The 3 biggest questions facing Georgia as Kirby Smart's Bulldogs enter the 2024 season

Georgia comes into the 2024 season as the No. 1 team in the country. The Bulldogs will open the year with a Week 1 showdown against longtime rival and the No. 14 team in college football, Clemson. Yet, even with an NFL prospect at quarterback and a perennially elite defense, there are questions about this Georgia team that still need to be answered. 

Kirby Smart is looking for his third national championship in four years, but he faces the most difficult schedule in the country to get there, with road trips to Texas, Ole Miss, and Alabama. So, Smart better turn these questions into answers and do so quickly because the Aflac Kickoff Game is not an easy way to start the 2024 gauntlet. 

3. Are the young guns ready to lead the secondary?

Georgia always has plenty of talent waiting in the wings, but in the secondary Kirby Smart will be forced to deploy much of it all at once after losing Kamari Lassiter, Tykee Smith, and Javon Bullard to the NFL this offseason. 

Former five-star Joenel Aguero will start in the slot as a sophomore, true freshman five-star KJ Bolden could start at strong safety, and at outside cornerback, redshirt sophomore Julian Humphrey, sophomore Daniel Harris, and true freshman five-star Ellis Robinson IV are battling to start opposite Daylen Everette. 

Beyond Bolden and Robinson being in the mix for reps, Aguero, Humphrey, and Harris combined to play just 377 defensive snaps last season and will all be full-time starters for the first time. Kirby Smart’s defense got very young very quickly, especially with sophomores Raylen Wilson and C.J. Allen playing significant roles at linebacker. 

Malaki Starks will be the leader of the defensive backfield in Athens and early in the season a lot will be asked of him while the young guns develop. Now that Nick Saban is off enjoying his retirement, there isn’t a better secondary coach in the country than Smart, so the group will continue to improve, but even Smart will need some time before this defense is national championship-caliber. 

2. Can Mykel Williams dominate up front?

It’s not often that two or any of the biggest questions about Georgia coming into the year are on defense, but that’s the reality for the No. 1 team in the country heading into 2024. While Georgia’s secondary is young, the depth of talent in the defensive backfield is staggering, that’s not the case in the trenches. 

To start the season, Georgia will be without Jordan Hall and could miss Xzavier McLeod for Week 1. Warren Brinson is back in Athens, but not starting the year at full health after an Achilles injury. Pretty quickly, between injuries and an uncommon lack of first-round NFL prospects, there is a lot of pressure on Mykel Williams to produce in his final season. 

Williams is the lone first-round prospect on the Georgia defensive line and while he led the team with 26 pressures last season, tied with Jalon Walker, his pass-rush win rate was a meager 11.5% for a defense that ranked 65th in sacks per game in 2023. 

While the secondary comes along, Georgia would benefit from an elite pass rush, and if Williams isn’t the one to provide it, the Dawgs won’t have a ton of answers. Walker and Chaz Chambliss are useful pieces at outside linebacker, but can’t take over a game the way the Williams, 6-foot-5 265-pound junior has in spurts. Now, he needs to prove he can dominate for an entire season. 

1. Is Georgia a pass-first offense?

Mike Bobo has been calling offense for a very long time, the 50-year-old was promoted to offensive coordinator after Todd Monken left for the NFL before last season, and suddenly, out of necessity, Georgia, Running Back U, became a pass-first team. 

Bobo has spoken all offseason about how important physicality is to Georgia’s offensive identity, but if Trevor Etienne starts the season with a one-week suspension after Roderick Robinson II is already missing time due to toe surgery, he may not have the horses in the backfield to establish the run. Instead, Bobo will lean on Carson Beck, who threw for nearly 4,000 yards in his first season as the starting quarterback in 2023, and an impressive group of pass-catchers. 

Even with Dillon Bell, Dominic Lovett, and Rara Thomas returning, Smart added weapons from the transfer portal, bringing in Colbie Young from Miami (FL), London Humphreys from Vanderbilt, and tight end Ben Yurosek from Stanford. Thomas has since been dismissed, but Georgia has unique depth at wide receiver and multiple dynamic tight ends between Yurosek and Oscar Delp. 

It’s against the history of this program, but Georgia has big concerns at running back, especially beyond Etienne, so now it’s a question of how heavily Bobo will lean on his Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback.