The Georgia football program has come a long way in a short time under Kirby Smart, and the 2018 matchup with No. 24 South Carolina will be the real litmus test.
Georgia football fans are excited this year, and with good reason. The Bulldogs overtime loss to Alabama in the National Championship Game was as close to a title that Georgia had come since Herschel Walker was a freshman pup.
But last year’s miracle run by the Bulldogs wasn’t the real test of how good this team might be.
Kirby Smart wants to mold this team in the image of Alabama. He wants to dominate the division, play in the SEC Championship Game nearly every season and always have a reservation booked for the College Football Playoff.
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While most think that the Rose Bowl win against Oklahoma in the 2017 playoff, and the close-but-no-cigar loss to Alabama in the big game were the true test of Georgia’s mettle, it’s the second week of the 2018 season on the road against South Carolina which will give a true measure of how far the Georgia football program has come.
If Georgia wants to be like Alabama, then this is where they’ll need to show up.
It’s a road game, in a hostile environment, against a ranked division rival early in the season. This is the type of game where Alabama walks into the opponent’s house, punches them in the mouth, and then kicks a little dirt for good measure.
A win would be a good thing for Georgia.
A convincing win would show the college football world that there are now two behemoths to deal with in the SEC.
A loss would revert many back to the “same ol’ Georgia” narrative.
A loss to Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl would have been understandable, even acceptable. It was the Bulldogs first big game under Kirby Smart, and it was on the other side of the country against Baker Mayfield and the Alabama of the Big 12 conference (known to some as Oklahoma).
The loss to Alabama was almost revered. The first national championship game for the Bulldogs in 35 years. An overtime loss to the team who has dominated over a decade of college football is nothing to hang your head in shame about.
Big as they may have been for the Dawgs, those games weren’t tests. They were celebrations. They were ahead-of-schedule parties for the Bulldog Nation.
But now that Georgia has tasted that success and is a trendy pick for a return to a meaningful postseason game, regular season losses to teams like South Carolina will have even more dire consequences.
If you want to rule the SEC, you have to win on the road. You have to beat teams you are supposed to beat, and you have to beat them badly.
The Bulldogs – a 10-point favorite according to Oddsshark – are supposed to beat South Carolina. The Gamecocks know the odds and are already chirping and planning victory parties.
This isn’t to say Georgia couldn’t recover from a loss to South Carolina, but it wouldn’t be easy. They don’t carry that Alabama mystique yet. Voters and committee members aren’t quite as quick to give a pass to the Bulldogs.
Forget last season. Forget facing Top 5 teams. The real test awaits in Columbia, South Carolina.
Georgia can show everyone that they are truly as good as advertised by walking in to Williams-Brice Stadium and stepping on the throats of the Gamecocks from the first snap of the game.