ATLANTA – You knew Georgia’s 29-game win streak would end eventually.

Unfortunately, the one place Bulldog fans did not want to see it stop was in the SEC Championship, and of all teams, to Alabama.

Take nothing away from the Crimson Tide.

Alabama did not make any mistakes; hence it will be watching Sunday’s College Football selection show waiting to see if their win over the Bulldogs was enough to jump Texas into the playoffs as one of the country’s top four teams.

History would seem to be against the Crimson Tide, however.

Under the current four-team format, no team that went into Championship Weekend ranked No. 8 has ever jumped into the top four.

On a similar note, no team ranked No. 1 heading into the Championship Weekend has ever fallen out of the top four. In other words, by beating the Bulldogs, Alabama made sure CFP Chair Boo Corrigan and the committee are going to have some thinking to do.

Whatever it decides, however, Georgia has nobody to blame but itself. Personally, the prospect of the Bulldogs still landing a spot in the playoffs doesn’t appear likely, though Lord knows, I’ve been wrong before.

The Bulldogs simply made too many mistakes to win a game of this magnitude. So, while the team deserves tremendous plaudits for not giving up, and for fighting all the way to the end, the team kept digging itself too many holes to come out on top.

Georgia did not deserve to win.

That being the case, if you’re talking about the Bulldogs still being one of the four “best” teams in the country, Georgia still has a viable argument.

It’s going to be interesting to see what the committee does.

Do they make winning the conference championship the top reason for granting teams entrance? Or do they believe what they see with their eyes?

We’ll know soon enough, when ESPN will announce the parings at noon on Sunday.

Of course, if this were 2024, we’d know the Bulldogs would be playoff-bound.

The field expands to 12 teams next year, and Georgia—even with Saturday’s loss—would have assured itself a spot in the field.

But alas.

That did not happen, and certainly doesn’t take away the sting from the Bulldogs or their fans who, when it came down to it Saturday, did not play well enough to win.