Georgia and Alabama are not rivals. The two lack the shared history that say Georgia-Florida or Alabama-Tennessee do.

But the two foes don’t just see each other as some other SEC opponent either. Since Kirby Smart became head coach at Georgia, the teams have met five times. Only one of those came in the regular season.

Two of those games were national championships, with each side winning one. For it to really be a rivalry, both sides have to win and take something from the other.

As it stands, Georgia won’t see Alabama on its SEC schedule in either of the next three seasons. The next time these two teams meet will have to be in either the SEC championship or in the College Football Playoff.

But what about meeting more as regular-season opponents? How about seeing each other on a more frequent basis? Georgia and Alabama have only played home games against each other twice in the past decade, with one coming in 2015 and the other in 2020.

In part that is why the SEC is tinkering with its schedule set-up. The league is weighing two scheduling options, both of which would eliminate divisions and allow teams to see each other on a more regular basis.

One model would see the SEC go to a nine-game schedule, with three permanent foes. The other would be an eight-game format with only one annual opponent.

Nick Saban and KSmart have both expressed wanting to see a nine-game schedule in the past. But a four-team College Football Playoff complicates the matter, especially for the only two teams that have made a playoff without winning their conference.

“As the Playoff number grows, I think there’s more people comfortable with more SEC games, but that’s not the only reason to do it,” Smart said in a recent interview with Paul Finebaum. “The reason to do it is, it’s the best teams playing the best teams, and for viewership, I know our fanbase at Georgia, they want to see us play Texas A&M. We haven’t gone to Texas A&M. It’s a 12 year cycle. They’re going to have the ability to tighten the cycle even more if you play more games.”

More games against the rest of the league mean Georgia and Alabama will meet more regularly during the season.

Given how these two teams accumulate talent, the two figure to be among the top teams in the sport for as long as Saban and Smart are the head coaches of the two programs. It’ll be the closest thing to an NFL game that isn’t the NFL.

For this to become an even bigger matchup, the two need to regularly meet with something on the line. That has been the case since Smart took over the Georgia program in 2016.

It may never rise to a Georgia-Florida level, but give Georgia-Alabama some time and it could become one of the preeminent games in college football. It nearly is that already, but that may have more to do with when the game is played, rather than the two teams themselves.

Beating Alabama means a lot for any program. But for a team that so often came up short against the Crimson Tide, the win in January meant a whole lot for the people in the Georgia program.

“For me, just never beating them, it was just special to me,” running back James Cook said after the national championship game. “I mean, so many games we had them down to the wire and they just came clutching in every moment. I mean, yeah, just beating Alabama is special to me because they’ve got a great coach, great team. I mean, it’s just special.”

If Georgia is able to get a few more wins off Alabama, it may further stoke the flames between these two programs. And that — with some more games against each other — should lead to an even more blossoming rivalry.

What must happen for Georgia football-Alabama to become a rivalry

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