CFP National Championship 2018: Storylines to Watch in Alabama vs. Georgia

The 2018 College Football Playoff is down to two.

Georgia overcame Oklahoma in a double overtime Rose Bowl epic that ended 54-48, and Alabama dominated Clemson 24-6 on New Year's Day to set up a matchup of SEC foes next week.

The Bulldogs will be looking for their first national championship since 1980 and will be playing for a title for the first time since 1983. 

The Crimson Tide are looking for their second national title in three years and fifth since Nick Saban took over the program in 2007. Here is a look at a couple of major storylines to watch heading into that contest.

SEC Reign of Dominance Continues

The SEC lost its first four bowl games. The conference went 2-5 over its first seven postseason contests and looked to be heading to a 2-6 mark when Oklahoma jumped out to a 17-point first-half lead over Georgia.

Georgia's comeback win over Oklahoma, and Alabama's dominance against Clemson, sets the stage for yet another SEC national champion. The conference is responsible for nine of the last 12 national champions (including this season). The reign is unprecedented, with the ACC being the only other conference with multiple national titles during that run.

Alabama and Georgia will also be making history, becoming the second pair of teams from the same conference to play in a national title game.

The first conference to pull off that feat? Oh, the SEC. Alabama and LSU pulled off the same feat in the BCS National Championship Game in 2012. Alabama won that 21-0 with a dominant performance that helped atone for a loss against the Tigers earlier in the season.

One can argue that the SEC is not as dominant top to bottom as it was five years ago. However, the SEC's cream of the crop remains better than anywhere else in the country.

Kirby Smart, Nick Saban Meet for the First Time

By luck of the SEC scheduling draw, Kirby Smart has avoided playing his mentor in each of his first two regular seasons at Georgia. The Tide's loss to Auburn in the final week of the regular season ruined what looked like an inevitable matchup in this year's conference title game.

Smart will finally get his first crack at taking down Saban on the grandest stage of them all. The 42-year-old coach served under Saban in three different stops over more than a decade. The pair had their most extended run of success together at Alabama, where Smart was his defensive coordinator from 2008-2015. 

"I worked for him for 10 years and never realized how hard that seat is until I did it," Smart said, per Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com. "You take it for granted when you're working for him. When you did your job and did your job to the fullest, he wasn't ranting and raving at you. He was driven. He wanted to win. We had that in common."

Smart has taken his decade of knowledge and transformed it into his own thriving program at Georgia. The Bulldogs have an elite defense filled with athletes, a two-headed ground game that controls the clock and a caretaker quarterback who does not make mistakes. 

"Just about everywhere you turn, there's some systematic similarities," Saban said. "I'm not talking about offense or defense, I'm talking about overall program."

The proof has been in the results. Georgia has held opponents under 20 points in 11 of its 14 games this season. The Bulldogs also proved they can play in a high-scoring affair, dropping 54 points on Oklahoma on the back of 326 yards from Sony Michael and Nick Chubb on the ground.

Now Smart and Saban will just have to see if the student has become the master.