boston area in sports media, loves talking to sports fans about their feelings and is happiest eating a hotdog in a ballpark or nachos in a stadium. Follow her on Twitter @TheWilderThings.