In familiar excruciating fashion, Bulldogs lose to Bama - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Stop us if you have heard this before. No, really, stop us. Because this is the bad commercial jingle that you just can’t get out of your head. The nightmare that recurs over and over again. The kick-in-the-groin blooper video on an endless loop.

Georgia gets a nice lead on Alabama. It looks for all the world like the king is dead. A new order presents itself on the artificial field of Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Then, behind a different quarterback than the one who started the day, Alabama raises from the mat and wins again in the waning moments.

So went another excruciating day in downtown Atlanta for the neighboring Bulldogs. They came-from-ahead to lose Saturday’s SEC Championship game to the unbeaten and top-ranked Crimson Tide 35-28.

Losing wasn’t bad enough. This loss closely followed the tracks of the scar tissue from Georgia’s overtime loss to Bama in the national-championship game here just 11 months ago. This one just poured salt on an excruciating memory.

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Eleven months ago it was Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa bailing out Jalen Hurts in the second half of the national championship.

On Saturday, it was Hurts coming on for an injured Tagovailoa, leading fourth-quarter touchdown drives of 80 and 52 yards to lead the Tide over the Bulldogs.

Only this time throw in a little second-guessing, as it was a decision by Georgia’s Kirby Smart to go for a fake punt on fourth-and-11 with just over two minutes left to play that gave Alabama a shorter field in which to score the winning touchdown.

And it had begun so promisingly for the Bulldogs.

Barely four minutes into the game, Alabama was experiencing a sensation new to it this season – discomfort.

Throwing into the same end zone where 11 months ago his pass play to DeVonta Smith had ended overtime and won a national championship, Tagovailoa was intercepted by Bulldogs safety Richard LeCounte. It was only the third interception this season by the nation’s leader in passing efficiency.

Thus was punctuated the Tide’s first possession of this SEC Championship game, a rare question mark in a season of exclamation points. A chance to establish early dominance went begging. And the Alabama angst was further heightened when Tagovailoa, who had been dealing with a balky knee since early October, ducked into the team’s sideline medical tent seeking attention away from prying eyes.

Tagovailoa emerged fit enough to carry on, although he never seemed quite right the rest of the night. Meanwhile, Georgia went about the business of proving it, too, had a pretty fair quarterback.

In the early going, the Bulldogs found running against Bama a fruitless exercise. The Tide was daring Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm to beat them – and he began obliging.

The Bulldogs’ first score was all about the forward pass, Fromm’s arm accounting for all but two yards of the 60-yard drive. The final strike was a 20-yarder over the middle to tight end Issac Nauta.

In its unbeaten regular season, in which no team had come within three touchdowns of beating it, Alabama had trailed for a grand total of 75 seconds. Georgia would carry an advantage a good deal longer than that. Just not long enough.

In the national-championship game 11 months ago, the Bulldogs led by 13 points at the half (13-0), and carried a 13-point lead 10 minutes into the third quarter.

They would take as much as a 14-point lead Saturday, when back-to-back touchdown drives of 74 and 51 yards put them up 21-7 with just four minutes left in the first half.

The Bulldogs were controlling the ball, possessing it for nearly 21 of the first 30 minutes. Fromm was unerring – over one stretch completing 10 consecutive passes (tying a SEC Championship game record). For the half, he was 14-of-18 passing, 139 yards, two touchdowns. And then Georgia tailback D’Andre Swift began putting his fingerprints all over the stat sheet. He ran for one of those first-half scores – a 9-yard sprint – and caught a pass for another – an 11-yard hook-up.

No team had scored more than 23 points against Alabama this season. And here was Georgia nearly hitting that ceiling in the first 26 minutes of Saturday.

That seemed to be the sharp stick in the eye that the Bama offense needed to rile it up a bit. But even its answering touchdown, just four plays after Swift’s catch made the score 21-7, wasn’t the typical forceful response you’d expect of Alabama. It was as much good fortune as it was good football.

For as Bama’s Josh Jacobs lunged for the goal line, the ball popped loose, raising the specter of a second turnover on the doorstep to a touchdown. But some force of nature kept the ball within Jacobs reach. Laid out, he was able to pull it in and hold it aloft just long enough to make it an Alabama touchdown.

So, here was Georgia, up at halftime against mighty Alabama, looking quite serious about shocking the world. Eleven months ago, that same vision was a mirage. A cruel tease. The necessary build-up to the let-down.

Surely that couldn’t happen again.

Just as surely as Georgia kicker Rodrigo Blankenship couldn’t miss a 30-yard field-goal attempt in the second half (which he did).

The Bulldogs rebuilt the lead to 14 early in the second half when Fromm laid a perfect over-the-shoulder, 23-yard touchdown delivery to Riley Ridley. It wasn’t much of a window Fromm threw into, more a narrow transom.

They blunted one Alabama drive later in the third quarter when safety J.R. Reed intercepted a ball on the Georgia 3-yard line.

And, yet, still that wasn’t enough. Dynasties don’t exactly give way like wet cardboard.

Not even when Tagovailoa, caught up in the backwash of another Georgia rush, had to be helped off the field for the last time with about 12 minutes left to play.

For Hurts was ready for his moment. He led the long drive to tie the score, the Tide scoring on a 10-yard pass to Jerry Jeudy only after Hurts kept the play alive with a long scramble to his right. And, with just a little more than a minute left to play, Hurts’ keeper from 15 yards out was the last dagger in an old wound.

Stop us if it seems you’ve heard any of this before.

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