Of all the interesting graphics and stats that surrounded the Draft this past weekend, I found this one to be the most interesting.
Come to think of it, with three losses and an SEC Championship, we’ve enjoyed an embarrassment of riches to the point that 2024 is viewed as a “down year” in Georgia football, yet we still managed to have the second most number of players drafted in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Ohio State’s 14 still doesn’t match Georgia’s record of 15 set in the 2022 draft, and this was, per the Suckeye faithful, the greatest college football team of all time. *cough*
Alongside all the fodder and additional media nuggets that the draft brings, it’s important to note that four other Dawgs were signed as UDFAs, including Xavier Truss to Denver. A good bit of the narrative has been around “how did Georgia have that much talent and couldn’t win a (insert game/championship/moral victory here). Those debates bounce from one side of the house – injuries, off-field issues, depth at receiver and o-line slapping you in the face – to the other – Bobo and Searels. Needless to say there was talent abounding, but when you observe the list of drafted players take a moment to ask yourself how many of them made it through the season unscathed, particularly on the o-line and the defensive front seven, and coupled with a killer schedule it’s hard to demand more.
One thing that stood out in last week’s Friday Fodder – what if Conley hadn’t caught the ball – is that many of us don’t want to go back to that time, relive that pain, nor be in the position we were in for the 2012 season. I think one of the comments that stood out the most to me was this:
W Cobb Dawg on said:Edit
We score, but there’s time left on the clock. Then we pooch kick it and bama returns it.
I’m sorry, but I remember a lot those days as finding new and creative ways to screw up, a la the Harvey-Clemons tip, or AJ getting flagged for celebrating. Conley’s catch was just par for the course.
Ah, yes, the Georgia Way. I’m right there with W Cobb Dawg…I can recall sitting there, watching many Georgia games and never getting really excited when the Dawgs would pull into the lead. To this day, I still sit there and don’t really celebrate until time has expired and the Dawgs had more points than their opponent. I would tell those sitting there with me that I was waiting to see what new and profoundly unique way we were going to lose today, in only a way that Georgia could do. The last time I can really remember feeling that way was 2016 versus Tech, and I can’t say there’s been too many more during the Smart era where I felt like we were Georgia’ing – not unlike Clemsoning prior to the Swinney era – a game away. Maybe South Carolina in 2019, and I don’t know if I’d count Alabama and Ole Miss 2024 as games like that, especially Ole Miss where I felt like we were just soundly whipped all day.
I say that to say, the Smart era has been one that I’ve had a hard time reconciling with my inner Munson. The success has been wonderful, but the period of time from roughly 1989 through the Notre Dame game of 2017 had left such a mark on my fandom where I still have to pinch myself that this is the current reality of Georgia football. Top recruiting classes, SEC Championships, National Championships…it’s a great time to be alive. I’ve come to expect less how we’ll sensationally lose a game to now watching a game in an almost zen-like state, with the confidence that I’ve seen games like these before during the Smart era and reside in the comfort of “Kirby’s on the mother”.
And now we’re setting draft records. Consider this:
And
Oh, and this, too…
We went from “The Georgia Way” to “The Georgia Way”…and in just ten years, that’s come to mean two completely opposite things.
Kirby Paul Smart.
Forget the statue…just go ahead and determine what needs to be renamed first…the stadium or the field or the athletics center. The only question we can ask ourselves in the future will be how do we sustain what the man has rebuilt, and how we don’t return to the old form Georgia when Smart decides it’s time to hang it up.
Go ‘Dawgs.
2018 natty, 2018 seccg, 2019 @ lsu, 2023 seccg were not totally disconnected from past horrors. I would argue that late 4th quarter midfield fake punt one was uniquely egregious as a self own. It is frightening to me to think of how we only barely escaped a similar fate in Indy.
I hope we can get rid of this recent injury bug and the nil driven sense of entitlement and start properly processing the good teams in our way once again. Nothing more fun than watching us dispassionately bludgeon and dispatch teams. Especially those who showed up expecting to compete.
Kirby has a long time to go before we need to worry about what’s next imho.
Honestly with the 2018 I was just so amazed we were there that I wasn’t even thinking about it. It was painful as hell but felt optimistic at the same time, because in contrast to the 2012 game, it felt like we were actually beating Alabama rather than lucking into a close game. And you’re right, the 2023 SECCG was and is still a mystery to me. Beck got the tips even after an easy and dominating opening drive, and our approach to Milroe was head-scratchingly confusing. Ugh.
Schumann (and, to a degree, Kirby) has too much respect for running QBs.
One thing Lanning changed between game 1 and game 2 against Bama in 2021-22 was that he was not going to allow Bryce Young to sit in the pocket. He brought pressure and forced Young to respond. That bogus arm coming forward call that should have been a scoop and score on the first possession still ticks me off.
