Sports Illustrated's Pat Forde predicts the final score of showdown between Alabama and Georgia

The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Georgia Bulldogs will face off in Athens on Saturday night in one of the most highly anticipated games of the 2025 college football season.

Alabama, which is 2-1 so far this season with a loss to Florida State, is looking to make it three wins in a row against the Bulldogs.

Georgia, meanwhile, is looking to avenge last season's surprising loss to the Crimson Tide and move to 4-0 on the season.

Sports Illustrated's Pat Forde predicts the final score of Alabama vs Georgia

Sports Illustrated's Pat Forde made his score prediction this week for Alabama vs Georgia and he doesn't have the Bulldogs avenging their loss.

Forde predicts that Alabama will beat Georgia 30 to 27.

"The best current coach in college football (Smart) has fainting spells against the Crimson Tide—he’s 107–13 against the rest of college football and 1–6 against Bama," wrote Forde. "What used to be a Nick Saban hang-up transferred to Kalen DeBoer last year."

I understand where Forde's coming from when it comes to Smart's struggles against Alabama. History suggests that Bama will win this game.

But Alabama's win against Georgia last season feels like a fluke in retrospect. And the Crimson Tide haven't proved much this season -- Bama's win against Wisconsin doesn't look very impressive after the Badgers were smacked around at home by Maryland (the Terps won 27-10 last weekend).

Plus there's the Kirby Smart revenge factor. You know he'll have his team motivated and ready to go for this game. Smart knows what folks are saying about his lack of success against Alabama. But this isn't Nick Saban's Alabama anymore -- Smart has the coaching advantage in every possible way.

We'll see what happens on Saturday night in Athens. I don't agree with Forde's prediction, but maybe he'll be right. You never know in this crazy sport.

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