Georgia-Alabama football rivalry: Looking back historic matchups between the Bulldogs and Crimson Tide
ATLANTA - Another installment in the epic rivalry between the Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama Crimson Tide is set for Monday night in Indianapolis, and the stakes are as high as can be.
Georgia will have faced Alabama in two of the previous five College Football Playoff National Championship games by Monday Night's kickoff in Lucas Oil Stadium.
Georgia Bulldogs football fans perhaps don't need a reminder that Alabama has the recent edge in the rivalry. The Georgia Bulldogs are in the midst of the football team's longest historic losing streak to Alabama, dating back to September 2008.
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This matchup might feel different for Georgia football fans, though, since the Bulldogs are favored by some sportsbooks to win the National Championship.
The Georgia Bulldogs are 25-42-4 against the Alabama Crimson Tide all-time. Here's a look back at eras of matchups between Alabama and Georgia:
Georgia, Alabama's first recorded college football matchup
Georgia's record vs. Alabama from 1895-1909: 2-3-3
Georgia won the first-ever recorded meeting between the two teams, 35-0. There are four ties between Georgia and Alabama in 71 total matchups; three of those ties came in the first seven recorded games between the teams.
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Georgia's longest winning streak against Alabama
Georgia's record vs. Alabama from 1910-1920: 6-1
The 1910s saw the Bulldogs' longest-ever winning streak against the Crimson Tide.
Georgia won five consecutive games against Alabama from October 1910 to November 1916.
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Pre-Southeastern Conference matchups
Georgia's record vs. Alabama from 1921-1932: 3-7
In the final decade-or-so before the formation of the Southeastern Conference, Alabama out-scored Georgia 177-66.
Georgia lost five straight games from 1922 to 1926. The Crimson Tide shut out the Bulldogs in three of those games.
Alabama is recognized as college football national champions in 1925 and 1926. It was the first Crimson Tide dynasty, so to speak.
Southeastern Conference is born
Georgia's record vs. Alabama from 1934-1940: 0-2
The first two meetings between the Georgia and Alabama football teams as members of the newly-formed Southeastern Conference when in favor of Alabama.
The conference looked different than it does today. It included New Orleans-based Tulane and now Atlantic Coast Conference affiliate Georgia Tech.
Rivalry becoming tradition
Georgia's record vs. Alabama from 1941-1965: 8-15-1
The Georgia and Alabama football teams played each season from 1941 to 1965 — except in 1943.
Alabama won three national championships during that stretch under legendary head coach Bear Bryant.
Georgia was the only team to beat Alabama during its 1965 National Championship season. That season the Bulldogs were led by their own legendary head coach: Vince Dooley. It was Dooley's second season as Georgia's head football coach.
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The Vince Dooley Years
Georgia's record vs. Alabama from 1972-1985: 2-4
Georgia and Alabama didn't meet on the gridiron for seven years after the 1965 season.
The Bulldogs went 1-3 against Alabama in the '70s before the rivalry went on hiatus again.
In 1980, the Dooley-led Bulldogs were declared National Champions. Georgia hasn't finished a season on top of the college football universe since that season.
Georgia and Alabama faced each other twice in the '80s, slitting the series.
Transitions in coaching
Georgia's record vs. Alabama from 1990-1995: 1-3
Alabama and Georgia each saw multiple coaching changes beginning in the late '80s and through the 90s.
Georgia finished the season ranked in the Associated Press top 25 seven times during that span, but the Bulldogs' highest finish was No. 8 in 1992.
That year, Alabama ran the table and finished with another national championship. It would be 17 years before the Crimson Tide would win their next one.
Georgia bests Alabama at the turn of the millennium
Georgia's record vs. Alabama 2002-2008: 3-1
Alabama's superiority over Georgia in college football didn't always seem like a guarantee.
Georgia won its first three meetings against the Southeastern Conference foe under Head Coach Mark Richt. Georgia's first two wins over Alabama in the 2000s were prior to Head Coach Nick Saban's arrival in Tuscaloosa. Richt's Bulldogs matched up against Mike Shula's Crimson Tide and swept a home-and-away series between the two programs: 27-25 in 2002 and 37-23 in 2003.
The first meeting between Richt's Bulldogs and Nick Saban's was a 26-23 overtime win for Georgia in Tuscaloosa in 2007, Saban's first season as head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide. Georgia lost to Alabama in Athens the following year. That loss was the beginning of Alabama's current seven-game winning streak vs. Georgia.
Crimson Tide edge Bulldogs in championship games
Georgia's record vs. Alabama from 2012-2021: 0-6
ATLANTA, GA - DECEMBER 04: General action during the SEC Championship game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Georgia Bulldogs on December 04, 2021, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. (Photo by Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire via Getty Image (Getty Images)
The pain of the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship game is perhaps fresher to Georgia Bulldogs football fans than the team's most recent defeat in the 2021 Southeastern Conference Championship.
Four of the last seven games between the teams have been at "neutral" sites — all four games were held in Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium or the Georgia Dome.
Georgia lost the 2012 SEC Championship game on a snap from the red zone with time expiring. Georgia led in the fourth quarter but Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron led the Crimson Tide on a go-ahead scoring drive that left Georgia with 3:15 to score, needing a touchdown. Alabama went on to beat Notre Dame in the BCS National Championship game. Georgia won the Capital One Bowl over Nebraska.
Georgia met Alabama in a championship game in Atlanta just more than five years later. Alabama won the National Championship game on Jan. 9, 2018, in overtime when quarterback Tua Tagovailoa connected with wide receiver and future Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith on a 41-yard pass.
Georgia lost two more SEC Championship matchups to Alabama in 2018 and 2021. Georgia led 28-21 in the fourth quarter of the 2018 SEC Championship before Alabama rallied to win. Georgia's most-recent matchup with Alabama in the 2021 SEC Championship is the only loss the Bulldogs suffered this season.
Georgia also went 0-2 in regular-season games against Alabama in 2015 and 2020.
Historic games and data courtesy of University of Georgia sports communications and College Football Reference.