Georgia’s Back-to-Back Titles Established College Football Dominance in 2023

In 2022, the Dawgs won their first national title in four decades ... then did it all over again the next season.

Shortly after Georgia clinched the national championship with two late scores against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2022 College Football Playoff title game, Stetson Bennett visited coach Kirby Smart. The quarterback’s performance in leading the Dawgs to their first championship in four decades had already conferred upon him a sort of permanent BMOC status.

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“Everybody’s telling me I should just ride off into the sunset, be the legendary quarterback who won a national title,” Bennett said to Smart. “Why don’t we win it again?”

The former walk-on had a year of eligibility left, and he was going to use it—despite the fact that the team was about to lose 15 players to the NFL draft.

Former walk-on quarterback Bennett led Georgia to two championships, including in 2023 :: John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated

Any fears that Bennett would be less focused with a ring already on his finger were allayed. While the Georgia Bulldogs had stifled their opponents en route to their first title, last season they simply steamrolled them, especially when it mattered. In the Dawgs’ three postseason games they scored 157 total points, culminating in a 65–7 destruction of TCU in January’s CFP title game. In those three games, Bennett threw for 11 touchdowns with a passing efficiency rating of 204.86.

A meager-by-comparison 10 players were drafted from that second title team (including Bennett, who went to the L.A. Rams in the fourth round). Smart, though, once again reloaded, putting together a balanced team that fell one win short of reaching the Playoff—losing to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, thus ending its chances at an unprecedented title three-peat.

And despite missing the Playoff this season and Bennett no longer being around to say it, the sentiment will likely linger in Athens for years to come: Why don’t we win it again?