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DawgNation Staff
It speaks to where the Georgia football program is at that having the No. 1 ranking is such a non-story.
“(I’m) a lot more worried about how we execute a combo block than I am worried about what we’re ranked,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said on Monday. “And hopefully the kids are the same way.”
Related: Georgia football moves to No. 1 in AP Poll Top 25 rankings for Week 3
While not every play can attest to the concern about combo blocks, Georgia players are very much buying into the message being put forth by Smart.
The ranking, achieved thanks to Georgia’s strong start and a lackluster performance from Alabama, means little to Georgia. Especially in the third week of the college football season.
“I think his biggest thing is he wants us to be hungry, work hard,” Georgia center Sedrick Van Pran said. “I think a staple of this program is working hard throughout the week so we can minimize mistakes in the game. We don’t take anything for granted throughout the week. Making sure we’re able to play to the standard we need to.”
Consider the Bulldogs are still at No. 2 in the Coaches Poll ranking for this week.
“We’re not really worried about the ranking or stuff,” linebacker Smael Mondon said. “We just go in and just try to play to our standard. I feel like if we play to our standard, the rest will unfold how it’s supposed to.”
The Bulldogs climbed in the rankings — they began the season as the No. 3 ranked team — thanks to massive wins against Oregon and Samford. Through two games, Georgia is outscoring its foes 82-3.
Georgia is likely to see an uptick in competition starting this week as it visits the South Carolina Gamecocks. In addition to it being Georgia’s first true road game, it is also the first SEC game of the season.
The Bulldogs have won the SEC East in four of the past five seasons. Georgia knows it must do so again this season if it is to accomplish its goal of winning the SEC and eventually the national championship.
Not on the list of season-long goals would be attaining the No. 1 ranking. Georgia has ascended to a place where it doesn’t need to scoreboard watch or fret about how some future foe is playing.
If the Bulldogs play to the best of their natural abilities — and they admittedly did not against Samford — than Georgia is going to be just fine in the rankings. That is the Georgia standard.
“It’s never a big deal. It only matters at the end of the year,” Smart said. “I mean, I don’t know that we’ve spent many weeks outside of the top 10. And it never mattered whether we were inside the top 10 or outside of the top 10. It just is irrelevant.”
