After 29 straight wins, it wouldn’t normally be devastating to lose a close game against a top ten team. It was going to happen at some point. However, when SEC refs steal the game from you in front of the entire world with blatant one-sided officiating, as they always seem to do whenever Georgia has Bama on the ropes, THAT is devastating. The decision to be left out of the College Football Playoff as the best team in college football is even more devastating. A fully healthy Georgia like the one that creamed Ole Miss and Tennessee would run roughshod through this top 4. Even Bama, in a rematch, would be an underdog against a healthy Georgia. I have my theories, but those are for another time.
It’s been a legendary few years for Georgia. If we beat FSU in the Orange Bowl, we will be 42-2, including being 4-0 in the playoffs and 5-0 in New Years Six/Playoff bowls, in 3 consecutive seasons. That is incredible. The biggest worry on the minds of Georgia fans now is losing our elite status like Clemson has due to NIL and the transfer portal, and then be two-and-done. This is especially true right now, as players who fans, and likely coaches, want on the roster are entering the transfer portal. Brock Vandagriff, the highest rated QB Kirby has ever landed, has already committed to Kentucky. Austin Blaske, who provides great offensive line depth, is in the portal. Marvin Jones, Jr., prospective elite EDGE, portalized. Mekhi Mews, who bailed us out this year at the desperately needed wide receiver position, is gone. Starter Jamon Dumas-Johnson at ILB is even in the portal. Starter. Aside from the portal, we may get cleaned out by the Draft again. Potential draft departures are Bowers, McConkey, Mims, Beck, Lovett, Milton, Daijun, Tate, Brinson, Stackhouse, Rosemy-Jacksaint, Lassiter, and more. We’re talking entire starting position groups being wiped out, or almost wiped out, by the Draft and the portal. A top 3 greatest offensive player in Georgia history (Bowers, obviously) will be in the NFL replacing Travis Kelce, who has become a true victim of Taylor Swift’s succubus-like witchcraft.
However the offseason ultimately shakes out, this level of attrition will be worse than after the 2021 & 2022 seasons combined (although one could say AD Mitchell’s absence loomed large this season). This is not necessarily because of the generational caliber of players we are losing, but because of the number of starting-at-Georgia-caliber players we are losing.
So, that’s the doom & gloom. What now?
We are moving into what I would call the third era of Kirby Smart’s Georgia tenure.
The first era was the building era, which was the ugly first season followed by 3 of Georgia’s best seasons since 2012. Between 2017 & 2019, Georgia had a top ten, top fifteen, and top five defense. Jake Fromm was a great quarterback for the scheme Kirby wanted to run, and the backfields were full of NFL studs like Nick Chubb, Super Bowl champ Sony Michel, and D’Andre Swift. Georgia should have won the Natty in 2017, but looking back at the talent gap with Alabama, that would have been an incredible upset on paper. This first era ended in 2019 with Georgia wasting one of the best defenses in modern history because of James Coley’s offense.
After this came the first rebuilding year, which also happened to be the 2020 COVID season. Kirby started opening up the offense from a 55-45 run offense in 2019 & 2020 to a 50-50 offense in 2021 & 2022 to a 55-45 pass offense in 2023. The offense traded ball control and consistency for explosiveness. 2020 was quite a year to have to rebuild, to be sure, but that recruiting cycle fueled this incredible 3-year run. The 2020 season itself was ugly, but key players were getting invaluable reps and connecting and developing into a team that would win two (should be three) National Championships. We all know how dominant Georgia has been the last three seasons. Let Bama fans talk all about their extremely fortunate 2023 season…even they have never seen anything like this from their team in their lifetime, and they likely never will. Not at this level.
So, now, we come to the great exodus as the transfer portal officially reaches Wild West status as NIL dollars are thrown at 5-star recruits and high-caliber transfers alike. It is time to enter the third era, which does not necessarily have to be worse than the second era. However, it may still be very different. We will have to see.
