The 2018 SEC Championship Game was played on Saturday, December 1, 2018, in the

Mercedes-Benz Stadium Mercedes-Benz Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Opened in August 2017 as a replacement for the Georgia Dome, it serves as the home stadium of the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL) ...

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, to determine the

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

champion of the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

(SEC). The game featured the East Division champion

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

against the West Division champion

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

. Georgia, the East Division Champion, was the designated home team. The game was televised by

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

for the eighteenth straight year. Alabama came back from a 28–14 deficit in the third quarter to defeat Georgia, 35–28.

2017 season

In the 2017 SEC Championship Game, the East champion

defeated the West champion

Auburn Auburn may refer to: Places Australia * Auburn, New South Wales * City of Auburn, the local government area *Electoral district of Auburn *Auburn, Queensland, a locality in the Western Downs Region *Auburn, South Australia *Auburn, Tasmania *Aub ...

28–7 in a rematch from three weeks prior where Auburn defeated Georgia 40–17. It was the first time since 2008 an East Division team won the SEC Championship.

Teams

Alabama

Also on November 3, Alabama secured its spot in the title game by defeating

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

by a score of 29–0. This gave Alabama a two-game lead over LSU in the West Division, with the Crimson Tide holding the potential tiebreaker. LSU then lost 74-72 to Texas A&M in the final game of the regular season, thus meaning Alabama had won every possible tiebreaker.

Georgia

won its November 3 game against

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

, securing the East Division. While Georgia could have finished in a tie for the division title with any combination of Kentucky and

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, Georgia also defeated Florida during the season, giving the Bulldogs all possible divisional tiebreakers. The Bulldogs ultimately won the East title by two games.

Alabama vs. Georgia series history

This match up was the 69th all time meeting against the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs. They last played each other last season for the

College Football Playoff National Championship The College Football Playoff National Championship is a post-season college football bowl game, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which began play in the 2014 college football season. ...

. Alabama defeated Georgia, in overtime, 26–23. After the January 8, 2018 match up, Alabama leads the all time series 39–25–4. This match up was the first time since

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

, that the two teams face off in the conference title game.

Game summary

Scoring summary

Statistics

Note: 77,141 was the officially announced attendance figure; "turnstile count" subsequently reported as 69,614.

References

Championship Game In sport, a championship is a Competition#Sports, competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match sy ...

SEC Championship Game Alabama Crimson Tide football games Georgia Bulldogs football games December 2018 sports events in the United States 2018 in sports in Georgia (U.S. state) 2018 in Atlanta {{Collegefootball-stub