Georgia

And as recruits flock to the Bulldogs, they can thank quarterback Stetson Bennett IV, whose first stint with the team came as a walk-on.

Bullard, a sophomore, had two interceptions and a fumble recovery and the Bulldogs held the star receiver Quentin Johnston to a single catch for 3 yards. And yet they were tested only twice: rallying from 10 points down in the fourth quarter to win at Missouri and coming back from a 13-point fourth-quarter deficit in the semifinal victory against Ohio State, which they survived on the missed field goal. Georgia held the Horned Frogs, who entered averaging 474.1 yards per game, to a season-low 188. A year later, Justin Fields, the top quarterback prospect in the country, showed up and those fealties to the school he grew up rooting for didn’t mean much. And each spring, many of those former prospects — after years spent in a football finishing school — trickle out to the N.F.L. Bennett was also dangerous running the ball. The offensive coordinator Todd Monken, who arrived just as the coronavirus pandemic hit, was trying to parse through a crowded quarterbacks room, attempting to find reps for Jamie Newman, a transfer from Wake Forest, J.T. Daniels won the job in 2020 and got hurt in last year’s season opener against Clemson. Each recruiting cycle, the top high school football prospects in the country, from California to Pennsylvania and all across the south, funnel into Athens, Ga. And with the way the Bulldogs continued to parade into the end zone and tee off on Max Duggan, the T.C.U. Their back-to-back titles are the first since Alabama a decade ago. The coin flip?

The Bulldogs' second-straight national championship cements them as the surest thing the sport has.

It will take a lot of calamity for Smart’s team to miss out on the Playoff in the foreseeable future. The expansion of the Playoff to 12 teams, coming in 2024, will give the Dawgs (and the Tide, for that matter) a margin for error that they do not need. They’ll be back in the SEC Championship, probably, and may have already clinched a Playoff spot by kickoff of that game. The idea was doomed until it wasn’t, and Bennett played well up to and through a national championship win against Alabama. On a team full of four- and five-stars, Bennett and a former three-star receiver, Ladd McConkey, connected for a pair of touchdowns. Georgia has the best players, the best coaches, and the nicest toys to make sure that everyone gets the most out of one another. Bennett was a short former walk-on, and Smart put him at the head of the greatest roster in the country. But for the whole year, the only time the Dawgs were in any substantial trouble was when the Buckeyes had a second-half lead on them and then a chance to beat them with a 50-yard field goal at the buzzer. They can’t be anymore, because Smart and the Bulldogs are now the surest thing the sport has to offer. Instead, UGA has recruiting, development, and the schematic expertise to get the most out of those other assets. Otherwise, the Dawgs were playing a different sport than the rest of the country. The Bulldogs were not the kind of national champion, like 2019 LSU, that steamrolls 15 out of 15 opponents—just 12 or so in this case, with plaudits to the MAC’s Kent State for staying within 17 points back in September.

The Bulldogs' quarterback turned defensive-first Georgia into an offensive juggernaut on the way to two national championships.

"He had full conviction that he wanted to come back and go opposite of the mainstream," Smart said. He's got to leave." "He's got to go. "I think he goes down as the top," McConkey said. He's done everything he could at the University of Georgia." We can do this.' And he did everything that he said he was going to do." "Stetson speaks for himself, the way he leads and prepares," Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. Who's going to top that?" Why don't we have a play?'" Bennett said. According to ESPN Stats & Information research, he is the only player over the past 25 years to have four passing touchdowns and two rushing scores in a game against a top-five opponent. He wrote the screenplays for "Hoosiers" and "Rudy," two of the most iconic sports films of all time. 3 [TCU](/college-football/team/_/id/2628/tcu-horned-frogs) in the College Football Playoff National Championship presented by AT&T at SoFi Stadium.

Georgia is once again the national champion of college football after a historic 65-7 destruction of TCU in the national championship game to close out 2022 ...

[Bookmark](https://si.com/fannation/college/cfb-hq) [Top 25 Rankings](https://www.si.com/college-football/rankings) [Rankings](https://www.si.com/fannation/college/cfb-hq/ncaa-football-rankings) 1 team in the very first AP top 25 college football rankings to begin the 1936 season. 9 North Carolina in the Sugar Bowl. [Schedule](https://www.si.com/college-football/schedule)

Oddsmakers like the Georgia Bulldogs' chances of winning a third consecutive college national championship next season after the team demolished TCU on...

The Crimson Tide lost their chance at becoming a repeat champion last January when they lost to Georgia in Indianapolis. Georgia is the top dog when it comes to 2024 CFP odds. The team is set to lose some key players, including quarterback Stetson Bennett and potential No. Ohio State has the second-best odds at +400. No team has won three straight national titles since the 1930s, but Kirby Smart’s team is poised to be a powerhouse once again next season. [defend a national title](https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/history-repeat-champions-college-football?chrcontext=WMAQ).

ATLANTA (AP) — State gasoline and diesel taxes make their return in Georgia on Wednesday.

“But it is likely that the national average prices we saw heading in to Christmas may have been the lows for this winter.” Connecticut is phasing in its tax of 25 cents per gallon in 5-cent steps through May 1. The average diesel price in Georgia was $4.49 a gallon. The national average was $3.27 a gallon. Brian Kemp signed a law suspending the state’s gas tax. Kemp kept the suspension in place through his successful reelection campaign against Democrat Stacey Abrams, finally announcing in December that he would stop extending it.