Georgia masters recruiting, development and coaching. Good luck to everyone else. | Opinion
Georgia isn’t sitting here as a back-to-back national champion just because Kirby Smart never met a signing day he couldn’t win. Do stars matter? Sure. Just ask TCU, which likely realized within minutes Monday that its size, speed and skill quotient were not the same as the team on the other side of the field.
In miniature, Georgia’s 65-7 win was such a physical mismatch that there wasn’t a single part of the game where it looked like the Horned Frogs belonged in the same weight class.
But what Georgia has done to repeat as champions for the first time in the College Football Playoff era is about far, far more than recruiting. Georgia isn’t just beating everyone else in that department, they’re evaluating better, developing better and coaching better than any program in college football.
That doesn’t mean the Bulldogs are guaranteed to win championships as far as the eye can see. But would you bet against it, either? The fundamental reality of Georgia going 29-1 over the last two seasons is this: The rest of the sport has a lot of catching up to do.
If this run was just about the blue chips, it wouldn’t have happened behind Stetson Bennett becoming a surgeon of a quarterback who makes quick decisions and delivers the ball with accuracy to the wide range of weapons he has at his disposal. That’s player development.
If it was just about taking a list of the best skill players in a state loaded with them, Georgia wouldn’t have offered a scholarship to Ladd McConkey, who comes from a tiny town near the Tennessee border and didn’t draw any interest from other schools in the SEC. That’s player evaluation.
Georgia dominates TCU from start to finish
MORE:Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett named offensive MVP
When you put it all together, you get Bennett, McConkey and the rest doing pretty much whatever they want against TCU. But in the wider lens, Georgia has all three elements of its program operating at the absolute highest level, each one working hand-in-hand.