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Parting shots on Georgia 2024 and College Football Playoff
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Parting shots on Georgia 2024 and College Football Playoff
ATHENS — Does Georgia football have enough on its roster to win a national championship in 2025?
Comments
Indeed, Ohio State finished fourth-place in the Big Ten and didn’t even appear in the Big Ten Championship Game.
Mike, yes they won the NC, but their resume was less than desirable with that 4th place finish and a bad loss to their biggest rival. They got hot at the right time. That's really about all you can say. They wouldn't have made it to the playoffs with Georgia's schedule or most teams' from the SEC for that matter.
We're headed back to 2019. We can expect a preseason top 10 ranking - I hope we're ahead of Miami.
No mention of our coaching challenges. None.
Pretty weak assessment. I would hope for more from the lead AJC Dawgnation writer.
How things have changed since Kirby won the last (2) National Championships:
So now you have to combine ALL the following elements to seriously compete in the playoffs, survive more games, and win a Championship: You need top recruiting, development, elite coaching, talent from the transfer portal, and NIL/Collective money for the retention of players & top transfer portal prospects.
The Dawgs have a very young, mostly inexperienced group for 2025. A lot of stars by players names, but all I see is what I and others saw this year….which wasn't enough: A lot of very good players but not a lot of great.
Am I the only UGA fan concerned that Kirby Smart showed absolutely no hesitation in trying to score with 35 seconds left, with a QB making his first start, against one of the best defenses in the country?
If he doesn’t want publicly admit his mistake, that’s understandable. But behind closed doors I hope he reconsiders this strategy moving forward.
Trailing the Sugar Bowl 6-3 would have been just fine, Kirb. Take a knee, please.
@David1…I have to disagree with you a bit. During the regular season Ohio State beat Penn State and lost by one point to the Ducks - who were playing their best football of the season at that time. The game could have gone either way. Sure, their regular season schedule wasn't as tough as Georgia's schedule, but most teams in the country had an easier schedule than Georgia. But other than Georgia beating Texas twice, we didn't win any other significant game other than maybe Tennessee. I don't even consider Clemson that big of a win. Ole Miss dominated us and Bama beat us down…again. You are only offering speculation as to how Ohio State would have done had they played Georgia's schedule. My bet is they would have performed better than the Dawgs. That's my speculation.
Ohio State played its best football after their loss to Michigan. But that's what it probably is going to take to win a Natty from now on. That's how an NFL team usually wins the Super Bowl - by playing their best ball of the season during the playoffs.
But there is no doubting the final result: After dominating and handily defeating Tennessee, Oregon, Texas, and Notre Dame, Ohio State proved it was the best team in the country.
I’m hoping the April TP will be of big help. Beef up the Defensive Front mainly. If a prime RB is available and wants to come to UGA nab him. Same with WR, though we do have more Numbers now at that position.
Lastly if he refuses to Fire Searls at least chew him in private and tell him clearly Much Better Results or your Out Of Here !! A HUGE part of the reason that the Dawgs floundered was the O Line. Couple that with the Numerous dropped passes and well Yall know the story.
Unlike the so called skill positions of RB, WR etc. adding just one O lineman out of the TP might help a bit but it certainly won’t heal the O line. But I don’t think it’s the Players in that unit anyway, I think it’s the Coaching. The techniques they’re being taught or Not taught.
And I Sure Hope this batch of WRs know how to get separation, run a smooth route, and Catch the dawg gone football !! My hopes for the April TP might not come to fruition or even close, So my expectations might not be realistic.
Now THE Most important thing, More NIL $$$$ !! Somebody said UGA ranks Five in NiL $$$. If that’s correct that means four other teams are ahead of us. That’s To many !! In its a current and I believe Permanent structure, I Hate NIL !! Go Dawgs !!
OSU rode a hot QB throwing to 4 WR1's and a defense that returned multiple Top 50 '25 NFL draftees to a championship. I didn't think Howard had it in him but those WR cover a lot of deficiencies.
That is why the ceiling for the '25 UGA season rides on GS. Can he make a 1st season splash like CBeck did in '23? GS has been on campus 3 years as an understudy(like Beck was). He should be ready. It is all on him because Ryan Puglisi, coming from CT private school league to the SEC, is still not close to being ready to play football at this level.
I think biggest need isn’t more playmakers (given incoming WRs), but help on both O & D lines.
While I wish you were right that conference championships & games shouldn’t be diminished, I think it’s clear that they are detrimental to the bigger picture of CFP success & National Championships. Especially in the SEC, it’s just more cannibalization.
