ATLANTA — As Oscar Delp came off the field, he had a message to those close enough to hear.
“I’m running out of room on these fingers,” the senior tight end said.
Delp has done a lot of winning in his time at Georgia. He’s got a national championship. Saturday’s SEC championship win was his third in his four-year career.
Yet it was also a first for the veteran tight end. It marked his first-ever win over Alabama, as Georgia came away with a 28-7 victory.
Georgia entered the game 1-7 against Alabama under Kirby Smart. The lone win came in the 2022 National Championship Game.
That too was a rematch where Georgia made some adjustments but really just executed better.
“The defensive staff got those guys to believe and played hard,” Smart said after the game. “They had a little chip on their shoulder. They wanted another shot. We executed better, affected the quarterback more.”
After the win, Smart relayed a story of how Georgia team psychologist Drew Brannon showed how little time the Georgia seniors had left in their college careers.
Brannon then asked everyone in the room to stand up if they had beaten Alabama.
No one stood up. Micah Morris and Cash Jones were the only two members of the team in Indianapolis that day. But neither played in the win.
“I thought it hit right in between the eyes of doing it for the seniors,” Smart said. “So many of them have been through heartbreaking losses that they wanted to do it.”
Georgia wasn’t popping bottles after the win, but it did acknowledge the significance of the moment. The Bulldogs have greater goals ahead, such as winning a national championship.
But getting the Alabama monkey off their back carries real significance for this team.
“It feels great,” linebacker CJ Allen said. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t something we were thinking about going into the game. But it all boiled down to us and making it about us.”
The win should lock up a first-round bye for Georgia, ensuring it will enter the College Football Playoff as one of the top four seeds. The Bulldogs will learn their official path on Sunday, but in all likelihood, Georgia will head to New Orleans to play in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1.
Georgia won the SEC championship a year ago in a much more dramatic fashion. But that proved to be the apex of the season. The Bulldogs would lose the next time they took the field, in New Orleans of all places, against Notre Dame.
If the Bulldogs can replicate how they played on Saturday, they’ll go on a much deeper playoff run. Alabama, the No. 9 team in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings, was held to season lows in yards and points.
Georgia sacked Ty Simpson 3.0 times, picked him off once and knocked around the Alabama defense all game. It was a Georgia team that played like it ain’t afraid of no Alabama ghosts.
“Man it feels good. We had lost to them for years,” linebacker Raylen Wilson said. “Had to get one.”
Offensively, Georgia took advantage of short field and played mostly clean football. Gunner Stockton threw for just 156 yards but unlike Simpson, he played mistake-free football.
Alabama had never lost to Georgia in the SEC championship game. The Bulldogs were 0-4 against Alabama in this building specifically. Those stats and numbers carry less significance moving forward as Georgia now has not just a win but a dominant showing against the Crimson Tide.
As Georgia players streamed off the field and into the locker room, they did so with smiles on their faces. That’s been a rare occurrence in this building against this team.
There were no heads hung low, walking off into the unknown of how to pick up the pieces.
This team is confident, playing its best football of the season. It showed on Saturday as the Bulldogs put to rest a lot of doubts and questions in Atlanta.
“It means everything,” Wilson said. “That’s what we come here for. To play in big games and have this opportunity.”
