NEW ORLEANS — The normally stoic Smael Mondon finally displayed some emotion. After four years, multiple injuries and pouring everything he could into the Georgia program, Mondon finally showed how he was feeling as he embraced Glenn Schumann in the locker room.

The ups and downs that followed a difficult 2024 season, not just for Mondon but many on the Georgia roster, culminated in a 23-10 defeat to Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff. Instead of cheers, there were tears for Georgia. Not just from a distraught Mondon, but the likes of Oscar Delp, Dylan Fairchild and others.

“Definitely not what you want in the end. That’s for certain,” sophomore linebacker CJ Allen told DawgNation after the game. “The things we’ve been through, the things this team’s been through, the stuff we overcame, we overcame a lot. I’m very super proud of this team. We overcame a lot. Just thinking about that, you know what I’m saying, to be proud of ourselves for that, the things we overcame this season.”

For the first time since the 2018 season, Georgia’s season ended with a loss. That ironically came in the Sugar Bowl, against Texas. The Longhorns were still in the Big 12 at that point time.

Players like Mondon and Chaz Chambliss had yet to sign with Georgia. Those seniors ended up becoming the winningest senior class in program history, going 53-5. They went 25-0 at home, winning two SEC championships and two national championships.

The Bulldogs were unable to get a third national title. Too many injuries. Too difficult a schedule. Not enough talent and not enough bounces of the football went their way this season.

Some may see this season as a failure. Those people obviously didn’t see the inside of the Georgia locker room following the loss to Notre Dame.

To see everything that this team went through and call them anything but successful would be insulting.

“Played the hardest schedule in the country. We’re SEC champions. Can’t take that away from us,” Delp said. “That’s just how it is. It’s going to be like that next year, too. It’s not like that one year. That’s how it’s going to be. Deal with it. We got to work in the offseason, get better, compete. A lot of crazy things happened this season. We can’t control anything. You got to do what you do.”

Georgia went on the road to Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss. It beat the Longhorns twice, as well as playoff participant Tennessee as well. It won an SEC championship with its starting quarterback exiting the game on the last play of the first half.

There were dismissals, arrests, suspensions and a number of self-inflicted incidents that kept this team from being one of the final four remaining. This team was far from perfect.

But in some ways, the beautiful mess that was the 2024 Georgia football season puts this team’s accomplishments in better perspective.

There was no Brock Bowers or Jalen Carter on this team. Sure there were talented players, such as Butkus Award winner Jalon Walker or two-time All-American Tate Ratledge, but there wasn’t a single player that elevated everyone else.

It was a band of brothers, coming together and fighting all the way to the end. Georgia had incredible comebacks against the likes of Texas and Georgia Tech. Even against Notre Dame when the Bulldogs gave up a 98-yard kickoff return to open the second half, they never rolled over. They continued to battle and were a redzone touchdown away from cutting the deficit to 6.

Georgia couldn’t make the plays when needed. But this team never stopped trying to make them.

“It’s going to teach us just to keep going,” freshman linebacker Chris Cole said.

Next year’s team is will look different. Given the rapid roster movements that occurs on college rosters now, many of the players in that locker room will play elsewhere. Some in the NFL, others at other schools.

The roster will flip, as the Bulldogs are likely to see double-digit players leave via the transfer portal and the NFL draft. Such is life when you’re as talented as Georgia was, even in what was admittedly a down season.

Still, it’s hard not to come away with how this Georgia team fought, all the way until the end.

“What they went through this year and what they played and how they played, the resiliency, the injuries that we’ve had, and to win an SEC championship — which I have so much respect for our conference,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “To win some of the comeback games they won and never quit, even in this game, never quit, that’s the attitude you’ve got to have to get better as a football program.”

Smart has been honest about this team. It was not his most talented. The ninth-year head coach has said as much. There were moments of frustration this season, some were due to forces out of Georgia’s control.

He knows the Georgia program has to get better. Smart has shown he’s the coach capable of doing so, as the Georgia program seemed a lot farther away from championships than it did the last time it saw its season end with a loss in New Orleans.

And he knows that the scars formed during this season will help make future Georgia teams better.

“Remember the taste in your mouth, you never want that feeling again,” Allen said. “When you’re a winner, you hate losing more than you like winning. So just taking that into consideration with the offseason program and just knowing what we have to do and the feeling that we have now, not want to fight that again. So just working hard in the summer and spring and so on.”