AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – SEC Media Days are raging on in Dallas, Texas.

Kirby Smart and his Georgia Bulldogs stepped up to the mic to help set the stage for what should be another exciting season of football between the hedges.

After just barely missing the opportunity to complete the three-peat last year, the Dawgs are back, barking louder than ever.

With Quarterback Carson Beck returning for one last ride and their defense getting bigger and faster, the Dawgs will be in a position to compete for their third national championship in the last four seasons.

Kirby says his dawgs are ready for the challenge of this new 16-team SEC and a much more difficult schedule.

“Coming out of spring, I love the practice environment, the competitive nature between the offense and defense, the battles we had on the field like the practices were really spirited, it seemed like. And I enjoy that. I think when you have good, spirited practices, they get more out of them,” said Smart.

Beck said: “I think over the course of last year if you go look a game on and then you go look at game 40 and it’s not even the same quarterback and you know, making the decision to come back this year, I’m excited to see what the progression from Game 15 to whatever X amount of games we might play this year is going to look like.”

All eyes will be on number 15 both in Athens and around the country, because according to most sportsbooks out there, Beck is either the favorite or tied for the best odds to win the Heisman Trophy this year.

Beck threw for just under 4,000 yards and had 30 total touchdowns in 2023.

With Brock Bowers, Ladd Mcconkey and Kendall Milton moving on to the NFL, he’ll have some new weapons this year, but Qb1 still believes the best is yet to come.

“When you focus on the team and you really put other people before yourself and you are selfless and you focus on your agency, we focus on our line, you focus on the tight end, we focus on the defense, focus on the team as a whole. It kind of takes all that, you know, outside noise and pressure of these individual awards and individual statistics, and it puts it on, okay, let’s win this week. And then that’s within the next week and then so on, and so forth. And when those things happen and you can focus on the team and everybody on the team is on that same mindset, that’s when those individual kinds of awards start to happen,” said Beck.

In addition to that tough loss to Alabama in the SEC championship game, one thing that kept Georgia out of the playoff last year was their strength of schedule.

That won’t be a problem this year because the Dawgs will have their hands full with tough games against Clemson to open up the season and battles with Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss all on the road.

Mykel Williams, defensive line, said: “A personal goal I have this year is to win and win a lot of games. The game plan behind that is to go in week in and week out and do the things necessary to win.”

Malaki Starks, defensive back, said: “Complacency gets you passed up. You know, if you’re flat-lining, people who are consistently going are going to pass you at some point. The goal is to not get passes, keep going. You know, I feel like especially on defense, there’s nothing that you can’t get better at, nothing. You can’t grow into the best as the goal is just to keep growing day by day.”

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