ATHENS — Georgia coach Kirby Smart is somewhat aware of how his team is perceived heading into next season.

There’s been real chatter about Georgia’s returning production to this point. The Bulldogs return 14 starters from last season, tied for the second most in the country.

In terms of raw production, Georgia ranks 8th in the country per ESPN’s Bill Connelly. Just a season ago, Georgia ranked 105th in Connelly’s same metrics.

Having so many new faces didn’t impact Georgia all too much last season. The Bulldogs repeated as SEC champions and once again made it to the College Football Playoff.

As Smart looks around and sees his 2026 team through the first few practices, he can’t help but focus on all the newcomers.

“We’ve got essentially about 40 to 50 new players once you count the signees, the portals, and some of the other guys,” Smart said. “As we always say, the roster turns over quickly. I’m excited about spring. We’ve got a lot of areas to work on. I’ve seen a lot of things said or written about guys coming back, number of starters.

“I’d probably look at it that we have the least number of starters coming back we’ve ever had in terms of competition for positions.”

Georgia signed a large high school recruiting class and a handful of transfers, which make up the set of newcomers.

The Bulldogs had 12 members from last year’s team depart via the transfer portal and another four declared early for the 2026 NFL Draft. Add in the usual group of seniors moving on and there are still key pieces to replace. Nowhere is that more true than in the wide receiver room.

A big reason why Georgia had such limited usage of the transfer portal — coming in and going out — is that Smart and his coaching staff elected to focus on retention. It was imperative that Georgia bring back players like Nate Frazier, KJ Bolden and Gunner Stockton.

Those returnees are reflected IN Georgia’s high ranking in returning starters and production.

“We really worked hard on retention with our team to retain the guys we have,” Smart said. “We think that’s what provides a winning culture, what provides a locker-room culture, is retaining guys and guys having relationships. At the end of the day, you play for the guys you play with.”

Connelly noted that the average number of transfers per team has increased in the previous two years from 13.9 to 22.8. Georgia’s 2026 roster has 14.

It’s also worth noting that returning production in general is down across the sport. While Georgia comes in 8th in returning production for this season, it would’ve ranked 67th in 2023 and 57th in 2024.

Rarely has Georgia ranked highly in returning production rankings. Usually, the Bulldogs lose a lot to the NFL draft and Georgia has at times experienced greater losses to the transfer portal.

The Bulldogs may be doing a better job in terms of keeping the core of its roster together. That’s the biggest reason why the Bulldogs have shot up these rankings. It ranked 80th entering the 2023 season, 47th going into 2024 and 105th heading into 2025. The 2021 team came in at 110th and the 2022 team ranked 96th. Those two seasons yielded national championships.

On the other end of the spectrum, no team returned more production from 2024 going into 2025 than Clemson. Yet the Tigers went just 7-6 last season, stumbling further away from the top of the sport.

Returning production means less now than it used to in terms of predicting success. For Georgia, though, it never aims to dominate or live near the top of these rankings. Returning production hasn’t been a stronger indicator of future success for Georgia.

Based on the way Smart thinks, returnees won’t determine whether the Bulldogs win a national championship this season. It’ll be based upon how much better this new team can get.

“Our goals for the spring are really simple: We want to grow the bottom of the roster to the top, and we want to get our top of the roster better,” Smart said. “You can only do that through hard work and preparation.”