I don’t know if everyone just forgot about the past decade or so, but it seems Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs have lost the respect of the entire College Football community.
First, it was Joel Klatt, who ranked the Dawgs 8th in his post-spring top 25. Now, it’s Josh Pate with an even more disrespectful placement of UGA, ranking Smart outside of the top 10 in his post-spring rankings.
Post-spring top 20 if I had to rank them right now pic.twitter.com/BEMWCS5Hsv
— Josh Pate (@JoshPateCFB) May 12, 2025
I want to preface this by saying Josh Pate is one of the best in the business, but even the best have off days, and this is one of them. I also want to say that just because this is an Atlanta sports site, I have no bias towards the Georgia Bulldogs, as I graduated from LSU.
With that being said, let’s dig into his discussion. Pate’s reasoning centers around Georgia’s inability to run the ball in 2024 and re-finding their defensive identity.
The Dawgs uncharacteristically struggled to run the ball in 2024. There’s no arguing that, but had the offense not led the country in drops and yards lost to drops, their inability to run the ball wouldn’t have been as big of an issue. The transfer portal additions of Noah Thomas and Zachariah Branch should help that area.
But more than anything, this comes down to a couple of things. There are questions about the quarterbacks for Texas, Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Oklahoma. Gunner Stockton helped lead the Dawgs from behind in last season’s SEC Championship, and Georgia’s loss in the CFP quarterfinal to Notre Dame has nothing to do with Stockton.
Secondly, dating back to 2020, Kirby Smart hasn’t brought in a recruiting class that ranked outside of the top 4. People are worried about attrition in Athens? We have seen Kirby Smart send more first-round picks to the NFL than he’s lost at Georgia. But we are still worried about replacing talent?
Give me a break. The Dawgs need to run the ball better, but there are far more things to worry about in Norman, Gainesville, Austin, Baton Rouge, Tuscaloosa, South Bend, and Eugene.
Motivation used to be the question. How could Kirby Smart keep his team motivated? Well, these are just things that Smart will have hanging in the locker room.
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Photographer: Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire
