Alabama raced out to a 28-0 lead on Georgia and probably felt pretty close to being able to put the game on cruise control. The Bulldogs had other ideas.

After converting some key plays, Georgia scored three straight touchdowns in the fourth quarter to take the lead.

“When you face a really good football team you know there’s going to be a strong push,” Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said. “That’s what I would expect from us if we were ever in a spot. We’re going to fight till the very end. I’d expect our guys to go make plays.”

Georgia’s did. Enough to take that lead with just a few minutes remaining in the contest.

DeBoer did his best to explain what happened after the game.

“Sometimes in their situation, really on their heels and really just throwing it up and kind of that urgency that they needed to have and a couple plays go your way, those are the sparks. That’s what happened,” he said. “They did a nice job converting on some fourth downs. I think that was really the story in the second half was those fourth-down calls, fourth-down plays. We get one or two of those really the game looks different I think in the second half.”

Even the way it played out, Alabama was able to weather the storm against Georgia and stay locked in down the stretch. The team did just enough, with Ryan Williams’ long touchdown sealing the deal.

“But yeah, those are the battles,” DeBoer said. “We know that that’s what each and every week is going to be. People are going to bring their best shot to us, and that’s the SEC. Again, proud of our guys and the way they kept responding.

“It wasn’t like oh the next play was, or the next drive, was always perfect. But we did play team football, I thought covered for each other. We got some takeaways, got a field goal, special teams did a nice job there. Of course there was some letdowns and we all saw what some of those were too.”

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