By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Georgia looked like the best team in the country most of last season. But the College Football Playoff passed without Kirby Smart’s Dawgs because they had to face an elite Rolling Tide in the SEC championship, and the upset win for Nick Saban’s team ended up keeping Georgia out of the playoffs.

Could Georgia fall victim to a brutal schedule in a supersized conference? Could one of college football’s best teams miss the Playoff again? It’s possible after the Bulldogs lost on the road last Saturday at Bama.

Georgia rallied from a 28-0 hole to take the lead before Ryan Williams’ spectacular catch-and-run allowed Alabama to reclaim the lead and secure Kalen DeBoer’s first big win as Crimson Tide coach.

The Bulldogs might have an even tougher game next month at Texas, a team that beat Alabama last season in Tuscaloosa. Texas made the Playoff last year and already routed Michigan in Ann Arbor this year.

Three weeks later, they have another tough road trip to face a loaded Ole Miss roster in Oxford with Playoff hopes of its own (despite a shocking loss Saturday to Kentucky). And a week later Georgia hosts Tennessee, a team as good as any in the country.

Bigger conferences mean schedules are tougher. Among national title contenders, no one has a tougher in-conference schedule than Georgia this year- which is rather inexplicable in the first year of the SEC’s 16-team configuration with Texas and Oklahoma.

All together, the Bulldogs face three opponents ranked in the current top AP top five, plus No. 12 Ole Miss.

It’s still easy enough to assume Georgia can or will win all of their remaining games, considering the Dawgs return quarterback Carson Beck at a program that hasn’t finished lower than No. 7 in the past seven seasons.

But Georgia also got bullied by Alabama for a half before it came alive. Georgia also didn’t score a touchdown until the fourth quarter in a 13-12 win against Kentucky earlier this season.

So, let’s say Georgia, which opened with a quality win over Clemson , navigates the rest of its schedule and avoids landing on the wrong side of any shocking upset.

It’s not unthinkable that Georgia goes 1-2 at Texas, at Ole Miss and home against Tennessee and is sitting at 9-3, likely with just two Top 25 wins on its resume: Clemson and whoever else they can beat. It’s hard to picture it, because Georgia hasn’t lost three regular-season games since Smart’s first season.

If the Bulldogs finish 10-2, they’re in. If they go 9-3, they will have at least one quality conference win and should root for Clemson to win the ACC.

This is Georgia football, if they clinch the Playoff, nobody will want to play them. Can UGA survive the toughest schedule in 2024 and squeak into a championship opportunity?