Related Story: Why Georgia needs to win the SEC East.
With the season inching closer, I’m going to preview each of the 12 games Georgia Football will have in 2017.
Continuing our look at all of the teams that Georgia Football will play in 2017. We’re coming towards the end of the schedule and are now at the penultimate game. The Kentucky Wildcats. Now despite their reputation, Kentucky are no slouch these days at football. While they are not the powerhouse they are in basketball, Mark Stoops has built a decent program in Lexington. He took a 2-10 program and finished last season 7-6. In fact, Kentucky and UGA actually finished in a Tie for the SEC East at 4-4 in conference.
This is a program that continues to improve and Stoops has done good work on the recruiting trail because of that. With the big Auburn game behind it and a rivalry game against Tech coming next, this could well be a trap game for UGA. It will be important for Georgia to stay focused and win this game if they want to win the SEC East. If they do, this could well be the week the seal that division crown.
Who were they in 2016?
As previously mentioned, this was a team that finished 7-6 on the season. That was Mark Stoops first winning season as a head coach. He’s built the team up to this and recruiting and coaching has consistently improved over the past 4 years. 2016 was very much a year of ups and downs but they certainly finished strong.
They started losing to Southern Mississippi before being blown out by Florida. They would recover however and win 5 of their next 6 games. The only loss in that stretch would be to the nations top team Alabama. These were not small wins either. 4 of them were against SEC competition and included a win at Missouri. At that point, they were in the race for the SEC East, an impressive achievement for this program. Defeats to Georgia and Tennessee ended those hopes but both were close and hard fought games.
They ended their season with a shock upset against a ranked Louisville team that was a week before the #3 team in the nation. That win showed that this team is very capable of overcoming ranked foes. In many ways, that was a program defining win for Stoops and he will be hoping that it will set the expectations for 2017.