To say we all were in a different world at the launch of Georgia football’s current winning streak is not a remark about the time when Travon Walker, Jalen Carter, George Pickens and Stetson Bennett – seemingly half of the past two NFL Drafts, to be honest – still wore Bulldogs uniforms.
On New Year’s Eve, 2021, as UGA was blowing out Michigan in the Orange Bowl, a large portion of this country’s citizens still were masking in public, taking extra precautions relative to large crowds and trying to dodge the Delta variant of COVID-19. The Pacific-12 Conference appeared to have a future under new commissioner George Kliavkoff. No one beyond a few Hollywood offices had heard of “The Bear”, Jelly Roll had yet to chart a single country song, and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
OK, so that last one’s going to be true every holiday season through eternity.
It only seems like forever has passed since someone last got the better of the Bulldogs on the football field. The actual accounting: 726 days. They got it good that evening, a stunning 41-24 defeat against Alabama in the SEC Championship game they were able to avenge a little more than a month later, in the College Football Playoff finale that just meant (slightly) more.
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The Dawgs since have built a winning streak that could be considered the greatest in the sport’s history.
“It’s definitely a great accomplishment,” UGA first-year starting QB Carson Beck told The Sporting News. “I obviously haven’t started for all of it, but to be able to continue that and to be a part of it has been huge for me and everyone on the team, I think feels the same way. But I don’t think it’s something we think about, ever, to be honest.
“I think we’ve done a really good job of keeping the main thing, the main thing and focusing on each opponent week to week. Just trying to go 1-0 as each game presents itself.”
Think of everything that has happened in your life since Georgia’s last defeat. Think of everything that’s happened in the world. Or maybe just what’s happened in the world of sports: Lionel Messi became a World Cup champion and then a Miamian. Nikola Jokic conquered the NBA. Florida Atlantic reached the Final Four. Nearly 10 million people watched the NCAA women’s basketball championship game. Travis Kelce got a second Super Bowl ring, and a second date with Taylor Swift.
And Georgia produced a combined 25 picks in the 2022 and 2023 NFL Drafts but still won each of its past 29 games, only five of those by a single-digit margin. The Dawgs won the 2023 CFP final by 58 points, the 2023 SEC title game by 20 points and the 2022 CFP championship by 15. They have outscored opponents by 674 points, or slightly more than 96 touchdowns. Eleven of the victims in that streak were ranked opponents, with seven in the top 10, five in the top 5 and two No. 1s.
With one more victory, Saturday over Alabama in the SEC Championship game, Georgia will become only the seventh major team in the AP Poll era to win 30 consecutive games. With another CFP title, the program will tie Nebraska for the third-longest streak in the sport’s modern era (in other words, the era that includes no wins over high schools).
If one is to maintain a passing knowledge of college football history, there are certain figures and achievements that must be memorized: Red Grange, Knute Rockne, the Bear, Eddie Robinson, Tony Dorsett and the U are among them. And Oklahoma’s 47-game winning streak, for sure.
Under coach Bud Wilkinson, OU did not lose a game from Sept. 26, 1953 to Nov. 16, 1957. Among their victims along the way were a couple of top-10 Pitt teams, a Maryland squad in the 1953 Orange Bowl that entered with the No. 1 ranking, two teams (North Carolina and Maryland) ranked No. 3 in the 1955 season, a group of Notre Dame Fighting Irish ranked No. 2 and five ranked opponents from the Big Eight. The Sooners claimed two national championships with a third undefeated team uncrowned in a year UCLA and Ohio State also were undefeated and shared the No. 1 vote.
| Home games | 13 |
| Road games | 8 |
| Neutral site games | 8 |
| Ranked wins | 11 |
| College Football Playoff wins | 4 |
It would be unfair to diminish what those Sooners achieved, but the antiquated rules in place at the time did some of that for us already. The Big Eight refused to allow the same team to compete in a bowl game in consecutive years, which meant an unranked Nebraska squad the Sooners had beaten by 48 points got to compete in the Orange Bowl (and finish 6-5). There was no playoff tournament of any kind to sort out that OU-UCLA-OSU confusion. There also was no transfer portal or 85-player scholarship limit.
Georgia has played longer seasons with greater collective wear and heightened pressure. The Alabama game will be their sixth postseason game since the streak began, with two of those in the SEC title game and four in the College Football Playoff.
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Just as it is more difficult to build a dynasty in the NFL because of the salary cap and free agency, college football has a sort of freer agency through the transfer portal. The majority of NFL regulars sign multi-year contracts. In college, players can be gone after a single year. There may be obstacles to them moving on a second time, but it’s been done.
The only element that weakens Georgia’s case is its concession to the habit of so many SEC members to lighten their loads by dropping at least one FCS opponent onto the schedule. The Dawgs have done it twice, against Samford last season and UT Martin this year. That’s not nearly the same as scheduling Queen Anne High School, which Washington did as part of its 40-game win streak from 1908-1914, but it also was unnecessary. Would the Dawgs have fallen if they chose instead to face Sam Houston State or Southern Miss? Unlikely.
“It’s never been about the streak or anything like that,” cornerback Kamari Lassiter told TSN. “It’s always been about being in the moment, trying to win that moment. That’s something we try and pride ourselves on: being the best version of ourselves and trying to win every moment.
“We believe if win each moment, then good things will happen for us.”
There have been so many moments since the Bulldogs ended a football game on the wrong side of the final score. Georgia didn’t win them all, but obviously enough to win ’em all.
