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Bama News
The SEC Championship race is a competitive two-team fight, per ESPN College GameDay analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who previewed Saturday's Florida-Georgia game on Tuesday night and was direct with his opinion on the Gators' title hopes. Florida is ranked No. 8 this week and has lost three straight to the fifth-ranked Bulldogs.
“I don’t think Florida can play with Alabama, but I do think Georgia can,” Herbstreit said during ESPN's College Football Playoff show. “So they’ve got to find a way to get it going this weekend.”
Alabama is ranked No. 2 in the polls and closed the gap with Clemson in terms of first-place votes after a shutout win over Mississippi State, coupled with the Tigers' recent struggles vs. Syracuse and Boston College.
Host Rece Davis stopped short of that opinion, but pointed at Georgia's usage of quarterback Stetson Bennett and said he'll be the focal point and determining factor in this weekend's showdown.
“Georgia missed a huge opportunity to get (Bennett some confidence) last weekend against Kentucky,” Davis said. “They could’ve given Kentucky the ball on the Georgia 30 every possession and they would never score a touchdown. They could play for three years and they wouldn’t score a touchdown and yet he threw five passes longer than 10 yards downfield.
“You’ve got to get that guy some confidence and they’re going to have to do it on Saturday against Florida. We’ll see.”
Bennett has thrown four interceptions over his past six quarters and attempted a season-low 13 passes against Kentucky.
National media questioned why Bennett was still Georgia's QB1 after the win.
"He went from being everybody’s favorite son to this guy is a bum," Herbstreit said. "That affects your mindset. That affects who you are. They’ve got to get his mojo back and get his confidence back."
Georgia coach Kirby Smart remains confident in Bennett and the offense. The Bulldogs managed 346 yards of offense and 14 points in last week's win over Kentucky, numbers that aren't going to get it done against the Gators.
"I hope one day we get to show it. I hope we get an opportunity to because we get to go against a pretty good defense every day," Smart said after the win in Lexington. "I see them. I see them pass pro. I see them throw and catch the ball. I see them run. I see us play-action.
"I see good things out of our offense, and unfortunately we haven’t been able to see them yet, and a lot of that today was due to a ground-and-pound ball control by them, and a few unfortunate turnovers.”
