These are the Georgia Bulldogs’ heydays since they only won one college football national championship during their previous era of success, and Herschel Walker helped them win it in 1980. It’s not just that their program’s ever-growing money vault is a lot bigger than the doghouse of UGA, which houses their real bulldog mascot.
These streaks exist.
However, let’s start with the cash.
Just this spring, the Georgia Athletic Association Board of Directors raised its hands unanimously to approve a record budget of $162.3 million for the fiscal year of 2023, aided by the revenue gained by Georgia winning the previous two College Football Playoff championships.
Nine months earlier, in August 2022, the Georgia Board of Regents approved $68.5 million for upgrades to the campus’s Sanford Stadium, which has been around for almost a century.
Without question, the Bulldogs’ two-year dominance of everyone from the lowly to the strong on the football field contributed significantly to that.
The Bulldogs were still a significant money earner, according to Forbes, even in the fall of 2019, when Georgia football was only merely passable rather than flirting with entering the all-time elite for sustained supremacy in the sport.
With an average annual revenue of $125 million during the three seasons just before the pandemic, they were ranked eighth among their contemporaries at the time.
The Bulldogs are now undefeated and don’t appear to be slowing down. In fact, they might never lose again as long as they can play the typical college football game, which they have mastered over the past few years.
Certainly not throughout the regular season.
The Bulldogs in Athens, Georgia, intimated as much on Saturday after being overwhelmed in the first half by a team that was apparently much weaker than South Carolina’s. The game was played at Sanford Stadium at home. Even at the half, they were behind by only 11 points, but it still seemed like 111.
After Georgia performed almost flawlessly in the second half to secure a 24-14 victory, South Carolina’s comeback became a mirage. There are a lot of Bulldogs streaks, and all of them suddenly remain.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart stated to me and other reporters that after his Bulldogs went 2-0 earlier in the season against a couple of unremarkable teams before they defeated South Carolina in their first SEC game, “I was pretty excited at halftime because I knew we were going to find out what kind of team we have.”
In his press conference, Kirby also said that his Bulldogs were “resilient” and “resourceful” in this game, but that wasn’t breaking news. They have maintained this attitude throughout their present ascent to glory.
Additionally, despite Georgia losing Stetson Bennett to the NFL when he served as their exceptional quarterback during their two-peat, they are on the verge of a third consecutive championship.
They have also persisted despite Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith joining four other recent former Georgia colleagues on the Philadelphia Bulldogs (or Eagles, if you prefer). Additionally, a variety of new players in general are filling in for departing stars for the 2023 Bulldogs (the ones in Georgia, not Pennsylvania).
None of the Georgia rookies are more important than Carson Beck, Bennett’s former backup who is now the starter. Beck’s ability to safeguard the ball while finishing 27 of 35 passes for 269 yards was the main factor that the Bulldogs used to end South Carolina’s aspirations of pulling off an upset.
“We entered with enthusiasm. We were cool, we were collected, and we started making plays,” Beck recalled, forgetting that Georgia still had enough talent and contributed to a defense that was suffocating in the final minutes.
That explains the Bulldogs’ streaks.
Their school-record winning run in the regular season now stands at 30 games (20 games overall). They have won 20 straight SEC regular-season contests. They’ve also won 21 straight games at Sanford Stadium, and it’s been four years since they suffered a loss between their so-called Hedges.