College Football Rankings: Top 25 after spring practice
Georgia Bulldogs
2016: 8-5,
Experience is going to be the most decisive factor for the Georgia Bulldogs, a team hoping that they can live up to their ranking after failing spectacularly to do so a year ago. That experience will come into play on both sides of the ball in Athens and, lucky for them, it looked to already be paying off throughout the spring and during the spring game.
That, of course, starts with rising sophomore quarterback Jacob Eason. It was never a question whether the physical tools were there for Eason as he assumed the starting role last season. However, he looked like a freshman in the worst sense of the word at many times with questionable reads, decision-making and plenty of instances of happy feet in the pocket.
A big cause of the happy feet, though, comes down to the fact that Georgia was abysmal up front on offense a year ago. They failed to keep Eason clean for any consistent or substantial amount of time and stifled the effectiveness of running back duo Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, both of whom return for the 2017 season. That line looked much more steady in the spring game, which is wholly promising.
What’s more, the Bulldogs defense is also littered with players with a vast amount of experience as they return 10 starters on that side of the ball from last year. The hope is that the unit improves as a result of that, and they too seemed to have done so in the spring game. If what we saw in Athens holds up, this will be a much more reliable Georgia team in 2017.