The Big One: Georgia, Alabama, and Me
Georgia vs. Alabama. Here we go again...
In lieu of the normal Friday Daily Digest, please enjoy a special-edition blog ahead of the SEC Championship. As always, thank you so much for reading. Love y’all.
Tomorrow afternoon, the Georgia Bulldogs will play the Alabama Crimson Tide.
This is a really important game to me, and it always has been—in my 24 years of life, there has never been a meeting between these two teams that didn’t have a deeply profound effect on my emotional well-being. Tomorrow will not be an exception.
This game represents the four generations of college football fanaticism that I directly descended from. On either side of my family tree, there are fans and graduates of both universities—most of whom will be watching the game from Heaven tomorrow.
Let’s make this abundantly clear: I am a Georgia fan.
On the byline of this very blog, you’ll see that my name is accompanied by the roman numeral “III”. Of course, this means that I am the third of my name. My namesakes are my father and my grandfather, both of whom are graduates of the University of Georgia.
Without diving too deep (and to avoid crying on my keyboard), I’ll just put it this way: college football is one of the most cherished, meaningful, and important aspects of my life. And without those two men with whom I share my name, that would not be the case.
I was raised to be a Damn Good Dawg, and I’m very proud to carry on the tradition that my grandfather started. Thanks, Pop Pop.
Although my heart is red-and-black, Crimson also runs through my blood. This comes from my mother’s side of the family.
The Alabama connection stems from my great-grandfather, Jimmy Harland.
Long-story-short, Jimmy Harland was responsible for establishing a recruiting pipeline from Southern Arkansas to Tuscaloosa back in the 1930s. His recruits included future Pro Hall-of-Famer Don Hutson, as well as young man named Paul “Bear” Bryant.
Bear Bryant wrote about my great-grandfather in his memoir.
He stated that Tide rosters were filled with Arkansans “Because of the influence of Jimmy Harland, who owned a pool hall in Pine Bluff where the school kids hung out… Our 1935 Rose Bowl team was loaded with Harland recruits—Don Hutson, Charlie Marr, Bill Young, Happy Campbell, Leroy Goldberg, Joe Dildy, Dutch King, and Me.”
I wouldn’t know about this connection without the help of my Uncle Ross. He is the one who taught me about the Crimson in our blood, and he went out of his way to carry on the Harland tradition—Ross has taken me to dozens of Alabama games over the years, and I’m so thankful for him.
Throughout my adolescence, Georgia endured an unbearable shitload of heartbreak—almost exclusively at the hands of Alabama. My Bama heritage never made it easier to endure. Speaking from personal experience: It sucked.
-Alabama began its 13-year run of kicking our ass in 2008. This was when #3 Georgia came out in their infamous black uniforms, only to get incinerated by Julio Jones and Glen Coffee. Bama led 31-0 at halftime, and it was one of the most embarrassing losses in UGA program history.
-Then there was the 2012 SEC Championship, when Aaron Murray and Chris Conley fell three yards and one second short of UGA’s first-ever BCS National Championship appearance. I cried myself to sleep that night, and it hurt even more when Alabama steamrolled Notre Dame a month later.
-There was also the 2017-18 National Championship and 2018-19 SEC Championship, in which Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts respectively led Alabama to last-minute comeback victories over the Kirby Smart-led Dawgs. Those were the darkest, most hopeless days for me, and I know that many Dawg fans feel the same.
-The 2021 SEC Championship was a case of different year, same heartbreak. Georgia was the #1 team in the country, and it had just gone 12-0 with one of the greatest defenses in the history of college football. None of that mattered to Bryce Young, who diced up the Dawgs and led Alabama to another conference title.
One month later, they played a rematch in Indianapolis, with the National Championship on the line.
Watching that game with my dad felt like a hostage situation. For four hours that night, there was no oxygen in our living room. He and I didn’t speak much at all. We didn’t celebrate big plays. We just sat nervously in our recliners; squirming and hoping and praying.
I’ll never forget the emotions we felt when Kelee Ringo sealed the game with a pick-six. I just looked at my dad, hugged him, and let all those years of heartbreak flow right out of my tear ducts. We did it. We finally fucking did it.
This year will feel different. Ever since that night in Indianapolis, Georgia has not lost a single game, and they picked up a second National Championship in a row last season.
The Dawgs—not the Tide—are now playing the role of Evil Empire, and it feels kinda weird.
On paper, Georgia should win tomorrow. This year’s Alabama team has been uncharacteristically sloppy, losing to Texas at home and needing a 4th-and-31 touchdown prayer to narrowly beat Auburn last week.
I don’t care what the stats tell us. This game makes me sick to my stomach, and it will for the rest of my life. Despite his apparent passing of the torch to Kirby Smart, I will never feel confident going into a game against Nick Saban’s Alabama. There’s just too much heartbreak in my memory bank.
Tomorrow at 4:00pm, my dad and I will be in the same recliners, in that same oxygen-less living room, with the same anxiety that we had in 2012, 2018, 2019, and 2021. Ready for war.
We won’t be the only ones in the room. In fact, we’ll be joined by Jimmy Harland, and Pop Pop, and all the other relatives wearing red-and-black or crimson-and-white in Heaven. And you can bet your ass they’ll be just as anxious as we are.