What an incredible season it has been in the Southeastern Conference this season. There have been an unprecedented number of extremely close games, a head spinning number of coaching changes (Florida, LSU and Auburn all fired their coaches before Halloween), and parity in the era of the transfer portal and NIL like we’ve never seen.

Yet here we are again with the two programs that have been on the mountaintop, not just in the SEC, but in all of college football, squaring off for the conference crown and markedly enhanced College Football Playoff resume. For all that Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and Texas have done, and who knows, maybe one of those teams wins the national championship, it is once again Alabama and Georgia playing for the Southeastern Conference crown.

For Bulldogs Head Coach Kirby Smart, in his 10th season and already on the Mt. Rushmore of all-time great SEC coaches, this year has been chock-full of even more phenomenal accomplishments, records and milestones. He’s the best coach in the country, and this season has been one of his very best, which is saying a lot.

Let’s start with the most recent game, as the Bulldogs beat the Yellow Jackets 16-9 last Friday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The victory marks Georgia’s eighth consecutive triumph over “The Enemy,” so aptly coined by the great Bulldog legend Dan Magil, which equals the longest streak in series history. From 1949 through1956, Georgia lost eight straight seasons to the Jackets, the infamous drought. Well that mark has been tied.

Georgia’s record against the rivals is phenomenal. Dating back to 2017, Year Two of the Smart era, the season the dynasty began, Georgia is a cumulative 34-2 against the Yellow Jackets, Florida, Auburn and Tennessee. This season marks a fifth consecutive campaign that Georgia swept the Yellow Jackets, Gators, Auburn and the Volunteers. That’s 20-0 against those four dating back to the 2021 national championship season. Georgia currently carries an eight-game winning streak against the Jackets. The Bulldogs have won nine in a row over Auburn. Georgia has beaten Tennessee nine consecutive seasons. Kirby Smart’s Dogs have won eight of the last nine against Florida. Staggering.

As for Georgia’s superb senior class, the four year players boast a cumulative record of 50-5, with the 2022 National Championship, two SEC crowns and three consecutive top seven national finishes, with a ninth in a row seeming a virtual lock. Those four year players have now been to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game every year, and the Bulldogs have been to five in a row.

Under Smart’s watch, Georgia has now played in eight of the last nine SEC Championship Games. No team or coach had ever been to six of seven. Much less seven of eight. Much less eight of nine.

The absolute pinnacle were the back-to-back National Championships in 2021 and 2022 for the Bulldogs, as Georgia became the first team in the playoff era, which began in 2014, to capture the title in consecutive campaigns.

Georgia beat Alabama in Indianapolis 33-18 on January 10, 2022 to win it all for the first time since 1980. A year later, on January 9, 2023, the Bulldogs demolished TCU 65-7 to go back-to-back, capping a 15-0 victory ride. The 58 point triumph was the largest in bowl game history, and it came in the National Championship Game. That record stood for one year. The Bulldogs, to cap a 13-1 season in 2023, crushed Florida State 63-3 in the Orange Bowl.

Under Smart’s watch, Georgia set the SEC record for the longest regular season win streak at 42 games – from the end of 2020 until early in 2024. The Bulldogs established an SEC mark with a 33-game home winning streak that ran from 2019 through this season.

In 2021, 2022 and 2023, Georgia posted perfect 12-0 regular seasons. No other school in college football history has ever gotten to 12-0 at any point of a campaign in three straight years.

Let’s go back to last Friday’s victory over the Yellow Jackets. It put the cap on an 11-1 regular season, the seventh in the last nine years where the Bulldogs headed to the postseason at either 12-0 or 11-1.

The Bulldogs have finished in the top ten in eight consecutive seasons. With a No. 3 national ranking heading to Atlanta, and a lock for the College Football Playoff, the Bulldogs seem a lock to make it nine in a row. Now with the multiple polls through the years, some numbers for some schools might fluctuate a bit when you go through the final rankings. But here is the company Georgia will be in with a ninth consecutive top ten ranking at the end of this season, with the Bulldogs of course dreaming of and striving for another national title: Alabama, Florida State (in the Bobby Bowden era), Michigan, Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Ohio State.

Amazing.

Over Georgia’s last 74 games, the Bulldogs are 68-6 (91.9%).

And when it comes to coaching records, how about this company kept by Coach King Kirby Smart:

Winning percentage …

• Kirby .853 in his 10th season.

• Knute Rockne was a record .881 in 13  years at Notre Dame.

• Nick Saban was .806 overall (28 years),.877 at Alabama (17 seasons).

• Bear Bryant was .780 overall (38 years),.824 at Alabama (25 seasons).

Elite.

Now comes another championship meeting with Alabama, as Georgia aims to add the SEC championship to the state title, prior to the quest for the big one. And who knows, it might be the second of three games between these two superpowers this season.

Enjoy.

And rejoice in these grandest of times for the University of Georgia Bulldogs.