For the 25th consecutive year (possible exaggeration, albeit slight), Georgia has been picked to win the SEC East. Often I’ve made the same pick. I’m not making it this time.
The belief here is that the Bulldogs will go 9-3 and lose the division title due to a flop – stop me if you’ve heard this one – in Jacksonville. There’s part of me that thinks that Georgia could and maybe will have a manpower advantage in every game it plays. There’s another part that will note that having the division’s best talent has never stopped this program from messing up before.
Kirby Smart’s first year was a raging dud – much worse than Mark Richt’s Year 1, if we’re still keeping that scorecard. Richt’s 2001 Bulldogs won at Tennessee. Smart’s 2016 team lost at home to Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech. For the record, I picked Georgia to go 11-1 in Richt’s Year 2 and then win the SEC, which it did. (Blind squirrel. Acorn.) I feel less optimistic about this head coach’s Year 2, largely because I feel no great confidence in this head coach.
