Georgia beats Alabama 20-17 in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night, and the No. 2 Bulldogs are now 6-0. According to Yahoo Sports’ live coverage, Georgia will almost surely be No. 1 in the next AP poll. All of this happened on the night the remnants of Hurricane Isaias rolled through.
How Georgia beats Alabama on one late field goal
Both teams came in at 5-0, with Georgia ranked No. 2 and Alabama No. 6. ABC set kickoff for 7:30 p.m. ET at Bryant-Denny Stadium, per Georgia Athletics. Gunner Stockton ran the offense for the Bulldogs. Meanwhile, Keelon Russell did the same for the Tide.
Georgia led 10-7 after Alabama scored on a Russell pass to Marshall Pritchett. That 22-yard touchdown came right after a 58-yard run by Trae’shawn Brown. Then Bray Hubbard picked off Stockton in the second quarter, which gave Alabama the ball right back.
Alabama then pulled ahead at the half. Kalen DeBoer went for it at the goal line instead of taking points, and EJ Crowell punched it in as time expired. That made it 14-10 Alabama.
Georgia answered in the third quarter. Stockton ran for a 14-yard touchdown to make it 17-14. Conor Talty then kicked a field goal to tie the game at 17-17 with 5:07 left in the third.
Georgia wins in Tuscaloosa after a tense fourth quarter
Early in the fourth, Georgia ground out an 11-play, 69-yard drive. Peyton Woodring still missed a 39-yard field goal. So the game stayed tied, and the Bulldogs had wasted a prime chance.
Woodring got another shot later and made it count. His 23-yard kick put Georgia up 20-17 with 5:25 to play. Bo Walker’s 37-yard run had set it up.
Alabama’s sideline was furious about a no-call on a possible pass interference in the end zone. Then, on the next play, Georgia sacked Russell and took the ball back with 3:10 left. After that, officials flagged Alabama’s Dijon Lee Jr. for a personal foul, which gave Georgia the first down it needed. Alabama was out of timeouts, so the Bulldogs could kneel out the clock.
Alabama also thought it had an interception deep in Georgia territory earlier in the quarter. Officials ruled the play incomplete after review. Did they get it right? Tide fans will be arguing about that one for a while.
Why this result matters for the rivalry
Here’s the thing: Georgia has now beaten Alabama twice in a row. The Bulldogs won the Dec. 6, 2025 SEC Championship Game, 28-7, after Alabama took the Sept. 27, 2025 regular-season meeting, 24-21, according to the rivalry record. Alabama still leads the all-time series, 45-27-4.
It was also the ninth time since the 2018 national title game that both teams ranked in the top 10, OutKick reported. Beating a top-10 team on the road is hard. Doing it in a hurricane’s leftovers is harder. For more on how the matchup stacked up, see our Week 6 preview of the Georgia-Alabama slate.
A hurricane made it a weird week
Isaias came ashore Friday night near Destin, Florida, as a Category 2 hurricane, Yahoo News reported. By Saturday morning it was a post-tropical storm. Authorities reported at least four storm-related deaths.
The storm even changed gameday. Alabama barred outdoor campus activities before noon, and ESPN’s College GameDay moved indoors to Coleman Coliseum, ABC 33/40 reported. Organizers canceled or changed the Quad events and the Elephant Stomp. Yet the game went on, and the Bulldogs topped the Crimson Tide anyway.
What comes next now that Georgia beats Alabama
The AP poll is the next thing to watch, and Yahoo expects Georgia at the top. Georgia already jumped to No. 2 earlier this season, as our look at the 63-3 rout of Tennessee State showed. Elsewhere Saturday, Oklahoma beat Texas, UCLA beat Oregon, and Kentucky beat No. 10 LSU in overtime. You can catch the rest in our Week 6 recap of the biggest wins and rankings shakeups. Georgia’s next opponent was not available at publication. The question now is simple: can the Bulldogs stay perfect when the sky is clear?
