Tim Tebow was a junior quarterback at Florida and Urban Meyer still had two more seasons of coaching the Gators the last time an Eastern Division team celebrated after the Southeastern Conference championship game.
Georgia enters Saturday’s showdown in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium seeking its first SEC title since 2005, and a Bulldogs triumph over Auburn would provide the first championship for an East program since Florida rallied past Alabama for a 31-20 win in 2008. Bulldogs second-year coach Kirby Smart was in his first year as Alabama’s defensive coordinator in 2008, and he would go on to help the Crimson Tide win four of Nick Saban’s five conference championships in Tuscaloosa.
“The most physical team usually wins whatever the game is,” Smart said this week in a news conference. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the SEC East or West or in the championship: Physicality is part of the game. It just so happens that the teams from the West have controlled the line of scrimmage more often than the teams from the East.
“That’s an objective in every game, and that won’t ever change. It’s not about the East and West. It’s about the game of football.”
Auburn is a 2.5-point favorite Saturday, marking the eighth consecutive year in which the West champion has been pegged to win in the eyes of Las Vegas oddsmakers. Alabama won the last three SEC title games as a double-digit favorite, entering last December’s game against Florida favored by 24 and rolling to a 54-16 triumph.
The Tigers were just 2-point favorites entering their 59-42 victory over Missouri in the 2013 title game and 4.5-point favorites before their 56-17 trampling of South Carolina in 2010. The 2010 SEC title game, which preceded Auburn’s 22-19 topping of Oregon for that season’s national championship, holds the largest margin of victory in the first 25 years of the event.
SEC West teams went 11-3 against their East counterparts this season and are 45-14 since the start of the 2014 season, though Georgia is 5-3 against the West during this stretch.
“I really don’t focus on that much,” Auburn senior linebacker Tre’ Williams said. “I just know that Auburn hasn’t been here since 2013, so I’m just trying to focus on us. We know this is a really good Georgia team coming in.”
Walker surging
Georgia junior outside linebacker D’Andre Walker was flagged for a personal foul during the Nov. 11 loss at Auburn for leaping over the three-man shield on a Tigers punt, which enabled the hosts to extend a possession in the second quarter that resulted in a touchdown and a 16-7 lead.
That hasn’t overshadowed Walker’s play down the stretch, however, as the 6-foot-3, 223-pounder from the Atlanta suburb of Fairburn has recorded tackles for loss in each of Georgia’s last three games. He had two tackles for loss in Saturday’s 38-7 rout of Georgia Tech and leads the team with 9.5.
“He’s done a good job,” Smart said. “He’s very athletic and is a hard-to-block guy. He plays with great toughness and great effort, and he played really well looking back at this Tech game. He was able to help us in several situations where it fit what he does well.
“He’s improving and is very conscientious about his special-teams work as well.”
Odds and ends
The Bulldogs held the second half of Tuesday’s practice indoors. … Smart said after the practice that senior fullback Christian Payne (undisclosed injury) has not been able to practice much this week and may not play. … Georgia redshirt freshman Ben Cleveland continues to work as the first-team right guard, having supplanted Solomon Kindley earlier this month. … Smart on the biggest change he would like from his team compared to the first Auburn game: “Physicality.” … Auburn coach Gus Malzahn on Tuesday when asked about the status of running back Kerryon Johnson: “I think it’s going to be a day-to-day deal. He was better yesterday than he was the day before, so we’ll see where that goes.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.