Flash back you five years ago…we are in the 2021 season, and Georgia is about to go on a run of monumental proportions, securing two National Championships, an SEC Championship, and have all the looks and makings of the next “dynasty of sports”. The 2022 team ran the table, and, perhaps in retrospect, could be the last team to legitimately (Michigan, looking at you from a forged sideline pass) run the table and go undefeated in the future history of college football.
Flash forward to today:
That’s right…Alabama versus Vandy is the hottest Week 6 ticket in town. Let that sink in for a second.
Add to this the expanded nine-game conference schedule, along with a guaranteed additional P4 opponent for SEC teams, and the likelihood that we’ll ever see an undefeated team, specifically an SEC one, is getting slimmer by the day. Take it from Joey Freshwater:
He said SEC programs will no longer be able to stockpile talent as former Alabama coach Nick Saban did while winning six national championships from 2007 to 2023 and Georgia coach Kirby Smart did when capturing back-to-back CFP national titles at his alma mater in 2021 and 2022.
“In my opinion, the dynasties are over,” Kiffin told ESPN on Wednesday. “Alabama with Coach Saban and then Kirby at Georgia, where they had those rosters year in, year out and there would be a bunch of wins by 30 points in the conference, those days are done.”
Kiffin was Alabama’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2014 to 2016, helping the Crimson Tide finish 14-1 and beat Clemson 45-40 in the CFP National Championship after the 2015 season.
“When I was at Alabama, they’d be like, ‘Go watch the outside linebackers,’ and there’s six of them over there that are first-round picks,” Kiffin said. “That’s not going to happen anymore because if they don’t play, then they’re going to leave. They can’t keep them all anymore.”
I’d have to agree. Given the earlier post about freshmen percentage make up of our current roster, along with the painfully obvious difference between now and 2021 when we had a stable of monsters who could destroy a team in the second half of games by attrition, The Process seems to be giving way to The Portal. No wonder Saban bolted, and, no, I don’t really see him ever wanting to come back.
I’d posit that we won’t see another undefeated team in CFB, nor do I think we’ll see another back-to-back National Champion, unless something changes yet again in the landscape of college football. The sad thing is, Smart worked hard to bring The Process to Georgia, achieved it, and for reasons outside of his control, the system shifted and it no longer is the standard.
The conspiracy nut in me thinks that there are those out there who simply hate Georgia, and as long as the O’Bannon case had been out there (originally filed in 2009), why did they finally start to move on it in the midst of Smart establishing the groundwork for the next dynasty in Athens? Impeccable timing, for the win.
On one hand, the era of Alabama/Clemson dynasties were boring. It was miraculous if you could beat them, but I have to say watching Alabama rattle off all those championships felt somewhat bad for the sport. On the other hand, if you were an Alabama or Clemson fan, I’m sure it felt great. For the other 99% of college football fans, not so much.
I like parity, I don’t think it’s bad for the sport. But the parity – and the erosion of dynasties – moved the needle from process and consistency to one-offs and wild variance (see: Florida State) with teams and seasons. I don’t have the foggiest idea how to bet the Fabris Pool anymore, mainly because of it. It closed the chapter of the career of one of the coaching GOATs of college football, collecting ring after ring and shattering records.
Will it close the chapter on Smart? Could Kirby have caught up with Saban…he certainly has the youth and the time, but now the system has shifted and, were that Smart’s goal, the dream may be an impossibility.
One thing’s for certain…this ain’t Saban’s college football game anymore. Truth be told, with just the right break in the waves and the right amount of money…it’s anybody’s.
Totally agree with your post and I’d go on to say if a coach were to do something similar to Dabo, Smart, or evenly moderately similar to Saban gong forward in the current landscape I would offer up they should be considered a Top 5 HC of all time.
Seth Emerson had a good piece on this in the Athletic yesterday. He pointed out that of all the defensive players in the 2022 class, 3 are in the NFL, 9 portalled out, and only 3 remain on the roster. In the 2023 class, 7 are still on the roster, but 7 have portalled out. This is why we are seeing so many young guys on the field. Arguably, our missing edge pass rush now plays at Missouri (Damon Wilson and Darris Smith). Maintaining any reasonble degree of consistency in this new environment is going to be a challenge for everyone except maybe for those with largest wallets.
Personally I don’t like parity. I dont like unrestricted free agency. Common sense just makes it seem obvious t that there is a middle ground between what used to be and players playing for four different teams in four years if they decide to. And it does t seem like it would be hard to have that. College football does’t want it.