2024 will be Kirby’s 2nd actual “rebuilding” year in 9 years of coaching at Georgia. Not too shabby. Many of our peers have rebuilding years every other year. Saban had two in a row before “winning” the SEC championship this year. He said it himself after Georgia won the 2021 Natty, after all. We still have some good pieces on the roster, which is probably why we have so many departing transfers. Kirby’s very encouraging to his players who have entered the portal…it tells me that he knows who has been recruited over and who he has available on the roster to fill the gaps of guys who just want to go. I’m not saying we aren’t losing a lot, or that only the guys Kirby wants to lose are leaving, but, for example, CJ Allen actually played very well in relief for JDJ. Joenel Aguero looked good in his reps against Florida. Brandon Robinson. Roderick Robinson. Dillon Bell. Oscar Delp and Lawson Luckie. We have some elite young talent on the roster. Is it enough to make us a contender in 2024? Or, more realistically, 2025? We have to trust Kirby on that. He seems to be able to very accurately gauge his team. Remember the “this is our f*cking year” speech? When Kirby has a championship team, he knows it.
The only real concerning holes in the roster I see are WR (again), running back, especially in the mold of a dual threat back like a Swift or Cook or KMac, and interior defensive lineman. I’d like to see an AD Mitchell-type receiver with the physicals, range, and route running, and some explosive speed. Dominic Lovett just wasn’t it, for some reason. I expected more. Maybe he’ll be stronger and more physical next season. Elite wide receiver play is the missing piece of the puzzle for UGA. You could say we certainly missed an AD Mitchell-type receiver against Alabama, and McConkey couldn’t use his talents to their full extent because he was not at 100%. Not that I would blame a wide receiver injury for a loss like some teams…but that being said, a game changer or two at wideout would bring everything together. Coach McClendon needs to find an AJ Green or Tavarres King or Malcolm Mitchell. Not just a 50:50 ball guy, but a great route runner and blocker with speed. A pass catching running back is also on my Christmas list for the Dawgs. Cash Jones played great, all things considered, but if you want to mismatch elite linebackers and safeties, get a James Cook. Get a KMac. We had to put Dillon Bell at running back to fill that role this season, and while he did well there, having him in the backfield means he’s not making plays downfield. Finally, it wouldn’t hurt to get a game-wrecker interior defensive lineman out of the portal like a Walter Nolen. Guys in the middle needing extra attention from the O-Line are underrated because it leaves fewer obstacles for speedy edge guys. That’s how you can rebuild this offseason. Build back better, but for real.
It doesn’t help that the 2024 schedule is absurdly difficult. The man is trying to bring us down. Georgia only has two seasons with multiple regular season losses under Kirby Smart: 2016 & 2020. Don’t freak out if we lose two next season. Versus Clemson, at Bama, at Texas, at Ole Miss. There’s a loss in there, somewhere. If not, I’ll be happy to be wrong and we’ll be an undefeated playoff contender. But, however it shakes out, all those games will be incredibly valuable in developing our young talent, and that’s what a rebuild is all about.
Anyways, love you, son. Go Dawgs.
SOME UPDATES
While I still caution Georgia fans on expectations this season, I must say, I underestimated Kirby. He pinpointed all his team’s weaknesses, departures, & lack of depth, and went straight to recruiting the portal and high school to get what we need. He picked up two portal WRs who have the size and skill set to fill what AD Mitchell was able to do and what RaRa was unable to replicate this past season. He snagged Trevor Etienne, a potential dual threat NFL back like his brother. He picked up a talented interior defensive lineman from South Carolina, but it remains to be seen if he can be a game wrecker like Davis, Wyatt, and Carter were. But, it’s a start. He recruited some trench monsters on both sides of the ball out of high school, and continued to pump elite players into the NFL machine that is UGA. The high school recruiting has obviously been in the works for years, but that Alabama game must have really stung because Kirby targeted the areas of weakness that cost us that game. Not that we don’t *still* win that game if the refs reviewed the 4th down not-catch by Alabama, the refs didn’t let Alabama hold on almost every play, the refs didn’t call phantom penalties on Georgia, the missed field goal, & the fumble on the end-around, but we had the chance to win that game by a lot. Bama exploited the lack of interior pass rush, the lack of a contested catch receiver, and stuffed the run game, for the most part, maybe a dual threat back would be the x-factor. Kirby went for all of that. We won’t know for 9 months if we truly upgraded at those positions, but Kirby very obviously wants to march into Tuscaloosa next season and make a point, even if he’d never admit it openly. If he’s able to do that, perhaps he can finally get that monkey off his back. We’ll know by then if we’re a contender, but we’re trending up from where we were when the portal opened.