How the AJC chose the top 10 Georgia Bulldogs players per decade

Aerial view of Sanford Stadium in Athens. With a $25 million expansion completed in 2003 and $8 million more in 2004, the University of Georgia added a second upper deck on the north side and 27 new north side SkySuites bringing the new stadium capacity to 92,746 — the fifth largest on-campus stadium in the country. UGA’s athletic department simply is committed to too many other facility projects that have precedence at the moment. Most notable is the $80 million football operations building that has been added to the Butts-Mehre complex. (Hyosub Shin / Hyosub.Shin@ajc.com)

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Aerial view of Sanford Stadium in Athens. With a $25 million expansion completed in 2003 and $8 million more in 2004, the University of Georgia added a second upper deck on the north side and 27 new north side SkySuites bringing the new stadium capacity to 92,746 — the fifth largest on-campus stadium in the country. UGA’s athletic department simply is committed to too many other facility projects that have precedence at the moment. Most notable is the $80 million football operations building that has been added to the Butts-Mehre complex. (Hyosub Shin / Hyosub.Shin@ajc.com)

Every decade of college football produces stars, and players who fall a little short of that lofty status. Yet, memories fade, so we at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution decided to call honor some of the key Georgia football players of the past.

This article begins a weeklong look at the AJC’s choices for the top 10 Bulldogs players in each decade since the 1940s. Our tribute will remind some readers of these players and their successes, and it will introduce those players to others.

A panel of AJC voters selected our top 10 players per decade. The voters have many years of experience, much of it as journalists and some of it earlier as fans, observing our state and local sports teams with a close and often passionate eye -- as many of you do.

The backgrounds of the voters lent a knowledge of UGA football that we used to assemble these lists of some of the more accomplished and recognizable players in Bulldogs history, through thick and thin times for the program.

We hope you’ll enjoy seeing our choices and reading about the players as much as we enjoyed the work to present them to you.

The series:

The top 10 players of the 1940s/1950s

The top 10 players of the 1960s

The top 10 players of the 1970s

The top 10 players of the 1980s

The top 10 players of the 1990s

The top 10 players from 2000-09

The top 10 players of the 2010s