TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- By nearly any metric, Alabama and Georgia have been the class of college football in recent seasons.
Starting the night Tua Tagovailoa came off the bench to slay Georgia in the national title game in January 2018, this marks the seventh consecutive time these teams have met with both ranked in the top 10. Only one of those games wasn't a top-five matchup: last year's SEC title game, when the No. 8 Tide took down the top-ranked Dawgs.
Program success means elite talent, and no schools have churned out more high-end NFL players in recent seasons. Alabama has produced 18 first-round picks the past five years and Georgia has produced 13. So it's not surprising that 17 NFL teams will be sending a combined 23 scouts to the game.
There's a new look to the rivalry, with Kalen DeBoer facing his first high-profile test as Alabama's coach. And he'll do it with Alabama as a home underdog for the first time since 2007. And Kirby Smart enters the game 1-5 against the Crimson Tide. Georgia is 45-2 since the start of 2021 with both losses coming against the Crimson Tide, per ESPN Research.
How will this matchup between No. 4 Alabama and No. 2 UGA unfold? ESPN spoke with a half-dozen NFL scouts and a handful of coaches who've faced the teams. The vast majority picked Georgia, which clearly has more overall talent in the minds of the scouts.
Some predictions of Georgia were buttressed with caution, as Alabama's Jalen Milroe took down the Bulldogs in last year's SEC title game with two touchdown passes and a heavy diet of the quarterback run game. "I still think Jalen Milroe is the hardest man to tackle in college football," said an assistant coach who played the Tide this year. "If Georgia can't tackle him, they'll have a hard day."
Star Georgia defensive lineman Mykel Williams is questionable and unlikely to be 100 percent if he does play, which will loom large.
While Georgia has a swath of talent, it's perhaps not quite the same high level as years like 2021 when it ended up with five first-round picks.
Could the favorite be vulnerable? Let's break down 10 key questions that could decide it.
1. How talented is Georgia?
The Bulldogs set a record in 2022 with 15 players drafted, and they are poised to challenge that this year. Per multiple NFL scouts, it's not unreasonable to project 11 players from UGA's offense eventually get picked, although all may not come out this year. (The early feel at Georgia, per scouts, is that redshirt sophomore left tackle Earnest Green III will come back, for example.)
At the least, Georgia will be in the teens with draft picks. Which is a massive haul. And it'll depend on early-entry decisions whether they break their own record. There are at least three first-round picks in that group. Quarterback Carson Beck has the highest draft ceiling, Malaki Starks has the rare gifts required to pick a safety in the first round and Williams is a bruising edge player. The best way to sum up the volume of Georgia's talent is that one NFL scout told ESPN he wrote up 25 players. That means they'd all be considered, at minimum, priority free agents -- 14 on offense, nine on defense and two on special teams. (Yes, even Georgia's long snapper, Beau Gardner, is NFL caliber.)
Scouts caution, though, to not get too caught up by the pure volume of talent.