By: Kipp Branch

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Another recruiting cycle is complete and the Georgia Bulldogs finished with another top 5 recruiting class.

Kirby Smart is one of the top football coaches in the business. The naysayers will say that Smart can only recruit. Well to those experts let me break a little secret to you, recruiting is the life blood to any successful college football program.

When Smart was hired in 2015, UGA was a football program that wasn’t living up to the expectations.

Expectations meaning competing consistently for conference championships and national championships.

The only time UGA was a legit contender for a National Title under Mark Richt was in 2012, they lost a heartbreaker to Alabama in the SEC title game. Alabama went on to crush an overrated Notre Dame team for a national title.

Georgia had developed a reputation of being a soft program. Soft meaning not physical enough along the lines of scrimmage. That weakness showed up in some of UGA’s biggest games late in the Richt tenure like 2015 Alabama and Florida games.

That lack of physicality led to Richt’s firing.

Enter Kirby Smart who immediately began to build the UGA program from the inside out, starting with a focus both lines of scrimmage.

Year one in 2016 he finished 8-5 and changed the culture surrounding the football program in Athens.

Then In the 2017 season, Smart led the Bulldogs to their first 9–0 start since 1982 and won the SEC East after a victory over the South Carolina Gamecocks.

Smart coached Georgia to its first SEC title since 2005 and only the fourth 12-win season in school history.

Georgia was ranked No. 3 by the College Football Playoff Committee and played No. 2 Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. Georgia rallied from a 31–14 first-half deficit, ultimately defeating Oklahoma 54–48 in double overtime, completing the largest comeback in Rose Bowl history.

The Bulldogs went on to lose to the Alabama in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game 26-23.

The 2018 team finished 11-3, but ended the season on a two-game losing streak. The critics came out of the woodwork and started taking Kirby to task about how he handled the Jake Fromm/Justin Fields QB situation.

Fields ended up transferring to Ohio State. The 2019 team finished 12-2 with a win over Baylor in the Sugar Bowl.

In the COVID-19 season of 2020 UGA finished at 8-2. The 2020 season was caught up in QB controversy, but after JT Daniels took over the job the UGA offense took off.

Now going into 2021, UGA looks to be a preseason contender for a national title. A season opening game with Clemson in Charlotte will reveal a lot where this program is on a national scale.

What Smart has done in five quick years is have UGA in the playoff discussion annually. His 52-14 overall record is one of the best in the nation. His 32-9 conference record is outstanding.

At only 45 years of age Smart should be in Athens for another 10-15 years minimum.

The UGA program is on a solid foundation currently the best foundation it has been under since the great Vince Dooley years of 1980-83.

It took Dooley 17 years to win a National Title at UGA. Kirby Smart has UGA on track now going into year 6.

Trust the process UGA fans. a National Title is very close. Auburn, Florida, and Tennessee would trade places with UGA in a heartbeat currently.

Kirby Smart has built a winning culture in Athens and the best is still to come.