ATHENS — Kirby Smart has said multiple times of late that the 2024 Georgia team is not his most talented.
“I’ve had more physically tough, more physically talented. I don’t know that I’ve had a more mentally tough team,” Smart said after the SEC Championship game.
Jalon Walker took home the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker, yet he made only three of five All-American teams and was a first-team selection on just one of them.
Malaki Starks was the only Georgia player to appear on every All-American team. Yet he wasn’t even First Team All-SEC this season in the eyes of the coaches. The only offensive or defensive player to earn that honor was Tate Ratledge, who played in only four of Georgia’s eight SEC games due to an early season ankle injury.
Quarterback Carson Beck led the SEC in touchdown passes this season (28), but the far more discussed statistic is his SEC-leading 12 interceptions.
Trevor Etienne didn’t even finish as the leading rusher on this Georgia team, due largely to being limited over the final five games of the regular season due to a rib injury.
While the Bulldogs have talent on this team — they wouldn’t be the No. 2 team in the College Football Playoff if they did not — the star power is a deviation from past Georgia teams that saw Brock Bowers, Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis and Nakobe Dean. As for Georgia’s best player, you’d probably point to Walker, but of his 6.5 sacks this season, 4.0 of them came in the two games against Texas.
“I had the opportunity to win that award but I knew the history behind that award as well,” Walker said. “Being able to win and be the third Butkus Award winner in the past eight years from the University of Georgia. It says a lot about the program, but it says a lot about how we treat linebackers here at the University of Georgia as well.”
Georgia clearly took a step back last season when Bowers was hobbled in the SEC Championship game against Alabama. Without a top-tier Bowers, Georgia couldn’t win a de facto playoff game against Alabama in the SEC Championship game.
This season, the Bulldogs had to win in Mercedes-Benz Stadium without Beck, who suffered an elbow injury on the final play of the first half. Gunner Stockton came into the game to replace him, with the Bulldogs trailing 6-3.
Yet the Georgia team came together and pulled out a memorable 22-19 win.
The team, around a fresh-faced Stockton, rallied together and stepped up.
“It’s never a good thing when your starting quarterback goes out,” Ratledge said after the SEC Championship game. “I think it was big for everybody in the locker room to let Gunner know that we believed in him and had full confidence in him to get the job done.”
Georgia doesn’t have an obvious best player on this team. There is no Superman coming to single-handedly carry Georgia to a national championship.
For as much as Smart has spoken this season about how this team might not be the most talented, he’s also repeatedly bemoaned the lack of depth. Due to the transfer portal, the Bulldogs don’t have the same level of talent that the 2021 team did.
But if you look around the roster, there are plenty of good players still on this team. Starks, Walker, Daylen Everette and Mykel Williams have all flashed as game-wreckers at times this season. Offensively, Etienne, Delp and Arian Smith have made clutch plays when needed. Georgia placed a league-best 13 players on the three All-SEC teams.
If this Georgia team is going to replicate what the 2021 and the 2022 team was able to do, it’s going to take a group effort. Everyone — from Stockton and new punter Drew Miller to veterans like Ratledge and Dan Jackson — pulling their weight and doing so in the same direction.
This team still has an opportunity to win a national championship and has already won an SEC Championship — something last year’s team with Bowers or the 2021 team with Davis and Dean could not do.
“They just keep coming and keep coming,” Smart said. “They never say ‘die’. I have a lot of respect for the leaders in that room because of what they’ve been through. Probably the hardest schedule in history that we’ve ever had. They endured it, they came out on top, and they fought their way through.”
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
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