ESPN believes Georgia has what it takes to three-peat

Georgia has become the premier program in college football over the last two seasons. During that time, the Bulldogs have gone 29-1, won the SEC, and won two national championships. Now, head coach Kirby Smart and Georgia are doing their best to three-peat.

The conventional wisdom is that this is almost impossible to do. However, ESPN’s Mark Schlabach insisted that Georgia has what it takes to three-peat.

“Until someone knocks off Georgia in the SEC, it will be among the favorites to win a national championship every season,” Schlabach wrote. “Smart and his staff have stockpiled that much talent in Athens, Georgia. Safety Malaki Starks and end Mykel Williams were starters as freshmen last season. Georgia’s linebacker corps — Jamon Dumas-Johnson, Smael Mondon Jr. and Jalon Walker — is as good as any in the FBS.” 

Right now, Georgia does have questions that it needs to answer going forward. One of the biggest is going to be who plays quarterback for the Bulldogs moving forward. Then, can this new quarterback produce magical results like Stetson Bennett did?

“Carson Beck will probably end up winning the quarterback job, and he’ll have All-America tight end Brock Bowers and a deep receiver corps to work with. Georgia’s offensive line should have won the Joe Moore Award last season, and it’s going to be good again.”

The schedule for Georgia is, admittedly light. The Bulldogs have a light nonconference schedule and playing in the SEC East is generally seen as the easier path forward. Given the team’s reputation, Georgia could even lose a game and still make the College Football Playoff.

“After canceling a nonconference game against Oklahoma, the Bulldogs will play nonconference games against FCS program UT Martin, Ball State, UAB and Georgia Tech. They won’t play Alabama, LSU or Mississippi State during conference play. They’ll be heavy favorites in every game going into a Nov. 18 showdown at Tennessee.”

Mark Richt on Georgia’s chances to three-peat

Former Georgia head coach Mark Richt weighed in on the Bulldogs’ chances to three-peat as national champions. Richt argued that it’s definitely possible. However, it also won’t be easy to do.

“It’ll be tough but the one thing they have is great players and [they’re] bringing in more great players on top of it. So just to get playing time you better be ready to get after it every single day and take care of business and prove you deserve to start. Prove you deserve playing time. And the thing that Georgia has now is similar to what we had at Florida State,” Richt explained.

“We had kids that would stay and be a little patient. And not just bolt every time something wasn’t going well, because they knew when their day came, they had a chance to have big numbers and big success and still get where they wanted to go, which was the NFL. So I think the guys at Georgia understand that they have to compete for everything to get but they also know that in the end, they can certainly get where they want to go.”