One thing that seems to have been overlooked this year is the beating SEC teams take from playing each other all year. UGA limped (physically) into the playoffs. OSU, Penn St, and Notre Dame (even though they had a couple of key injuries) looked remarkably fresh physically during the playoffs. If you only play 1-3 games against similarly physical teams, you’re going to be in better shape for playoffs.
It seemed like there was a lack of iron to sharpen the iron this season. We will never know how many players were injured and playing through, but the rb room was clearly decimated. The connection of this team was clearly suspect at times, as well. Our roster is top four and we have the Jimmie and Joe's, but the x's and o's were just not there, consistently. Onward and upward from here. I just don't see a repeat of the poor offensive and defensive numbers we had in 24. Gave up way too many points and didn't score enough. GO DAWGS!
When a team has top recruiting classes and is constantly outplayed by lesser talent one would have to question the coaching . Like Bear Bryant said “I’ll beat you with my team ,I’ll beat you with your team “
105 & 19
NIL $$ has forever changed the face of CFB. The NCAA could have resolved this a long, long time ago by instituting fair and Reasonable stipends for players in addition to their scholarships. But as Usual for them they sat on their azzes and let Attorneys get involved. And then NIL was born.
The genie is out of the bottle for good. I can’t see any way for them to throw things in reverse and try to do what they should have done in the first place. If they tried that law suits would abound. So Now it’s which ever schools pony up the most $$$ will get the Majority of the Best players.
OSU and Ryan Day didn’t win because he’s a phenomenal coach, though he’s a very capable coach, they won because they went out and Bought the best players. From the TP. In addition to the solid recruiting they had from HS. Give Kirby the level of players OSU had this year and he’d win the Ntl. Title every year.
In reality 2024 wasn’t a bad year, actually all things considered it was pretty good, it just wasn’t Elite as we Dawgs fans have come to expect. Winning B2B Nattys was both a blessing and some what of a curse to Kirby, as Dawgs fans will expect that at a minimum every other year. But NIL has erased that possibility. CFB is no longer CFB, it’s a semipro second tier NFL. Sad. 😥
NIL and the TP may have changed CFB in many ways, but it has not changed the simple fact that dominance at the LOS wins games. We will not win another Natty until we are dominant again at the LOS. We need grizzly bears that wreck everything in front of them. Achieve this and the Natty's will follow.
@navydawg
UGA's 2021 team was far more talented than Ohio State's 2024 team. Example: Ohio State didn't have anyone close to Jalen Carter (their best DL, Jack Sawyer, is a "middle of the first round" guy) and Carter didn't even start the 2021 season. And Channing Tindall, who never started a game for UGA, would have been Ohio State's best LB this year.
Ohio State is an offensive team? Fine. Brock Bowers is better than Jeremiah Smith. Ladd McConkey is better than Emeka Egbuka. Add in George Pickens and that is three NFL 1000 yard receivers before we even get to AD Mitchell, Darnell Washington and Jermaine Burton. NFL Pro Bowler James Cook is better than Quinshon Judkins. Treveyon Henderson is better than Zamir White but not better than White and Kenny McIntosh (the Buckeyes only played 2 RBs this year where UGA played 3 RBs who were drafted and - with Kendall Milton - 4 who are on NFL active rosters in 2021).
Now Ohio State's 2025 draft may rival UGA's 2022 draft in quantity. But is Ohio State going to have 5 first round picks plus Pickens, Cook and Nakobe Dean? Not even close.
@benzone...when you compare individual talent between Kirby's 2021 team and the Buckeyes this season, I'd say you are probably right. However, I'd say overall, this year's Buckeyes were a better team and played a harder schedule than Georgia's 2021 team.
16 games were played by Ohio State this season. Not only was this a longer season, but what stands out is that of those 16 games, seven of them were against teams that finished in the top 10 of the final AP poll. Ohio State went 6-1 in those games, with its only top-10 loss coming to Oregon by one point on the road. The Buckeyes are the only team in college football history to beat four teams that finished in the top five and six that finished in the top 10. And with wins against Indiana, Penn State, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame, Ohio State became the first team with five victories against teams ranked in the top five at the time of the game.
Ohio State’s final six games were against Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame. That’s five Playoff teams and an eight-win Michigan team that beat Bama in the ReliaQuest Bowl.
Ohio State's RBs were elite and their run defense was the best in the country. The Buckeyes gave up a total of 187 rushing yards in the first three games, and Notre Dame was supposed to be the biggest test of the postseason. But the Irish had more than 100 rushing yards in every game until finishing with just 53 against the Buckeyes. Ohio State stopped them from any explosive runs, as their longest run was 9 yards. It was the first time this season that Notre Dame didn’t have a run over 10 yards.