Welcome to the Winner’s Circle, a weekly column by Bet For The Win senior writer Prince J. Grimes.

Let’s just get this out the way first. I’m not a big college football guy.

I mostly ignore the small school versus big school blowouts early in the year, and I barely even care about the top of conference team versus bottom of conference blowouts in the middle of the year — unless they involve Maryland. I show up for the big games, and sometimes I even do enough research to correctly predict something like Georgia mud-stomping TCU in the national championship. Otherwise, I’m no expert.

With that background, I want to formally announce I’m betting against Georgia this year. Or, to be more precise, I’m declining to bet on Georgia to complete a three-peat with another College Football Playoff national championship. It ain’t happening. Take the field.

Why? For starters, Georgia is a consensus favorite to win it all this year with 2-1 odds across major sportsbooks coming in ahead of No. 2 Alabama at around 6-1. If you’re wondering why that’s a bad thing, it’s because only two preseason favorites have actually gone on to win the national championship over the last 20 years: Alabama in 2017 and USC in 2004.

Furthermore, Georgia’s +220 odds at FanDuel would make the Bulldogs the biggest preseason favorite of them all to win a title in that span — the second to earn a title with odds shorter than 3-1, joining the 2017 Tide who had +250 odds, according to Sports Odds History.

In other words, Georgia might be too good to be true. Which takes me to my next reason for fading the Bulldogs: they’re going for a three-peat. This is bad news because no team has been recognized as national champions three years in a row since Minnesota in the 1930s, though some have come close. Alabama came up short as the preseason favorite in 2013, as did USC in 2005.

Speaking of Alabama, my last reason for not betting on Georgia is because the Bulldogs might not even have the best team in their own conference. That’s right. Alabama has been right there every step of the way during Georgia’s reign the last two years, reaching the title game in 2021 and missing out on the CFP last season because of two losses that came by a combined four points. But the Tide have been higher than Georgia in 247Sports’ recruiting rankings every year but one since 2019, and whatever magic Stetson Bennett was bringing to the Bulldogs is gone.

Alabama is making a transition at quarterback too, but do you know how many times they’ve gone three straight years without winning a title under Nick Saban? Zero. It’s never happened!

So, yeah, Georgia might be the favorite, but the Bulldogs have a whole host of trends working against them right now. I’d rather throw my money on the longer odds of another team in the field, and the team I’m rolling with is Alabama.