Georgia won nine regular season games last year. That’s really good for most programs, but Georgia isn’t most programs. The Georgia Bulldogs expect to win SEC East championships. They expect to make major bowl games and play at a higher level of competition. They expect to play in the SEC Championship Game a reasonable amount of the time, but with no SEC title game appearances since 2012 – Missouri and Florida have won the SEC East the last three years – the school felt it had to jettison former coach Mark Richt, who led the program out of the darkness at the beginning of this century. Georgia made a gamble in the sense that it hired a head coach with no previous head coaching experience. Georgia is a team which could go in so many directions this year.
Biggest Team Weakness
The Bulldogs’ biggest weakness could be coaching – Kirby Smart has never been a head coach, and in light of the example of Will Muschamp at Florida, he could become the kind of coach who knows everything about one side of the ball (defense), but completely neglects and fails to understand the other side of the ball (offense), which leads to overall mediocrity on the field. Smart might be better than that, but it’s impossible to say at this point, so he’s an element of uncertainty right now. Freshman quarterback Jacob Eason is a ballyhooed recruit. Everyone in the recruiting industry thinks Georgia got a real prize with that particular recruiting commitment. Yet, for 2016 and not any future season, Eason is a freshman, and it’s very hard to expect freshmen to put everything together right away.
As much as the coach and the quarterback might be considered primary weaknesses, though, the passing game is really the foremost weakness of the team. It’s not just the quarterback; wide receivers did not get open very often last year. They did not make a lot of big plays down the field. Georgia averaged under 190 passing yards per game last season, and while that stat looks bad on its face, it’s much worse when you realize how many talented running backs the Dawgs had (even with injuries, their backups were still skilled). The passing game should be so much better with the kinds of runners Georgia has. This is Smart’s main task in 2016: making sure the passing game works fluidly.
Biggest Team Strength
The Bulldogs’ biggest strength is their secondary. Georgia might not have been able to pass the ball well, but it defended the pass well. The Georgia Bulldogs allowed under 160 passing yards per game, and what’s more is that their secondary returns intact from last season. The SEC East is a mediocre division with mediocre quarterbacks. Georgia’s path to the SEC East title will involve a lot of interceptions, some of them run back for touchdowns. If the secondary can make difficult catches of interceptions, instead of merely knocking balls away, this team might be able to score enough to win against Tennessee and Florida.
Schedule
Much has been made about the fact that the Georgia Bulldogs have one of the easier schedules in the country (among Top 25 teams) and it does in fact look like that. First off, they only play four true road games. They’ll play North Carolina on a neutral site to start the year and then visit Missouri, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Kentucky. That’s not bad at all (notice how there is no Alabama or LSU).
The two biggest games for Georgia, every year, are against Florida in Jacksonville and against Tennessee. This year, the Tennessee game is a home game, so if the Dawgs want to beat the preseason SEC East favorites, they’ll get them in their own backyard in Athens. The schedule sets up well for this team. Georgia also doesn’t have to play Alabama, which it had to do last year.
Outlook
We’re going to quickly find out how well Kirby Smart and his offensive staff can work together. Georgia needs a passing game to supplement both its running game and its defense, which should both be good. Georgia could easily win the division, but the Georgia Bulldogs are probably going to be too erratic to depend on to the point of winning the division. They’ll have to settle for second.
Projection: 2nd In SEC East
