ATHENS — Injuries are always going to be a factor in a game as violent as football.

But in some seasons, injuries are of greater occurrence than others. That proved to be the case for Georgia during the 2024 season.

ESPN’s Bill Connelly compiled a way to try and at least determine how injured each team in the FBS was during the 2024 season. The ESPN stats guru concocted a formula to show which teams had the best injury luck and which had some of the worst.

“I compared (a) the number of players who either started every game or started all but one for a given team to (b) the number of players who started only one or two games, likely as a stopgap,” Connelly wrote in a story for ESPN.

The numbers show that Georgia was a pretty banged-up team last season. Using Connelly’s metric, Georgia ranked 99th in the country in lineup consistency. Of the 12 teams that made the College Football Playoff, Georgia ranked last in that regard.

The Bulldogs were the only playoff team to rank outside of the top 50 in the category. Conversely, Texas and Tennessee — the other playoff representatives from the SEC — ranked inside the top 10 in Connelly’s metric.

“The fact that Georgia won the SEC and reached the CFP despite a pretty terrible injury ratio speaks volumes about the depth Kirby Smart has built in Athens,” Connelly wrote.

Connelly did point out that Georgia benefited from turnover luck last season, as the Bulldogs ranked 13th in expected turnover margin.

Georgia went 11-3 last season despite constantly having to shuffle its lineup. Early in the season, it was the defensive line that dealt with injury. Mykel Williams and Warren Brinson both missed games early on during the season.

At the mid-point of the season, it was the offensive line that dealt with the injury bug, as recent NFL draft picks Tate Ratledge and Jared Wilson both missed multiple games. Later in the season, Earnest Greene and Monroe Freeling battled injury.

In the SEC Championship game, Carson Beck suffered an elbow injury that ended his season. Gunner Stockton came into the game to help steady the ship, but it wasn’t enough to get past Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff.

Stockton, Freeling and Greene all return next season, so there is the potential that those previous injuries could help this upcoming Georgia team. Given Georgia’s team lost 13 players to the NFL draft, the 2025 team depth figures to be tested. Especially after seeing 16 players depart the program via the transfer portal.

This spring, several expected contributors missed time as they recovered from offseason surgery. Christen Miller, Gabe Harris and Daylen Everette are all expected starters for Georgia who did not play in the team’s spring game. All three are expected back for the start of practice in August.

If Georgia is going to have a better 2025 than it did in 2024, it will simply need better injury luck. There isn’t much Georgia can do to control that aspect, proving just how much needs to fall into place for a team to win a championship.

Georgia football injury exiting G-Day