The betting public has established Georgia as a significant underdog (7.5 points) to Alabama in Saturday's SEC title game. In terms of winning outright, which is all that matters to Georgia, there is limited support. Bama is a better than 3-to-1 (-310) favorite on the money line, according to William Hill US, operators of 150 sports books in Nevada.

The majority, if not almost all, of the pundits are already aligned with the Crimson Tide and the trend is expected to continue. Does anyone expect Lee Corso to put a Bulldog on his head Saturday morning in Centennial Park? There's already plenty of talk about whether Notre Dame can score on Alabama's defense in the BCS title game, the one that's more than five weeks away.

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This isn't necessarily disrespect. Georgia may be 11-1 and ranked third in the nation, may boast a strong-armed quarterback in Aaron Murray and may have a likely NFL superstar at linebacker in Jarvis Jones. They also played just two teams with more than eight victories and lost one of those games by four touchdowns.

Oh, and 'Bama is 'Bama. Nick Saban is still walking that sideline.

So with what is essentially a national semifinal coming, No. 2 vs. No. 3, a matchup of what should be relatively even teams, played in Georgia's home state, the sentiments are almost all in one direction, and it isn't toward Mark Richt's program.

"I really don't care much what the predictions are," Richt said Wednesday.

Why not?

"It really does not matter and does not have a bearing on the game," he said.

This is true, of course and exactly what many coaches would say, but Richt isn't engaging in coachspeak either. He means it. He doesn't care. Some coaches would try to spin it around and use the disrespect card as a badge of honor. Yet Richt isn't seeking motivation as an underdog. He isn't going with the old, us-against-the-world ploy, at least not publicly.



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He doesn't care. No, really, he doesn't care.

Because Mark Richt almost never cares about what everyone else thinks of his program or how he runs his program or what they think his program is capable of doing, good or bad, on the field or off. And it is that attitude that got Georgia back to the brink again.

There are only three coaches still in the hunt for a national title, and Richt is the only one who had significant parts of his fan base either crying for his firing or expecting it to be inevitable just two years ago.

That was December 2010, at the completion of a dreadful 6-7 season, complete with a loss to Central Florida in the Liberty Bowl where the Bulldogs managed a pathetic two field goals against a Conference USA defense. The team was hampered by the suspension of three players, and the program's first losing season since 1996 came on the heels of an already worrisome 8-5 campaign. Even worse Auburn, coached by Gene Chizik of all people, was about to win a national title starting a superman quarterback from outside Atlanta.

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