Georgia had a great plan and it showed with their 13-0 meat grinder they put us through in the first half. They had a fantastic plan that was keeping us off balance on defense. They practically shut our offense down after the opening script. I've said it in another topic but it truly felt like if something didn't change significantly for Bama that we were about to receive the first true beatdown of the Saban era.
I think Georgia just kinda ran out of offense in the second half. Pruitt adjusted to some of the checks they were getting into - especially on third downs - that were keeping drives alive. They reacted to Tua's ability to throw by going pretty coverage heavy and passive on defense. They really didn't try to heat up the quarterback much with the blitz which was surprising given Bama was down two starters on the OL. Admittedly I think they were blitzing a bit more when Tua came in but they backed off after the first touchdown drive.
I think it is fair to say that Georgia came into the game with a beautiful gameplan to absolutely nullify our offense and break through enough on our defense to comfortably win if Hurts stayed in the game and didn't have an unexpected hot arm. Tua coming into the game exposed one of the realities of this new playoff paradigm. With such little turnaround time, the team with something up their sleeves to dispatch on their opponent could swing the balance of the game. If this was the old BCSCG era, Kirby likely does what we've done in most of our title-implication bowl games (LSU, ND, Mich St, Washington) and just grind us into dust. Since he had a short turnaround, he couldn't really bother prepping his team on the outside chance a QB change happens.