Alabama picked behind Georgia in SEC poll. Motivation for the Tide?
For the first time since 2015, Alabama football wasn’t chosen to win the SEC championship in the league’s annual media days poll. That year, the Crimson Tide were behind Auburn at the top of the poll, despite being chosen to win the SEC West ahead of the Tigers.
For 2023, Nick Saban’s bunch fell behind two-time defending national title winner Georgia. It’s a sign of former UA offensive coordinator Kirby Smart’s recent run of domination moving Georgia to Alabama’s former place at the top of the sport, at least in the minds of assembled media members.
Even so, the Bulldogs aren’t what inspires Alabama linebacker Dallas Turner.
“I wouldn’t really say it’s any type of motivation because we are our own motivation,” Turner said Wednesday in Nashville. “We want to be a better team… Georgia, they have a very good program, you know winning back-to-back national championships. I can’t take it away from them, but they’re Georgia and we’re Alabama.”
UA offensive tackle JC Latham was outspoken about his desire for the Crimson Tide to return to its national title-winning ways this season. In contrast to Turner, he said there was motivation in the college football world’s perception of Georgia.
Latham said he’s watched the replay of the Bulldogs walloping TCU in the national championship game “time and time again.”
“I know our guys, we can compete with them,” Latham said. “Just seeing them win, just understands, like, I’m not disrespecting them at all. I think they deserved to win. They’ve worked really hard.I know our guys deserve to have that platform as well. Just seeing them take the stage and take the opportunity that we knew was up for grabs, that we could have taken, just fuel to the fire.”
The Crimson Tide have watched Smart and Georgia build up a budding dynasty after it last won the title after the 2020 season. That can be frustrating for a team accustomed to the success Saban has led them to since his first Alabama championship in 2009.
Alabama’s head coach stuck to his longtime stance on winning when he took the podium. According to Saban, his team will focus on how it gets back to achieving its goals, instead of paying attention to preseason expectations.
“Expectations in some way are a premeditated way to create disappointment,” Saban said “I think you can look at it in your life and that’s why I say we need to say process-oriented, not focused on the outcome, but focused on the things that we need to do to get the outcome that we want.”
The Crimson Tide earned 62 votes for SEC champion, compared to Georgia’s 181. Alabama narrowly edged out LSU in the SEC West poll, garnering 1,899 points and 165 first-place votes against the Tigers’ 1,838 and 117.
Alabama also had 16 players selected for preseason all-SEC teams.
The Tide will open the 2023 season on Sept. 2 against Middle Tennessee State at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Alabama and Georgia will not meet in the regular season this year.