EXPECTATIONS
When Georgia won the 2017 Southeastern Conference championship over Auburn and reached that season’s title game of the College Football Playoff before losing in overtime to Alabama, it forever raised the bar for the Bulldogs in the Kirby Smart era. Georgia is 31-7 since with two Sugar Bowl appearances and a Peach Bowl trip, but last year’s Bulldogs failed to reach the SEC championship game for the first time since Smart’s first season in 2016. With JT Daniels returning at quarterback and with Todd Monken in his second season as offensive coordinator, the Bulldogs are expected to thrive, and a defense headed by a linebacker contingent containing Adam Anderson, Nakobe Dean and Nolan Smith could be the best in the country. Anything short of an SEC title would be considered disappointing, and anything shy of an SEC East crown would be considered a shock given the offensive weaponry that departed from rival Florida.
CONCERNS
The Bulldogs are vying in the biggest game of next Saturday’s opening lineup, traveling to Charlotte, North Carolina, to meet Atlantic Coast Conference kingpin and CFP regular Clemson. The Tigers may begin the year with the nation’s top defense, so the Georgia offense will have to be clicking out of the gate and must be settled up front with what the Bulldogs will be facing in the trenches. A loss to Clemson would leave Georgia with no room for error the rest of the season in terms of its chief objectives, so that would be an early mental obstacle the Bulldogs haven’t had to endure in recent years. There also has been a recent history of injuries at receiver, a troubling trend that continued this month, with the Bulldogs already kicking off this season with George Pickens and Dominick Blaylock sidelined.
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