Bulldogs

Athens is a college town in the middle of Georgia, where the Georgia Bulldogs play. The program traces back to 1892, when chemistry professor Charles Herty put together the first team for a game against the Atlanta Athletic Club.

Georgia has been part of the Southeastern Conference since it helped found the league in 1932. Four of the program's national championships are unusually spread across generations: 1942 under Wally Butts, 1980 under Vince Dooley, then 2021 and 2022 back to back under Kirby Smart, the second of those settled by a 65–7 rout of TCU.

Herschel Walker's 1982 Heisman Trophy still anchors the program's sense of itself, and the list of players who went on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame — Fran Tarkenton and Champ Bailey among them — gives Athens a claim on the sport well beyond campus. Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate against Georgia Tech and the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry against Auburn are the fixtures that structure the calendar here, games where the record book carries less weight than the result on the day.

What the Bulldogs have not managed is separation at the very top: for a program with four claimed national titles across more than a century, long stretches between them — decades, at times — have left Athens waiting rather than celebrating.