Through the history of college football, there have been a good share of teams meeting in the regular season and then rematching in a conference championship or in lesser bowl games. In the 1996-97 and 2011-12 seasons, college football experienced the rare instance of the National Championship Game also being a rematch from earlier in the season. Monday night’s Championship Game between Alabama and Georgia will be the third involving a rematch, but first in which the other game was a conference championship.
From a psychological standpoint, it is new territory with a lot of moving parts.