ATLANTA — No. 9 Alabama football fell to No. 3 Georgia 28-7 in the SEC Championship on Saturday evening.

The large margin of defeat puts the Crimson Tide’s College Football Playoff hopes in jeopardy, and if the committee isn’t convinced of Alabama’s full-season resumé, Selection Sunday would eliminate UA from a spot in the 12-team field for the second consecutive season.

There were numerous reasons for Alabama’s downfall in the 2025 SEC Championship. Here are three factors that impacted the result.

The Third Down Paradox

This was Alabama’s second meeting with Georgia this year, as the Crimson Tide took the Bulldogs down 24-21 in Athens, Ga., in late September. One of the biggest takeaways from that game was that UA started the game converting all seven of its third-down attempts.

Fast forward to Saturday in Atlanta, Alabama really struggled to find the first-down marker. The Crimson Tide finish 3 of 13 on third-down attempts—a massive difference from the first game. Additionally, Simpson and company also went nearly 23 minutes without a first down at one point in this game.

Converting third downs was one of Simpson’s top keys to success from this past Monday, but the Crimson Tide’s failure in this stat category played a big part in determining the outcome.

“We’re just one or two things away from having a big play,” Simpson said. “I think credit to Georgia’s defense, they did a good job. We just got to make the easy things easy. I felt like to be good on third down, we got to be better on first and second down.”

Key Pregame Loss Impacts Blocked Punt

Alabama football released its initial availability report on Wednesday evening ahead of the SEC Championship game in Atlanta, and there was a surprising name listed.

Crimson Tide BANDIT LT Overton was listed as “out” for Saturday’s game against Georgia due to an illness. Overton plays a role on punt coverage, and his absence led to a blocked punt in the first quarter. Four plays and 21 yards later, Georgia would open the scoring and the Bulldogs had the momentum from then on.

“I can tell you exactly what happened [on the blocked punt],” DeBoer said during the postgame press conference. “We got a new face in the spot. Obviously that’s LT Overton’s position. Just tell you what it is. There’s a check we got to make. You got a new face in that spot. That’s what happened.

“Again, getting guys more reps, getting guys back out there makes a big deal. I don’t fault our guys that were in that spot, doing everything they can. But there’s a check we got to make, one we make all season long. We missed it. They got an extra hat that we couldn’t block.”

Alabama Would Look ‘Considerably Different’ Without Injuries

Alabama came into Saturday a bit banged up, as eight players didn’t suit up. Crimson Tide running back Jam Miller and tight end Josh Cuevas missed this game, and left guard Kam Dewberry was dressed but didn’t see action on the field.

In addition to these three and the aforementioned LT Overton, Alabama had few more players not fully healthy, and DeBoer listed them off.

“You talk about Parker Brailsford, who if you give these guys two weeks to get ready, what the health will look like for these guys, Parker Brailsford, Germ [Bernard], Daniel Hill, I’m not saying what he’s playing through, but two weeks, it will be a different Daniel Hill, okay?

You execute or you have a lack of execution in games because you probably didn’t have everyone out there working together in practice. So Dewberry will be back, 100 percent, I mean, he was at the end of the week. Geno [VanDeMark] would be back. He got taken out of the game there. He’ll be back. I can keep going on down the line.

More reps for our other running backs. Fully expect to have Jam back. Two of our three losses are when Jam doesn’t play. Really not a chance that he felt like he could play today. He’s not that far away. It’s not the one, to me, injury that keeps you out, holds you back. Even a chance to — could be tight, but a chance even Kevin Riley. That might be a little bit tight, just to be real with you.

“There’s a lot of guys. I think that’s what it really comes down to, is playing with their guys. We got into this game today. The execution just wasn’t quite as crisp. There’s usually a reason for that. Again, defensively the same thing. Kelby Collins, LT, Z.B. (Zabien Brown) in the game today dinged up. Dijon a little bit before the game with an evaluation we had where we had to hold off.

“All those guys in two weeks, considerably different football team, the one you would have seen earlier in the season.”

TideBits

• Alabama only lost one game by more than two scores in the entire Nick Saban era over 17 seasons (44-16 loss to Clemson in CFP title). Alabama has lost a game by 21 points in both of Kalen DeBoer’s first two seasons: 2024 Oklahoma (24-3), tonight to Georgia (28-7).

• Alabama had won nine of its last 10 games against Georgia coming into Saturday. This includes the last four in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

• Former Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley was honored before the game as part of the 2025 SEC Legends Class. The 5-time Pro Bowler retired from the NFL on June 19 after 11 years. While at Alabama, Mosley was a two-time BCS National Champion, two-time Consensus All-American and two-time First Team All-SEC member (all in 2012 and 2013). Mosley also earned both the Butkus Award (best linebacker) and the SEC Defensive Player of the Year award in 2013.

• Announced attendance was 77,247

• Alabama Captains: quarterback Ty Simpson, center Parker Brailsford, defensive tackle Tim Keenan III and linebacker Deontae Lawson.

Officials:

• Referee: Daniel Gautreaux
• Umpire: Walt Hill
• Referee: Daniel Gautreaux
• Head Linesman: Carl Giola
• Line Judge: Jeremiah Harris
• Back Judge: Peter Buchanan
• Field Judge: Phillip Davenport
• Side Judge: Victor Sanchez
• Center Judge: Marc Curles
• Replay Official: David Almand

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