Alabama beat Georgia in overtime to win college football’s national championship on Monday in Atlanta, 26-23. The Tide’s dream night was almost a nightmare.
Alabama beat Georgia despite shanking this 36-yard field goal that would’ve won earlier
This would’ve been a historic miss if Bama had lost.
Alabama kicker Andy Pappanastos missed a 36-yard field goal as regulation expired in Monday’s National Championship against Georgia. That kick would’ve won the game had it gone through. Instead, the teams went to overtime at 20-20.
Alabama replaced starting quarterback Jalen Hurts at halftime, bringing on five-star freshman Tua Tagovailoa. It was Tagovailoa who brought the Tide back with help from his defense, leading what wold’ve been a game-winning drive that covered 48 yards in nine plays. The missed kick gave the Dawgs life again after blowing a big lead.
Tagovailoa deflated the Dawgs for good with this 41-yard OT pass to DeVonta Smith:
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The first half was all Georgia.
The Bulldogs led 13-0 at the break, tying for the biggest halftime deficit Alabama has faced under Saban. (The other time was the 2013 season’s Sugar Bowl, which the Tide lost to Oklahoma by two touchdowns.) UGA ran 47 plays to Bama’s 24 and held the ball for 19 of the first 30 minutes, casually grinding the Tide down in a way Alabama has become accustomed to doing to others.
The halftime quarterback change sparked Bama’s offense, with Tagovailoa leading a touchdown drive on his second series. That possession included this impossible-looking scramble for a conversion on a third-and-7.
That set up Tagovailoa’s touchdown pass to fellow true freshman Henry Ruggs III. Georgia answered immediately, though, with an 80-yard bomb from another true freshman quarterback — Jake Fromm — to Mecole Hardman.
Georgia’s bench earned a sideline interference penalty on that play, but it didn’t nullify the touchdown because that’s considered a dead-ball foul from the succeeding spot. Hardman was ruled not to have gone out of bounds on the play, either.
The Tide hung around, though. They stitched together field goal drives on two of three possessions over about 10 minutes between the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth. That got the Tide to within a touchdown with 9:24 to play, setting up the kind of interesting finish this game always deserved.
Bama finally pulled even with 3:49 to play. On a fourth-and-4 from the Georgia 7-yard line, Tagovailoa left the pocket and found a roving Calvin Ridley 5 yards deep in the end zone for the tying score. The game hadn’t been even since it was 0-0, 40 minutes of clock time earlier. It stayed that way into overtime, where Bama triumphed.
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