16-in-16 2024: Georgia Bulldogs
The Dawgs couldn’t pull off the three-peat, but Kirby’s roster is primed and ready for another run at a title in 2024.
By: Bossman
For a refresher on our ratings system, check out our 16-in-16 ratings guide here.
The Dawgs didn’t go three-for-three, but maybe they can go three-for-four? That’s a real possibility this year with just about everyone and their mom picking Georgia to win another national title.
Kirby Smart returns an embarrassment of roster riches and is primed to make another run at glory. The only other teams getting real national title hype are Ohio State and Oregon, led by Smart disciple Dan Lanning. Otherwise, most national pundits are picking Georgia to win it all.
It’s title or bust for Kirby and the Dawgs in 2024.
State of the Program: 12/12 biscuits. It doesn’t get any better than this...you’re a perennial power occupying rare air; It’s Christmas morning and Grandma just made her 100-year-old family recipe, and there are bacon and eggs, butter and jam. Choose your fighter.
For the second year in a row, the Bulldogs earn the only 12-biscuit rating in our 16-in-16 series. This program occupies rare air at the moment, perennially being named as a national title contender. Smart took what he learned under Nick Saban at Alabama, tweaked it to fit his style, and built the most formidable machine in college football. They recruit better than anyone else in the nation, averaging a finish in the recruiting rankings of 2.2 over the last five years. The amount of size, talent, and speed Smart has amassed in Athens is something to behold.
For the Bulldog faithful and national media, this year comes with the same expectations that have been put on Georgia for at least five seasons: national championship or bust. The 2024 iteration of the Dawgs brings back a considerable amount of production, returning sixteen starters across the three phases of the game. For a team that lost just one game last year and should have made the College Football Playoff, that’s a scary omen for teams on Georgia’s schedule and the rest of the country. Carson Beck shunned the NFL and decided to stick around for another season to try and etch his name in the history books as the unquestioned starter. Beck is a Heisman favorite and is expected to produce at a championship level. We believe he’ll do that, especially with the typical stable of UGA running backs to take the pressure off the passing game. Beck will have a reliable target in Dominic Lovett but will have to help elevate the game of talented but unproven receivers like Dillon Bell and Arian Smith and mesh with transfer wideouts Colbie Young and London Humphreys.
We don’t need to spend much time in this space on how much the school and donors are supporting the program. This is a well-oiled machine, and Georgia is in sync from top to bottom with one goal in mind: winning titles. In May, Smart and Georgia agreed to a 10-year, $130 million dollar deal that made him the first coach in college football to make $13 million per year.
What went right in 2023?
Almost everything. The Bulldogs ran the table…until the SEC Championship Game where they stumbled against Alabama. It was their first blemish since the Tide took them down in the 2021 SEC title game. There were a few regular season games that had Dawg fans biting their nails until late in the fourth quarter, such as Auburn, Mizzou, and Georgia Tech, but the mark of a great team is handling your business when adversity comes your way. This team did just that in 2023 in all but one game.
What went wrong in 2023?
That damn SEC title game. At times, the Bulldogs played down to their opponents, as they did against Auburn. The Tigers were coming off a loss to Texas A&M where they were drubbed and their offense looked helpless. Against Georgia, Auburn QB Payton Thorne did his best Cam Newton impression and rushed for 92 yards and nearly helped the Tigers pull off a major upset. Georgia Tech had some talent and was an improving team last season, but they had no business hanging around with the Dawgs for four quarters. Yet, that’s nitpicking. The only thing that really went wrong was losing to Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide on December 2nd when the Tide pulled off the upset as a 5.5-point underdog. Georgia made two costly mistakes, a missed field goal in the first half and a Beck fumble deep in their own territory in the third quarter. Alabama capitalized on both and held on to win by three, ending Georgia’s hopes of a three-peat.
What the Dawgs need in 2024
Consistency and a few breaks. The schedule is not easy and they’ll inevitably need a few breaks to go their way to run the table. Trips to Alabama, Texas, and Ole Miss will be tough to go 3-0, and then there’s a home game against Tennessee and neutral site contests against Clemson and Florida. Sheesh. Even if they don’t escape the regular season unscathed, this team will likely be a playoff team with one or two losses. I don’t expect more than one loss, though.
From a roster standpoint, the only real potential weakness I can see is at WR. As mentioned, they have talent and a proven “dude” in Dominic Lovett, but the transfers and unproven receivers will need to step up their game to replace the production of Brock Bowers, Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, and Ladd McConkey. The dismissal of Rara Thomas didn’t help that room, either, but it’s next man up in Athens. With an experienced signal caller in Beck, I don’t expect this to be a glaring issue but it is something to watch through the first few weeks of the season.
How they can earn some extra biscuits
With no more biscuits to earn, this team just needs to stay consistent, fight complacency, and get back to the College Football Playoff. If they can do that, they’ll keep that full tray of biscuits. Win another title and we may just have to reconfigure the ratings system to see how this team can get more biscuits.
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LSU Tigers
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