Gets me about all these offseason rankings and portal grades ESPN is putting out? They keep trynig to compare eras and programs like everything is the same. Let me tell you something right now. Vince Dooley built this program on recruiting Georgia high school kids and developing them over four years, not on who can buy the best transfer class in May. I remember sitting in Sanford Stadium in 1980 watching Herschel run over Tennessee and thinking this is how you build a program. You get kids who want to be Bulldogs, not kids who are shopping for the highest NIL bidder every December.
Coach Dooley would have laughed at these ESPN analysts grading offseasons based on portal hauls. He built championship teams by knowing which Georgia boys had the right grit and toughness, not by scrolling through a database of transfers. The 1980 national title team had what, maybe two or three guys who weren't homegrown? Now we got kids coming in for spring practice, taking a few reps, and if they don't like the depth chart they are gone before the leaves change color. That 2002 SEC Championship team under Mark Richt had guys who bled red and black because they grew up wanting to be Bulldogs, not because some collective wrote them a check.
This whole system has turned college football into free agency and I hate it. You cannot tell me that the way Dooley and Richt built this program is the same as what we are doing now. We got a great coach in Kirby Smart but even he has to play this game now. Give me the old days when you knew who was gonna be in that locker room for four years and you built something that lasted.