Kirby worked his ass off to turn us into the next Alabama and college football decided they just weren’t going to let anybody do that again. Was it bad for the sport to have a program dominate the way Saban dominated with Alabama? I don’t know. It probably was. But I don’t see how it’s good for the sport to have no dominant teams and about sixteen teams that are kind of just ok. What is exciting about that? I don’t buy into the idea of “Oh but now you just never know what might happen each week!” Meh. No thanks. Im not even watching this Saturday. A noon rock fight against Kentucky just sounds boring. And all the talk of how physical they are cause Mark Stoops is a tough guy doesn’t make it any more appealing. It’s a shame what they have done to this sport. I’ll keep watching for a while. But I definitely can see myself losing interest. And college football won’t change a thing until it’s too late.
I think parity is good for the game. Maybe not for us, but in general it’s better than the past 20 years of basically Bama, Clemson, us (the last 5 years) and few others at the top. Speaking as someone who lived in an ACC college town for 20 years and followed their mediocre-ass team, it’s very frustrating to pull for a team and know before Game 1 that there’s no chance of winning it all because all of the top HS talent is stacked 3-deep at a handful of schools. That’s why teams so many people jumped on the TCU bandwagon in ’22, because it was a team that made a deep run despite not having the talent.
I do agree that the unrestricted portal and wild west NIL is a disaster. It appears that they’re trying to rein it in a bit with only having the portal open once a year. They clearly need to do more, although every time they try to fix it someone sues and a judge slaps the NCAA down.
Sadly, I think the only solution is to make the players employees and have them sign contracts. I won’t try to argue the pros and cons of that or even if I would like it. But I don’t see any other way to fix the current insanity that will make it through the courts.
Well said Mike! Agree 100%
-Muckbeast
Kirby does have the NFL draft attraction that most schools don’t. I think his blind spot is some of the coaches on the current staff. Go back to 2022 and look at the staff. Ask yourself is the offense better? Defense? DB play? OL play? WR play? Etc….
If the level of play has dropped why? The players are all 4/5 stars. I get freshman will struggle but sophomore’s should blossom under good coaching. Juniors should be thinking nfl under good coaching.
People complained about the coaching staff then too. And in ‘22 people complained all season long up until the national title game. After the Missouri game in ‘22 there as talk about how the coaches were all satisfied and had gotten lazy because we won a NC. People are always going to complain and come up with excuses”proof” as to why things aren’t what they should be.
The 22 team had a let down game at Mizzou. The 2025 team cannot rush the passer, cover receivers or block consistently.
Agree. We’re losing the luxury of developing backup players for a couple years before they matriculate to starters.
I think Monken had cred because he was an OC in the nfl before joining our staff. Plus, he quickly proved he was head & shoulders better than most, if not all, college OCs. Not sure we can say that many of our current assistants are tops in their coaching area of expertise in cfb.
> I think his blind spot is some of the coaches on the current staff
Agree. He won 2 natties and one of them was the most dominant win in CFP history.
Then he got full of himself and decided “hey this is easy, I bet I could do this with all my buddies on staff and it would be even better!”
No Kirby, you can’t.
Get rid of the buddies and hire the best coaches.
Hope this doesn’t post twice. First attempt disappeared.
Changes were coincidence not conspiracy. Changes forced by O’Bannon were coming. B1G softness can still create an undefeated team who also gets hot in the playoffs. Tougher for SEC but not impossible. Once every last dollar has been squeezed out from playoff bracketology our Vegas overlords will demand rule changes for more scoring. See the NFL for examples. We are already at the bottom of the slippery slope and racing straight ahead for the cliff. I’m already changing to judging Kirby on playoff appearances and not rings.
I’m so glad that Kirby got us to the top of the mountain before all of the chaos took over College Football.
This is what I was going to say. I agree with the overall post, but would quibble with the “(t)he sad thing is, Smart worked hard to bring The Process to Georgia,” and “(i)mpeccable timing, for the win” notions.
It would have been much, much sadder if it all happened before ’21 and ’22. And remember, we were 12-0 heading into the ’23 SEC Championship. If we don’t lost that to ‘Bama, we had a great shot at a three-peat instead of destroying a disinterested FSU.
We’ll see about parity when Indiana or Ole Miss wins a title (even a conference title). Yes, Ole Miss is ranked #4 only because they beat a very flawed LSU team in Oxford by 5 points.
I’m becoming more jaded about college and professional sports every day. The way the NCAA completely botched NIL and the transfer portal is going to ruin college sports. At this point, the only solution appears to be making the athletes employees under a CBA, which will lead to unintended consequences which are likely to make me go, “Thanks, but no thanks” someday. Conference realignment sucks. The CFP is sucking almost all the joy out of the sport especially the regular season. I don’t watch March Madness. I don’t watch the NBA. I watch very little NFL and MLB and a little more NHL (Hurricanes only). The way the players and fans on both sides acted at the Ryder Cup this weekend disgusted me as a golfer and a fan of the sport.