2023 and 2024 were all about injuries at key positions and the lack of a dominating inside defensive presence. In 2023, Brock spent almost half the year on the shelf. Ladd spent time on and off the field. Mondon and Pop didn’t finish the season (and yes, we missed both of them). Stackhouse and Brinson weren’t dominant. In 2024, Mykel spent much of the season nursing an injury (as he did in 2023). The running backs were the walking wounded most of the season with Etienne at the top of the list. Starks was having to play all over the secondary because of injuries at star rather than as the safety at the “top of the Christmas tree.” The offensive line had zero continuity because they all missed time with that being shown most visibly in Oxford and New Orleans. Mondon got hurt again. Once again, no true run stuffing defensive tackle emerged.
We had pretty good injury luck in 2021 and 2022. Depth was never really tested (other than at QB for a portion of 2021).
The 2021 and 2022 Georgia Bulldogs smash the last 2 national champions from the Big 10. There is no doubt about that.
True, but I don’t think the late game, blind reverse pitch to Bell with our backs to the goal line helped the cause there…
Especially when the “pitch” was 5 ft making it difficult to handle. Same play was called against Tenn last season with the same result. Needed to be handoffs on both occasions.
Or a shovel pass.
Or look where you are tossing it.
Something other than a blind lateral.
It used to be everything had to go absolutely right for us to win a championship. Now, everything has to go absolutely wrong to keep us from winning a championship.
In the future, please feel free to correct my awful sentence structure.
Guilty here as well. I just put it in the column that most of us are doing this in a spare moment when maybe we should be doing something else.
I read this UGA finding new and creative ways to give up the W and many seem to attribute that to luck. However, UGA improved as the staff and coordinators improved. The staff also grades and recruits prospective talent.
You create luck to a great extent. Was it luck, that Ohio St missed a field goal? Yes but it wasn’t luck that someone ran down their QB and forced a long field goal. Every teams gives up big playss from time to time, how do you respond. My skepticism as of late has much to do with rehires from a time that UGA didn’t make that luck.
If I think about it logically, then I agree that we’re living in the Golden Era of UGA football. But for some reason that I can’t explain, it doesn’t always *feel* that way. It feels like this team and Kirby just aren’t given either the credit or the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it’s because I’m too deep in the fan community, like this one, where many of us (myself included) like to find fault with Bobo or Beck or WR drops or whatever. But I think it also has to do with the media.
Last year, Ohio State wins the natty despite having 2 losses and their fans and media proclaim them as one of the greatest ever. We go undefeated in 2022 and whip nearly every team handily and it feels that so many out there want to slap an asterisk on that season because we squeaked by Mizzu and OSU missed that FG.
Am I alone in this? Does anyone else feel that the Dawgs are always criticized despite their accomplishments while other top teams are given a pass in the years in which they don’t win it all?
There is a very large B10 media group that has gotten sick and tired of the SEC. It was hard to crow to loudly when you champion Michigan is also first in cheating. tOSU championship was the one they were waiting on.
To think back to how I felt about Georgia football in 2015 to today is basement to mountain top. I expected the Georgia Way to always prevent sustained success. Now seasonal excellence is the Georgia Way.
This memory of where we came from is what pisses me off so much by internet experts telling Kirby how to do his job. Kirby Smart is the best active CFB coach enjoy it while it lasts.
It isn’t just B10 media or national media. Watched the history of SEC football documentary for coverage after 1980 especially of Richt’s SEC championship. UGA doesn’t get the credit it deserves. It is this realization and questionable calls that has resulted in me pulling against SEC teams when I previously pulled for SEC teams against out of conference competition. Further, I have made comments that FSU, UGA, should work with SEC East schools and some ACC to schools to form a new conference.
As far as working with fsu I have but one thing to say. FTMF.
UGA football reminds me a lot of the Red Sox in baseball. Both have been at least good most of the time they’ve been in existence but have had the misfortune of the two most successful teams in their respective sports (Bama and the Yankees) being directly in their way. Both have had some players who rate among the best who ever suited up and plenty of others who were really good for at least a while. Both had a habit of losing high stakes matchups in excruciatingly painful ways. Both had passionate fan bases that were abjectly miserable because of the teams’ recurring inability to win it all. And both finally broke through and remained at or near the top for some time. That said, the Sawwwx have tailed off in recent years. Here’s hoping UGA doesn’t.
A different take. Kirby has 13 drafted and several more that end up going to pro teams. He says it’s his best coaching year ever. Yet we all felt that Georgia last year was underwhelming. Losing to Alabama after coming out totally unprepared? Almost losing to tech at home? Something is up in the hallowed halls in Athens.
Are we going to discover that Kirby is a great d-coor but without the best o-coor he’s just a step short? I hope not. In my mind, Kirby has several years to prove he can win it all again, or he will be like Dabo – who won with great QBs – Kirby will be the coach who won only when he had a great o-coor.
To win a national championship it takes good/great players playing great – coaches have to coach them up. It also takes some luck. Even the great Saban had luck on his side to win championships. How many would Bobby Bowden have if the kickers weren’t wide left? And flip that to how many would Miami not have if the fsu kickers weren’t wide left?