Okay, time to dig into my initial impressions on Phil Steele’s take on this year’s model of Georgia football. I hinted at some of it yesterday — overall, it’s quite positive (third in his power ratings; fourth in his rankings once scheduling is factored in), but a little lackluster in comparison to Alabama and Clemson.
To illustrate, here’s how the three shape up in his unit position rankings:
QUARTERBACKS
- Clemson 1st
- Alabama 2nd
- Georgia 9th
RUNNING BACKS
- Georgia 2nd
- Clemson 3rd
- Alabama 4th
RECEIVERS
- Alabama 1st
- Clemson 2nd
- Georgia 25th (and that’s counting Holloman)
OFFENSIVE LINE
- Georgia 2nd
- Clemson 3rd
- Alabama 6th
DEFENSIVE LINE
- Alabama 3rd
- Clemson 5th
- Georgia 17th
LINEBACKERS
- Alabama 1st
- Georgia 6th
- Clemson 14th
DEFENSIVE BACKS
- Alabama 3rd
- Clemson 7th
- Georgia 16th
SPECIAL TEAMS
- Alabama 18th
- Georgia 20th
- Clemson outside top 57
In areas where Georgia is best, the other two are generally close behind. But there are significant gaps at several positions where the Dawgs lag behind the other two.
All of this, it should be said, is extremely relative. Georgia is ranked in his top twenty-five at every unit position, which is nothing to sneer at. In fact, it reinforces a point I made a while back when I was debating Allen Kenney and Ian Boyd about Lincoln Riley’s comment about Georgia, namely that Kirby’s built his team to excel by making sure that there are no true weak links.
This is nicely illustrated with Steele’s SEC unit comparison chart.

The Dawgs may not be the best in the conference at everything, but they’re no worse than above-average in any category. There is no other team on that chart, including Alabama, that can make the same claim. (Don’t miss his coach rankings for Georgia and Florida, by the way. But I digress.)
Coming from someone who watched Mark Richt fail to manage to field consistent units from year to year, that’s not damning with faint praise, either. In fact, it’s hard to do. Even Alabama during its current run has had seasons fall short because of poor special teams play.
The problem is that in the context of the 2019 season, Georgia’s high level of consistency may not be enough. For one thing, it appears that Saban’s team can make the same claim, except at an even higher level.
None of this is etched in stone, of course. But I don’t think it’s unfair to state at this point in the preseason that Georgia has some work to do in order to catch Alabama and Clemson by the time the postseason rolls around.