Georgia enters the 2023 season with hopes of winning its third consecutive national championship.
The Bulldogs will have a great deal of talent to replace next fall, but possess an incredibly navigable schedule that should at least see UGA return to the SEC Championship game.
With Oklahoma no longer on the Bulldogs’ 2024 schedule, Georgia’s nonconference schedule consists of UT-Martin, Ball State, UAB and a road game at Georgia Tech. I ranked it as the easiest schedule in the SEC for 2023.
That made it pretty easy for ESPN’s Mark Schlabach to identify Georgia’s Nov. 18 visit to Tennessee as the Bulldogs season defining game.
An early home game against South Carolina and road trip to Auburn at the end of September might be tricky for the Bulldogs, but their Nov. 18 contest at Tennessee will probably be the most difficult.
UT figures to be out for blood after the Bulldogs knocked off the then-No. 1 Volunteers 27-13 at Sanford Stadium last season. The game wasn’t that close. Georgia led 21-3 early in the second quarter and by three touchdowns at the end of the third.
Georgia has won 11 of its past 13 games against Tennessee and has lost only once at Neyland Stadium since 2010. The game, which was traditionally played early in the season, used to go a long way in determining which team would contend for an SEC East title. This season, Georgia’s SEC finale might decide which one wins the division.
In 2023, with the Bulldogs now the two-time defending national champions, Georgia has become the standard of college football in the eyes of many. For as long as Kirby Smart and Georgia keep winning, expect the “Alabama treatment” from opposing fan bases everywhere UGA goes.
Right now, Georgia’s the favorite to win it all, with BetMGM putting the Bulldogs’ national title odds at plus-300. FanDuel set an early line for the UGA-Tennessee game at Georgia minus-7.5
But is the hyping of the Georgia vs. Tennessee game getting old? For the past two seasons, this was the contest that received the most hype as a potential trap game for Georgia. What happened? In 2021, Georgia stomped the Vols and left Knoxville with a 41-17 victory. Last offseason, 247Sports also said the Tennessee game would be UGA’s season defining game. And it was, during the regular season at least — Tennessee was ranked No. 1 and came into Athens to be routed once more.
A late-season game between the Dawgs and Vols will always be an intense atmosphere, regardless of the teams’ records.
But with both teams enjoying recent success (one more than the other), Brad Crawford of 247Sports actually predicted that this game will be the MOST intimidating environment in all of college football next year.
Via Crawford: