The College Football Playoff’s national championship will be on the line tonight when Alabama takes on Georgia in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The game kicks off at 8 p.m. on ESPN. The network’s pre-game coverage has probably already started, but the official pre-game show begins at 5.
Alabama is seeking an unprecedented 11th national championship. Head coach Nick Saban has led the Crimson Tide to five titles since 2009. On the opposing sideline is one of Saban’s former assistants — Kirby Smart, who was Saban’s defensive coordinator in Tuscaloosa from 2007 to 2015.
Saban, you might have heard, is 11-0 in games coached by his former assistants, but Smart has studied under him the longest.
Here is ESPN’s Ultimate Championship Preview.
And here’s FOX Sports’ take.
Out of the 41 ESPN experts who weighed in on tonight’s title game, all but seven are picking Alabama.
Yahoo Sports’ panel of experts is also pro-Tide; three out of four say Alabama wins tonight.
The bettors are siding with the Crimson Tide, too, ESPN says. Alabama is a 3.5- to 4-point favorite tonight.
Tonight’s showdown is kind of like Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber duel with Obi-wan Kenobi at the end of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, according to The Ringer. (How’s that for a non-traditional game preview?)
If that preview wasn’t weird enough for you, Sports Illustrated says the whole thing could come down to the punters. (Really!)
Is Georgia about to become the next Alabama under Smart? Bleacher Report says yes.