For Georgia … I’ve ridden the wave for a long time. I remember Pitt ripping our hearts out in 1977 (that’s probably my earliest Georgia football memory). I remember celebrating as a family in 1980 and agonizing over 2 losses the next two years and the departure of Herschel soon after. I lived the end of the Dooley era and the beginning of Goff during my time in Athens. I kept season tickets through the hell that was the 90s including that awful day in 1995 when Florida came to Athens. I enjoyed seeing the program knock the lid off in the 2000s just to see it screwed back on in the late ‘00s-2015. I’m glad my Dad and I have experienced the current golden era of Georgia football in his golden years.
I’ll never not be a Georgia Bulldog, but I do see a day when I won’t care what happens on a fall Saturday.
Bahahahahaha, “right amount of money”, Bahahahahahaha, that is friggin’ hilarious, “right amount of money”, this guy is on a serious roll today…Bahahahahaha, opps, broke right through my metal chair, a metal steel chair, with a five inch cushion, Bahahahahahaha….GO DAWGS!!
You are not going to see guys stick around to play 3rd or even 2nd string when it’s free agency. The only way out for College Football is for it to breakdown and become semi-pro with a player’s union that can bargain with the NCAA, otherwise you won’t know the players without a current program.
I still don’t get how player acquisition is going to work in a CBA world. Other than controlling movement of players during the contract, I don’t see how this deals with NIL either. While there may not be a better mechanism at this point, I believe this introduces unintended consequences that will be a total mess especially with no antitrust exemption for whatever enforcement arm is in place.
If I were College Football Commissioner for a day… nah, don’t get me started.
Under a CBA, I think coaches would continue to recruit as always but there would have to be an enforceable salary cap. Otherwise it’s just a football version of MLB. And when a player commits, he signs a contract and can’t transfer or be cut during the length of that contract. Maybe coaches have the ability to offer different contract lengths. I would expect the lower rated players go for longer contracts to secure their roster spot, while the superstars may want shorter contracts so they can transfer if they don’t get the playing time they think they deserve. I could see a coach like Kirby not wanting the guys that want 1-year contracts, and someone like Joey Freshwater only handing one 1-years.
Now, where NIL factors into all of that is a mystery. Players can still get endorsements, but will idiots like Captain Barstool still be dropping tens of millions on unproven HS QBs? I have no idea how that would work.
Exactly my point … this would keep the status quo in place. There’s a hard cap from the university, but then there’s the “soft” money on top of it. Dave Portnoy, Daddy Warbucks from Texas Tech or Phil Knight will do exactly what they are doing now.
Employees of the University of Georgia do not have collective bargaining rights under state law. Still trying to understand who is the management bargaining unit. Is it the collective NCAA? Is it the conference?
It’s going to be a mess, and nobody except the union bosses and the attorneys is going to like it.
Disagree 9000000000000000%.
Why would dynasties be over in college when they aren’t even over in pro sports?
If you have the best head coach – who actually goes out and hires the best assistants, rather than his old buddy college roommate – and he’s at one of the top 5 or so programs as far as history + available funds + environment, why wouldn’t that be able to win 2-4 natties in a decade (imho, that’s the definition of a dynasty. Winning 25-40% of the titles in a decade).
This is just cope.
Cope from Kiffin.
Cope from UGA fans when our problem is super basic.
KIRBY NEEDS TO FIRE HIS BUDDIES AND HIRE THE BEST MAN FOR THE JOB.
He’s the best coach in the nation and needs to act like it.
Agree 9999999999%
I do believe if Kirby thinks Bobo and Schumann are the problems, he’s going to move on from them.
Maybe because Kirby is untouchable because of his record and buyout, he’ll say he’s fine with paying Mike. That doesn’t sound like the Kirby Smart we’ve experienced the last 10 years. He didn’t try to convince Chaney to stay and jettisoned Coley from the OC role as soon as he could. Other coaches who left for lateral moves were told, “Thank you for your work here.” I’m sure he tried to convince Monken to stay by offering him a cushy recruiting role and good money. Alas, he wanted to be back in the League. They accomplished the mission they set out on together.
With Schumann, he’s going to encourage him to leave the nest and find a head coaching job.
I guess that’s a lot of words to say Kirby has earned my trust on choosing the guys around him.
I have to imagine the list of schools courting Schumann for a head coaching position is shrinking by the day.
We have to trust in what Kirby has built and is continuing to build.. I hope he brings Sam Pittman back (ASAP). That will boost recruiting with Qbs and the O-line. Hopefully the NCAA will tighten the rules with Portal/NIL to make retention more promising.