📡 Alabama Crimson Tide not ready yet to call Georgia Bulldogs a rival

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Alabama Crimson Tide not ready yet to call Georgia Bulldogs a rival

Alabama Crimson Tide not ready yet to call Georgia Bulldogs a rival DawgNation

ATLANTA – Damien Harris is a senior running back for Alabama and a locker room leader on that team. One need only hear Harris’ response Wednesday to the self-proclamation of Kentucky’s Benny Snell a day earlier that Snell is the best running back in the SEC to understand how Harris’ sensibilities reflect those of the Crimson Tide and their serious-minded head coach.

Asked if he had heard about Snell’s comments, Harris said succinctly, “Yes ma’am, I did.”

Asked if he cared to comment on it, he said, “no,” and he did so looking forward without making eye contact with the questioner.

Alabama’s student-athlete representation at SEC Football Media Days on Wednesday was similarly disengaged when it came to most matters that came up for discussion. That included the lingering effects of last year’s scintillating national championship matchup with Georgia about a half-mile away at Mercedes-Benz Stadium from where they were sitting on Wednesday. Specifically, many wondered what that game might have done to move the Bulldogs up on Bama’s totem pole of anticipated opposition.

Polls heading into Thursday’s final day of Media Days, in which the attendees will vote on a projected order of finish and predict divisional and overall champions, show Georgia and Alabama coming in as runaway favorites.

“I wouldn’t consider them a rival, no,” said Harris of the Bulldogs. “I consider them another great program in a great conference. But it doesn’t matter who we play. If we make it (to the SEC championship game) and end up playing them again, so be it. But we’re not focused on who we play; more so how we play.”

Harris, a 5-foot-11, 223-pound senior, was 1,000-yard rusher (on the nose) last year. He was limited to 17 on six carries in the title game against Georgia. Alabama won 26-23 on a 42-yard touchdown pass in overtime.

The Bulldogs (13-2) were, of course, SEC champions. Alabama (13-1) made the finals after getting an at-large bid into the playoffs as the No. 4 seed. Auburn won the West.

Like most players still on the Tide’s roster, Harris recognizes the good work Kirby Smart has done his first two years in Athens. But he’s not surprised by it.

“We kind of expected that,” Harris said. “I was here when Kirby Smart was (at Alabama) and he was a great defensive coordinator for us. When we found out he was going to Georgia, we knew he’d be about to turn that program around and put them into an elite position. That’s exactly what he’s done. All respect in the world for him and his program. They do things the right way and it was great to be able to play against them in the national championship.”

Anfernee Jennings also knows Smart well. The 6-3, 262-pound linebacker had Smart as a position coach and coordinator his first two seasons at Alabama.

“Georgia’s definitely a great team. Great players, great coaches,” said Jennings, who missed the title tilt against the Bulldogs due to an injury suffered the previous week against Clemson. “They definitely are trying to turn that program around. I’m looking forward to seeing what their season holds.”

Then, Jennings added: “They’re not a rival though. It’ll just be the next game on the schedule if we get there.”

While they play in different divisions and don’t play each other during the regular season, Bama and the Bulldogs are competing often on the recruiting trail. Georgia has been winning a lot of those battles of late. Its classes have finished Nos. 6, 3 and 1 in the last three national recruiting rankings.

Between that and the possibility of having a rematch of the national title game for the conference championship, one can be sure that CBS and national pundits are rooting for a Georgia-Alabama SEC title tilt.

For now, though, the Crimson Tide chooses to remain decidedly neutral.

“I’m sure people would love to see that,” Harris said. “But that’s not something we’re necessarily focused on.”

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[BamaFan334]

A rival? First off, we don't play them every year or every other year. Second off, they have to beat you here and there in a meaningful ballgame to be a rival. Auburn is the rival and team that checks all of the boxes to me. A lot point to Tennessee, but Auburn is back and forth and actually has stakes. This is coming from a more recent prospective, not one of 50 years of past experience.

 

[TUSKtimes]

Someone, define rival?

 

[TerryP]

Someone, define rival?

So, you're suggesting a different word be used? If we're going by Webster's Bama's rival changes each season; sometime each week.

Off the top of my head it reads something like "a person/thing competing for superiority in the same field of activity." It's along that line to some degree.

If we go by that definition Bama has no rival.

 

[TUSKtimes]

So, you're suggesting a different word be used? If we're going by Webster's Bama's rival changes each season; sometime each week.

Off the top of my head it reads something like "a person/thing competing for superiority in the same field of activity." It's along that line to some degree.

If we go by that definition Bama has no rival.

Works for me. But I was thinking more in the coldblooded layman vernacular. I'm fearful that webster would struggle to make a distinction between Tennessee and Vandy.

The one true rival for me is the one that makes me so much more fearful of losing to that particular team that the thrill of victory over the same team would never, ever, come close to equaling in magnitude. It's the one loss that gives you nowhere to hide, ruins a good meal and good association and can make a body aprehensive even about letting yourself be seen in your own neighborhood. So overwheming is that loss that it gives a person an almost complete amnesia toward any prosperity that is actually, otherwise, going on in your life. (Like publisher's clearhouse finally showing up at my door, birth of a new grandchild, etc). When that loss occurs, it will completely stop any consideration of me reading any outside articles or watching any segment of the SEC on ESPN about the Crimson Tide for at least a month.

Such is the devastation of such a real SEC rival.