The first games of the 2022 season took place this weekend, with Vanderbilt, North Carolina and Northwestern all being teams that came away with wins.

Georgia will hope to do the same this coming weekend, though in a game with much bigger stakes. The No. 3 ranked Bulldogs will take on the No. 11 Oregon Ducks to open the season in a game that will have consequences come the end of the season. Both teams are expected to contend for a spot in the College Football Playoff, with ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit picking Georgia to make the College Football Playoff.

Herbstreit also recently gave some love to Georgia tight end Brock Bowers, who he named as college football’s “top baller.”

Herbstreit isn’t the only ESPN-er to expect Georgia to repeat its success this season, as ESPN’s Mark Schlabach had Georgia going 12-0 during the regular season. Lee Corso also had Georgia as one of his playoff picks for the season. Bowers and Georgia defensive tackle Jalen Carter were also named to ESPN’s Preseason All-American Team for the 2022 season.

“We’re all kind of rooting for each other, supporting each other. It’s a really good environment in that room,’ Bowers said. “Everyone kind of wants everyone to succeed. When someone else is making plays, I’m happy for them. When I’m making plays, people are happy for me. It’s a good environment.”

Even with Georgia having to replace 15 draft picks from last season’s team, expectations are still high for Georgia in part because of players like Bowers, Carter and others. Georgia signed the No. 3 ranked recruiting class in the country and bring back what should be a loaded offense.

With the Bulldogs coming off their first national championship since 1980, there is a very real excitement to see how the Bulldogs go about following up last season.

“Every team is going to have new player the first game of the year, that’s the one unique thing, regardless of who you are, you have new players playing and we have to prepare our guys for good and bad and how they respond to it,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said on a recent interview with 680 The Fan.

Adding to the intrigue for the game against the Ducks is that there is familiarity on the coaching staffs for both sides. Dan Lanning is now the head coach at Oregon after serving as the defensive coordinator for the Bulldogs for the past three seasons. On the Georgia side, Bryan McClendon was the wide receivers coach at Oregon for the past two seasons, which is the title he now has at Georgia.

Smart and Lanning have been very complimentary of each other in the months leading up to the game. But now that game week is here, both sides are eager to hand the other a loss.

“The one thing I’ve learned is to expect the unexpected. You don’t really know until you get to that first game exactly how guys are going to respond,” Smart said. “I didn’t know exactly what kind of team we had last year until we played Clemson, and you find out early when you play a team of that caliber.”

Georgia and Oregon kickoff at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC. For Georgia fans, that game cannot get here soon enough.

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