Few teams have the expectation attached to them that Georgia does every season. Kirby Smart has molded the Bulldogs from a well-respected program in the SEC, to an annual contender on the national level.
However, the Bulldogs are three seasons removed from its last national championship. After missing out of the final four-team College Football Playoff in 2023, the Bulldogs found themselves right back in the mix in 2024. Unfortunately, they fell short of that ultimate goal.
Ahead of the 2025 season, the Bulldogs head coach has high expectations for his players. He revealed the qualities required in order to meet the Georgia standard.
“Relentless effort, connection, rewarding a teammate, hand on a helmet, body language. It’s more than just how you play. It’s what you do between the snaps,” Smart said. “… I don’t know if it was lacking in previous years. I just know that we want it, (it’s) more rewarding. We’ve always had some form of it, but it’s the analogy of small campfires.
“We can have all these little small campfires, or you can have a burning inferno. We want a burning inferno. We want all of these campfires to come together and be 11 burning fires — not a couple of burning bushes over here.”
All signs point toward Georgia being a national title contender this fall. Meticulous in the NCAA transfer portal with just 10 signees and dominant in the high school recruiting scene with the No. 2 class this cycle, the Bulldogs have reloaded and are poised for another championship-caliber season.
How far they can go will be predicated on how Georgia’s players come together as a unit during the preseason. Smart plans on giving them a workload before the Bulldogs ever take the field on Saturdays this fall.
“I told them the pom-poms are out (for practices) 1-6. After 1-6, all the fun’s off, you’ve got to get ready to go,” Smart said. “That’s where teams separate themselves from this point moving forward.”
Will fall camp fully underway, it’s clear what Smart’s expectations are for his team this season. He wants those flames to burn through January.
Georgia will open its season against Marshall on Aug. 30 and will follow that up with a Week 2 matchup against Austin Peay. After that, the Bulldogs will have their eyes set on a full SEC schedule the rest of the way until the late November rivalry game against Georgia Tech.
