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 498,71 ...

, to determine the

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football 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 o ...

(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 t ...

against the West Division champion

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...

. Georgia, the East Division Champion, was the designated home team. The game was televised by CBS 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 2017 SEC Championship Game was played on December 2, 2017 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, and determined the 2017 football champion of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). This was the first SEC Conference football championship at ...

, the East champion

defeated the West champion Auburn 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 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 Virgini ...

, 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, a ...

, 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 seaso ...

. 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

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, 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 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 system In this system ...

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