Georgia deserves credit for gutsy win over Alabama, but Crimson Tide QB Keelon Russell has us hoping for a rematch

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The controversy over an uncalled pass interference penalty had dissolved into the night, a subdued version of "Dixieland Delight" had been played inside Bryant-Denny Stadium and Georgia had kneeled out the final two minutes of a 20-17 victory that cemented the Bulldogs as the nation's new No. 1 team .

Then, amidst the mass of bodies lingering at midfield, an Alabama player wearing No. 12 stood off to the side as an ABC camera crew interviewed Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton.

It was his counterpart, Alabama's emerging superstar Keelon Russell.

Russell waited patiently for a couple minutes as Stockton finished, long after most of his Alabama teammates had made a beeline for the locker room. Then, once the cameras were clear, Russell approached Stockton for a handshake and a congratulatory embrace. After more than three intense hours on opposite sidelines, it was the first time they had ever met face-to-face.

"He was awesome," Stockton said. "I've tried to do better with that, trying to go shake the other quarterback's hand no matter what. Seeing that at a younger age is pretty special."

Special just like this game. Just like this rivalry. Just like this entire, out-of-control college football season where it seems like every weekend is both a revelation and a contradiction.

So what do we make of a game so close, filled with so much emotion and played on the edge of brutality to the point where Georgia coach Kirby Smart came to his postgame press conference talking like a philosophy professor?

Here's one possible takeaway: Georgia won the battle, but because of the quarterback who so graciously accepted his defeat Saturday night, Alabama might be better positioned to win the war.

"There's no such thing as containing Russell," an exhausted Smart said after his defense survived and advanced to 6-0, knowing there will likely be a second meeting with far more significance somewhere down the line. "That kid is an elite athlete, an elite player. Hopefully we affected him some tonight, and he didn't have some of the numbers he's had [previously]. But he's going to be hell in this league for two years."

Indeed, if you can reduce this game to a box score, Georgia probably did as well as anyone could hope for against Russell: 16-of-30 passing for 185 yards and a touchdown. Including the four times Georgia sacked him, Russell netted only 41 rushing yards on nine attempts.

But the eye test told a different story. As good as Georgia's defense is — and make no mistake, it's arguably as elite as it was during the Bulldogs' championship runs in 2021 and 2022 — there were moments when Russell found the tiniest sliver of space and looked like a video game quarterback after someone smashed the turbo button.

He is breathtaking. He is frightening. And if these teams meet in December or January in a game where the loser goes home, are you really prepared to bet against that guy with a couple more months of experience under his belt?

Go ahead and start the debate. Would you rather have Stockton, the gritty, steady veteran who doesn't have the world's highest ceiling but usually seems to make the play Georgia needs exactly when they need it? Or, in a one-and-done playoff setting, would you rather have the electric, unlimited upside of a quarterback who you can look at and wonder at this early stage of development if he one day might be one of the greats?

Smart has his answer. He also has no choice.

"It's a deal that you get better with experience," he said of Stockton, who rebounded from an early tipped pass interception from his own 25-yard line to finish 18-of-22 for 249 yards. "He doesn't let things fester and affect him.

"I've been in a bunch of those with them and they all seem similar. Physical game, back and forth, critical calls, critical situations. You can go back and look at hundreds of them. At the end of the day our quarterback played well enough to win and we scored enough points to win."

But anyone making an honest assessment of what happened Saturday has to acknowledge how close Russell came to pulling off his first legendary win in an Alabama uniform. With 3:28 left and Alabama driving to either tie or take the lead, Russell directed a rainbow toward the end zone in the direction of a streaking Rico Scott, who had beaten his defender down the sideline.

Before the pass arrived, safety KJ Bolden ran across the goal line and shoved Scott without playing the ball — a clear pass interference infraction. But no penalty was called, much to the dismay of the Alabama sideline. Russell got sacked on the next play to take Alabama out of field goal range, and the Crimson Tide never got the ball back.

"This can be a really hard place to play," Georgia receiver London Humphreys said. "You can get rattled if something doesn't go your way. But these guys just put their head down and they did what they had to do and executed it like our standard."

Did Georgia deserve to win the game? Absolutely. But did that no-call cost Alabama an outstanding shot to steal it? Also, yes.

And so it sets up the delicious potential for a second meeting somewhere down the line, and as Smart understands, college football has never been more week-to-week. You can't consistently dominate anymore, and you can tell the thought of playing more of these exhausts him.

"Humility is a week away as you saw today," Smart said, referring to Texas and LSU going down in big upsets.

Then he continued with something you don't hear much from Smart after a big game like this: Introspection.

He came into the league as a Nick Saban-coded football maniac whose sole purpose, it seemed, was to win Georgia's first national championship since 1980. Sometimes in those early years, Smart was so intense about it that it seemed like he froze in the biggest games. As he reaches his 50th year of life, though, with all the money and all the accomplishments he ever dreamed of, he is thinking about the bigger picture.

"I was talking to my mom earlier today and I've got perspective things," he said, raising the topic unprompted. "I'm going to be judged on my kids, my wife, my mom, what kind of man I am. And I look at that a lot more than what someone is going to say about a record against Alabama or against the SEC or national championships. That's not my motivation anymore. I'd rather make memories for my team and our kids and my coaching staff."

But when a follow-up question came and the reporter suggested that he isn't motivated to win championships anymore, he immediately shut that down.

"I'm motivated to win championships," he said. "I worked for Mark Richt and Bobby Bowden and it was never just about the wins and losses. It was about the young men you're growing. Hell yeah I want to win championships, but I have a lot more perspective to know there's a lot more important things in life than just that."

Georgia proved Saturday night it is good enough to do it. But it also saw the team — and particularly the quarterback — that might be good enough to prevent it.