Georgia football: 5 most underrated players in Georgia Bulldogs history

These underrated Georgia football players deserve more love.

To get ample playing time at a place like Georgia, it’s hard to be underrated.

In fact, one might argue Georgia football is one of the more overrated football programs in the country in the last few decades. Despite being a college football blue-blood, the Dawgs haven’t won a national championship in 40 years. Though they have been one of the more consistent programs for generations, you’re almost always left with a tinge of disappointment from UGA.

However, things do look to be changing in Athens. With former standout defensive back Kirby Smart leading the way, Georgia feels like it will win a national title at some point in the next five years. The defense is top-tier in the Power 5 and Smart’s staff is recruiting out the wazoo. If the Dawgs can just get the passing game right to complement the run, who’s going to beat them?

At this time, Georgia is viewed as one of the top-five programs in the country. The Dawgs have either made the College Football Playoff or been one of the first two teams out in the last three years. It’s not winning it all, but Smart has put his program in a position to succeed, one were most Power 5 coaches would die to be in. Georgia is eventually going to win national title No. 3.

The biggest reason Georgia will end up winning another national title at some point is the Dawgs have more talent than most teams they’ll come up against. You simply win more with more good players. While greatness is contagious, even some of the most talented and gifted players end up being somewhat underrated by comparisons. Just look at these five former Dawgs for example.

Here are the five most underrated players ever for Georgia football.

Richard Seymour may have been a dominant player in both the SEC and in the NFL, but he was for all intents and purposes massively underrated. Seymour played in the trenches for Jim Donnan in the late 1990s in Athens. With legendary college teammates like cornerback Champ Bailey and right tackle Matt Stinchcomb, we always wonder if Seymour will join them in Atlanta one day.

Seymour was two-time First-Team All-SEC and a First-Team All-American in 2000. He played on the same Georgia defensive line that featured four future first-round draft picks in Charles Grant, Marcus Stroud and Johnathan Sullivan. Though clearly the best of the bunch, we just don’t put Seymour in that upper tier pantheon of Georgia football greatness, though we totally should.

Similar things apply to Seymour in the NFL, as the three-time Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots made seven trips to the Pro Bowl and was part of five All-Pro teams. He may be a Patriots legend and an All-Decade player in the 2000s, but that hasn’t helped get him into Canton either. Let’s be real. Seymour needs to be in the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame.

What dings Seymour at both levels is he wasn’t a sack artist. Seymour was a technically sound defensive lineman who did everything you would have asked for out of a winning player. In short, he wasn’t a stat compiler. At Georgia, the teams he played on were decent, but the Dawgs were the third-best team in their own division during his entire time in school up in Athens.