It’s hard to have a better start to the decade than the Georgia Bulldogs have during the 2020s.
They’ve finished ranked inside the top seven of the final AP Poll in each season of the 2020s. Georgia has appeared in four of the six College Football Playoffs in this current decade and the Bulldogs are the only team in the sport to have won multiple national championships since the start of the 2020 season.
Chip Patterson of CBS Sports stated that as it stands right now, the Bulldogs are in fact the team of the 2020s.
“From the start of the 2021 season through the end of 2023, Georgia went 42-2 with two national championship game wins and the only defeats coming to Nick Saban and Alabama in SEC Championship Game appearances,” Patterson wrote. “And while the winning percentage has dipped a bit in the last two seasons (23-5), those years have each included SEC Championship Game wins. Kirby Smart helped build the juggernaut of the 2010s with Saban, and as we stare down the final four years of the 2020s, he’s currently driving the frontrunner to be the team of the decade.”
Patterson notes that Ohio State is nipping on the heels of the Bulldogs, despite Georgia having a 3-1 edge in terms of conference championships.
Georgia is the only team with multiple national championships in this current decade, but Ohio State, Indiana and Alabama all seem like possible threats to get a second.
Oregon, Texas, Miami and Notre Dame appear to be annual threats to win a national championship. Especially in a world with an expanded College Football Playoff.
We’re past the halfway point when it comes to this decade, yet there are still four seasons left for one team to stake its claim as the dominant program of the decade. While the Bulldogs have gotten out to an early lead, there is still time for someone else to catch them.
So what do the Bulldogs have to do to ensure they remain in position to be the team of the decade?
The simplest answer is to grab another national championship. Alabama won four during the 2010s, with Smart serving as the defensive coordinator for three of them. Nebraska won three in the 1990s, while Miami did the same in the 1980s.
To get a third national title though Georgia will need more breaks than it got in 2021 or 2022. Those titles came in an era where there were just four teams in the College Football Playoff. Georgia also played just eight SEC games in those seasons. Going forward, the Bulldogs, and every other SEC team, will play nine conference games each season.
There’s also the other notable change that comes because of changes to NIL rules and the transfer portal. While NIL was legal during the 2021 and 2022 seasons, it’s a totally different beast now in terms of the way it impacts team building.
As for the transfer portal, we’ve already seen how Georgia has had to prioritize retention with its current roster. While Georgia brought in only nine players via the transfer portal, it also only lost 12 members from last season’s team. Both of those marks are the fewest in the SEC.
While Georgia has a plan when it comes to working the transfer portal, one of the questions that will ultimately define how the Bulldogs finish out the decade comes in the form of talent acquisition.
Georgia’s 2020 and 2024 recruiting classes were ranked No. 1 in the country. But the 2026 recruiting cycle ranked sixth. The current 2027 class sits at No. 13, with only a small handful of targets remaining uncommitted.
Potential changes to the way the sport is governed are possible, but who knows what further consequences potential government intervention will have on the sport.
For as much as has changed in the sport from when the decade began, Georgia has been able to find stability in a way not every contender has in recent years. Consider that this year will be the fourth straight that Glenn Schumann and Mike Bobo have served as the offensive and defensive coordinators at Georgia.
Georgia’s staying power is a big reason why some view Smart as one of the top coaches in the sport.
“The argument for Smart is his program remains the gold standard for elite, sustained success even as the expanded CFP, the portal and NIL have in many ways made his job tougher,” ESPN’s Max Olson said. “He has maintained an incredibly high standard at Georgia with no bad years, finishing in the top seven of the AP poll in nine consecutive seasons, with eight trips to the SEC title game.”
If the Bulldogs continue to find themselves in the College Football Playoff, eventually the breaks will go their way. In 2022, Ohio State’s Noah Ruggles missed a 50-yard field goal attempt as time expired. Last season, Ole Miss kicker Lucas Carneiro made a 47-yard field goal in the final moments of the College Football Playoff.
Smart has always built Georgia to sustain. It’s a big reason why to this point in the decade, the Bulldogs are viewed as the team of the decade.
To ensure that title sticks throughout the rest of the decade, the Bulldogs are going to need to continue to accumulate talent at an elite level. That aspect will almost certainly look different compared to the beginning of the decade.
Ultimately, national championships will go a long way in shaping which team ends the decade as the defining team. Ohio State likely isn’t going anywhere, while Texas and others seem committed to spending whatever it takes to stay atop the sport.
Georgia is the only SEC team to make the College Football Playoff in each of the last two seasons. Oregon, Indiana and Ohio State are the only other teams to make it in both seasons.
No team has yet won a College Football Playoff game in multiple 12-team formats. Perhaps that speaks to how difficult it will be to maintain success on an annual basis.
This demonstrates just how much more difficult the task ahead is for the Georgia Bulldogs.
