Georgia’s dominance over unranked teams is reaching Nick Saban territory
· Yahoo Sports
Georgia’s dominance over unranked teams is reaching Nick Saban territory originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Georgia Bulldogs have spent years bullying opponents on the national stage, but one statistic from CBS Sports’ Brad Crawford really puts into perspective just how automatic the Bulldogs have become under Kirby Smart. According to Crawford’s “26 mind-blowing stats for 2026” feature, Georgia enters the season having won 48 consecutive games against unranked opponents. Not only is that the longest streak in college football right now, it is not particularly close.
Visit orlando-books.blog for more information.
The last time Georgia lost to an unranked team was all the way back in 2019, when South Carolina stunned the Bulldogs in double overtime in Athens. Since then, Georgia has turned avoiding bad losses into an art form.
Georgia has made consistency look almost boring
That might not sound flashy in a sport obsessed with playoff races and championship moments, but it is one of the biggest reasons Georgia has stayed near the top of college football year after year. In today’s era of NIL spending, transfer portal chaos and constant roster turnover, weird losses happen everywhere. Contenders slip up. Heavy favorites get caught looking ahead. Entire seasons can unravel because of one careless Saturday afternoon.
Georgia just does not seem to have those moments anymore. Crawford noted that the Bulldogs still have a long way to go before catching the SEC gold standard set by Nick Saban, whose Alabama teams once won 100 straight games against unranked opponents. But even being mentioned anywhere near that benchmark says everything about what Smart has built in Athens.
MORE: Indiana’s unbelievable home dominance under Curt Cignetti will be worth watching
Kirby Smart has created college football’s safest bet
The next closest Power Four team on the list is the Oregon Ducks with 33 straight wins over unranked opponents under Dan Lanning. Georgia is operating on a completely different level right now. And this streak is about more than just recruiting rankings.
Georgia rarely looks unfocused against weaker opponents. The Bulldogs usually dominate physically early, overwhelm teams at the line of scrimmage and remove drama from games before the second half even starts. That level of week-to-week focus is difficult to maintain, especially when every opponent treats Georgia like its Super Bowl. It is also why the Bulldogs continue entering every season as one of the safest national championship picks in the country.
A lot of teams are talented enough to beat elite opponents once or twice. Very few can avoid the random collapse that ruins an otherwise great season. Georgia has made a habit of avoiding exactly those kinds of disasters, and Crawford’s statistic may be the clearest example yet of just how machine-like the Bulldogs have become under Smart.
Let's get it started
The Bulldogs will start the season with a non-conference home game. Tennessee State comes to Athens on September 5th. Georia when sees Western Kentucky on September 12th, before they start SEC action at Arkansas on the 19th of September.
More college football news:
- Indiana’s unbelievable home dominance under Curt Cignetti will be worth watching
- Everyone's saying the same thing about Lane Kiffin on social media
- Lane Kiffin tried to leave Ole Miss in 2024 for 'another' job, says former coach
- Jordon Hudson reveals where CBS situation stands a year after flawed Bill Belichick interview
- 5 true freshmen to watch in the 2026 college football season