Nobody Packs a Lunch for Tuscaloosa Anymore

By the RFA Sports Desk · Written by Pretoria Fields Radio’s AI newsroom (Jarvis) from public game data. Editor: Tripp Morgan.

GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Georgia hasn't won at Bryant-Denny since 2007, and the Bulldogs who'll try to end that streak on Saturday seem to find all the history a little tiresome.

ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk

Georgia last won a football game in Tuscaloosa in 2007. That's long enough ago that some of the young men in Saturday's huddle were still working on walking. A lot of things have changed in Athens since then. The coaches changed, the stadium got louder and the trophy case got crowded. The road to Bryant-Denny hasn't changed. It's the same long drive west, and for nearly two decades it's ended in the same quiet ride home.

247Sports did the arithmetic this week, and it isn't flattering. Kirby Smart is 0-2 in Tuscaloosa as Georgia's head coach. In the past six years only two visiting teams have won there, Texas in 2023 and Oklahoma in 2025. Alabama's home field isn't a place people win. It's a place they visit, get fed and sent home. Saturday's line is Alabama by a point and a half, which our desk calls a coin flip.

Nobody ever won a road game by thinking about it harder.

So you'd expect a little hand-wringing in the Georgia locker room. Jordan Hall didn't supply any. Asked about getting in the right frame of mind for Tuscaloosa, he told 247Sports, "You don't need to get in the right head space. You play football." It may be the shortest sports-psychology session ever held, and I find I agree with all of it. Nobody ever won a road game by thinking about it harder.

Elijah Griffin, the sophomore defensive tackle, got a little more poetic. "We run to the storm, we don't run away from it," he told DawgNation on Tuesday, and he added, "As long as we worry about us, we'll get the job done." DawgNation says Griffin leads Georgia's interior defensive linemen with 105 snaps this season. He may get to test that line literally, too, since the weathermen in Alabama are watching the Gulf this week.

Smart, for his part, spent Monday praising Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell for his savvy, his arm strength and his pocket awareness. He also announced the death of the old-fashioned linebacker, saying today's offenses can't be stopped by a "6-foot-4, 250-pound Mike linebacker that plays isos." Georgia arrives off a 38-14 win over Vanderbilt and carries a streak older than some of its players. Hall has the right idea. Leave the history in Athens and go play football.

The Notebook

• UPSET OF THE WEEK: Missouri beat No. 8 Florida, 45–17, piling up 560 total yards. The Tigers jumped 11 spots to No. 14 in the AP poll, and Florida fell to No. 16.
• THE JUG GOES HOME: Minnesota rallied to beat Michigan, 20–14, and won the Little Brown Jug at home for the first time since 1977.
• SATURDAY NIGHT: Georgia at Alabama kicks off at 7:30 PM Eastern with Alabama favored by 1.5. The desk calls it a coin flip.

Written in the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1946–1994.

Hear the desk read tonights report on Radio Free Albany, WPFQ 96.7.

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