WATCH: Georgia drops highlights from first spring scrimmage

Expectations for Georgia football in 2018 are about as high as they have ever been.

Despite losing a handful of key pieces from last season’s national runner-up squad, the Bulldogs bring in a jaw-dropping recruiting class, while returning several important players from 2017.

Needless to say, the goal for this season — and just about every season going forward — is a national championship. Anything short of that will be considered at least a mild disappointment.

The first step toward reaching that goal begins with spring practice, where the Bulldogs will have the opportunity to integrate that incoming talent with all of the firepower that coach Kirby Smart’s program brings back.

On Saturday, the team hit spring milestone No. 1 with the first live scrimmage. And although this is becoming increasingly rare in this day and age, UGA gave fans a behind-the-scenes look at that competition, dropping a handful of highlights following the conclusion of the scrimmage:

“This is about us getting better.” Scrimmage 1 is in the 📚 #WIN / #ATD pic.twitter.com/PxziWtoLlu

— Georgia Football (@FootballUGA) April 8, 2018

As Smart said in the video, these scrimmages are less about which side wins or loses, and more about each individual player getting necessary reps to keep improving. That does not, however, mean that the scrimmage lacked for competition. That’s obvious in the highlights.

While a spring scrimmage is exciting in the doldrums of mid-April, Georgia players are going to hit a point when they’re itching for competition outside of the guys with which they share a locker room. And although kickoff of the team’s first game is still nearly six months away, that boredom may become a good thing, as it could inspire the Bulldogs to come out of the gates hungry, ready to prove that last season was no fluke.