Stock Trending Up(All Players, Not Just Draft Eligible): Stetson Bennett, QB; Ladd McConkey, WR; AD Mitchell, WR; Christopher Smith, S

Stock Trending Down(All Players, Not Just Draft Eligible): Arik Gilbert, TE

Potential Draft Steals: Kenny McIntosh, RB; Kearis Jackson, WR/KR/PR 

In-Depth Team and Season Preview:

This week’s College Football AP Poll has the 2022 Defending National Champion, Georgia Bulldogs, atop the polls for the second straight week. The 2021-2022 Bulldog team had what many people were calling “The Best Defense of All-Time”. A unit that many believe carried the Bulldogs to their first National Championship in 42 years. Many wondered how the Bulldogs would do coming into this season after having 15 of their key players drafted into the NFL. Just about every sports team believes in the “Next Man Up” mentality, but not many programs have shown it in the way that Georgia has early this season. No one believed that Georgia could replace its losses, but try to tell them that three weeks into the season as they’ve already outscored opponents 130-10. Let’s take a closer look into this Georgia team.

Offensively, the Bulldogs saw WR1 Georgia Pickens, Thunder and  Lightning RB tandem Zamir White and James Cook, TE John FitzPatrick, and Offensive Linemen Jamaree Salyer and Justin Shaffer take their talents to the NFL back in April. They also saw WR Jermaine Burton go into the portal and land with the rival Crimson Tide. It all starts up front for the Dawgs. Despite losing Shaffer and Salyer, the line retained Sedrick Van Pran at Center and Warren McClendon at RT. Tate Ratledge, who earned a starting role last season before being injured for the season during their 2021 week one matchup with Clemson, makes his return and takes over Shaffer’s position at RG. Broderick Jones, who we got a glimpse of in the 2022 National Championship game, takes over at LT for Salyer. Rounding out the group is Devin Willock at LG. This is only the starters, Georgia has some depth as well with guys like Amarius Mims(5 star recruit), Xavier Truss(4 star recruit), and Warren Ericson(4 star recruit) who I believe started at guard last season, or at the very least played a ton of meaningful snaps. This offensive line has allowed the Dawgs backfield to run for 467 yards through 3 games and average about 5.1 yards/carry. They have also only allowed one sack on starting QB Stetson Bennett.

Despite the losses of Pickens and Burton, the Georgia receivers seem to be playing just fine. Georgia is continuing to use a rotation at WR based on packages and scenarios, but ultimately the room is led by true sophomore AD Mitchell. McConkey has also returned to the Dawgs and seems to have even taken a step up from his play last season. Rosemy-Jacksaint, Blaylock, Jackson, and Meeks round out the upperclassmen in the room. The TE room stays fully intact from last year, as True Sophomore phenom Brock Bowers and Junior Darnell Washington make their return. Redshirt Sophomore and transfer Arik Gilbert who missed all of last season due to personal matters has made his way back to the team. They also added Freshman Oscar Delp. In the backfield they replace White and Cook with Kendall Milton and Kenny McIntosh who both had roles with the team last season. Milton seems to be their lead back running the ball and he is averaging an astonishing 6 yards/carry through the first 3 weeks. Although McIntosh can run the ball, he’s done his primary damage through the air and in space. McIntosh currently has 192 receiving yards on 15 receptions, and is averaging 12.8 yards/reception. He has also led the Dawgs in receiving 2 of the first 3 games.

Moving on to the QB position. The man himself, Stetson Bennett. During spring camp it was reported that Bennett was not going to be handed the starting QB job and would have to compete primarily with Redshirt Sophomore Carson Beck, but also Redshirt Freshman Brock Vandagriff and True Freshman Gunner Stockton. Bennett came out of Spring and Fall camp on top, and we are now seeing why he was on top. Bennett isn’t just a feel good underdog story anymore. This is a man on a mission. Bennett is out to prove that he can be a NFL caliber QB, and so far he has done just that. Through three games Bennett is 65/88(73.9%), 952 yards, 5 TDs, while also adding 31 yards and 3 TDs on 8 carries. Despite Georgia’s history of running the football first and often, HC Kirby Smart and Georgia OC Todd Monken must believe in Bennett’s progress as he is averaging nearly 30 pass attempts/game this year so far, and he isn’t even playing full games. In comparison, Bennett averaged about 16 pass attempts/game through the regular season last season. They have nearly doubled his attempts and he’s getting the job done… So much so that Bennett is being talked about amongst Heisman candidates. Bennett is making his case to be drafted next April. 

Defensively this team has lost a ton. They lost Jordan Davis, Devonte Wyatt, Travon Walker, Nakobe Dean, Quay Walker, Channing Tindall, Derion Kendrick and Lewis Cine all to the draft. They lost Ameer Speed, Jalen Kimber, and Latavious Brini in the transfer portal. They also recently lost William Poole who left the program for personal reasons. This is a lot of losses for a team who was considered to have had arguably the best defense of all time. However, they do have some returning starters and leadership with DL Jalen Carter, OLBs Robert Beal and Nolan Smith, CB Kelee Ringo, and Safeties Christopher Smith and Dan Jackson. Despite these couple of returning players, there are a ton of new faces all over the defense. The craziest part of all the losses is that this defense seems like it hasn’t skipped a beat. They are playing at the same top tier level as the defense last year. They’ve held their first three opponents to just 10 points with the only TD being scored being in 4th quarter “garbage time”. They still have a ton of SEC play to come down the stretch, but it looks promising for the Dawgs thus far.

Overall, this is a Georgia team that we believe should be feared. After the Dawgs crushed the Ducks 49-3 to open up the year, people were saying that maybe Oregon just wasn’t as good as everyone thought they were going to be. Oregon in the past two weeks has started to silence the hate, by putting up 70 on Eastern Washington, and taking down No.12(at the time) BYU 41-20. Oregon is a team that has an extremely good chance of making the PAC-12 Championship game, and is starting to look like an impressive win for the Dawgs. Georgia also played Samford, which is whatever, but then knocked off South Carolina 48-7. Yes, South Carolina has not looked good thus far, but a blowout in the SEC is good for any team. The significance of this win could go up or down based on how the rest of their season goes. Georgia has yet to play their SEC schedule but they play Florida, Tennessee, and Kentucky who at the moment are all ranked in the Top 20 of the AP Poll. The interesting thing to note here is that Arik Gilbert has yet to see significant playtime. If he gets added to the offensive mix more this offense could take even another step up. When Georgia gets to their SEC schedule, even if their defense looks slightly worse than last year’s unit, we wouldn’t be too worried because this offense looks like it can handle a shootout unlike last season. Just a final thought. All we’ve heard since February is that in college this year it’s Alabama and everyone else. In our opinion it’s Georgia and Bama and everyone else, and quite honestly Bama hasn’t been impressive or proven anything so far.