Before UGA Football's Back-to-Back National Titles the Dawgs Had to to Survive 2020
ATHENS - UGA football was on the path to an inflection point. The program had been very good under coach Kirby Smart - winning the SEC and coming within a play of winning the national title in 2017, and finishing No. 7 and No. 4 in the seasons after that.
The end of the 2020 season produced another major bowl win, and another No. 7 ranking. Georgia had won the Rose, Sugar and Peach bowls in a four-year period. Things were going well. Things were better. But ultimately things were not where Kirby and UGA wanted them to be.
“They were successful years,” Kirby told Dr. Drew Brannon on The Growth Project. “We’d won the East. We’d won bowl games, but they weren’t where we wanted to go.”
Big wins in big games were not enought anymore.
“Man, we just won the Peach Bowl, and it’s like nobody's even happy,” Kirby reflected after the win over Cincinatti to conclude the 2020 season. “Where are we headed here? Where is our relevance?"
The national title that had escaped Georgia for decades was still missing. Before the Dawgs could confront the what was missing, UGA had to navigate through the most uncertain season in college football season. This story is the start of a series of stories looking back at Georgia’s 2020 season, and how that turbulent season lead to Georgia’s back-to-back national titles in 2021 and 2022.
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By 2020, transition had come in a major way on the offensive side of the ball for the Bulldogs. After two different offensive coordinators in 2018 and 2019, Kirby hired Todd Monken, who had been the offensive coordinator for the Browns.
Monken would have to start from scratch at quarterback. He got to Athens with only two scholarship players at the spot after Jake Fromm left early for the NFL after starting three seasons.
D'Wan Mathis was entering his second season of football at Georgia. Meanwhile, former walk-on Stetson Bennett, who was told in the summer of 2020 by coaches that he would never play at UGA, was also on the roster.
4-star Carson Beck had just been signed by UGA after winning the state title in Florida's largest classification his junior season. Wake Forest QB transfer Jamie Newman arrived in the winter of 2020. A few months later former USC starter J.T. Daniels arrived, too. It wasn’t clear who would start at quarterback in 2020, but Newman seemed the clear-cut favorite to win the spot.
The lead up to Kirby Smart’s first season as head coach of UGA football in 2016 was full of unknowns, too. The first-time head coach talked a good game about where the program could go, but the opening game against No. 22 North Carolina in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game would serve as a measuring stick a season after firing longtime coach Mark Richt.
Even though it was his first season, expectations for Kirby were high. After all, why push Richt, who moved on to Miami, out the door if you weren’t going for it all? The biggest problem for Kirby heading into his first season was the problem of Richt’s final season — who would start at quarterback?
Five years later Kirby entered 2020 with a handful of quarterbacks — each of them with a handful or problems themselves. Kirby leaned on Jake Fromm from 2017 through 2019, but 2020 was the first time Kirby’s program would start a season without a returning starting quarterback from inside the program.
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When former Wake Forest starter Jamie Newman transferred to UGA days after Fromm announced he would enter the 2020 NFL Draft, the college football world exploded with the possibilities laid out for the Dawgs in Kirby’s fifth season.
Newman, who enrolled at UGA in January, was the presumed starter on the spot. He became a betting favorite to win the Heisman Trophy, and a slew of mock NFL Drafts had him going in the late first round in 2021. Pundits from around the country, including Richt, loved the marriage between the grad transfer and the Bulldogs.
“I have been watching Jamie Newman all season with the ACC network,” Richt tweeted after the announcement. “Georgia just landed a great one! I predict he will be the best quarterback in the SEC!”
Then COVID-19 hit and everything was sidelined for Georgia’s spring football practices. The offseason, which was its own challenge for a slew of reasons, was not normal in any way. At any moment the program could be whipsawed because of a COVID outbreak on the team or a pause in team activities thanks to a ruling from the SEC, the NCAA or the State of Georgia. The Big Ten and Pac 12 were not sold a season would be played.
No one knew what to expect next. It was the most unpredictable and unsettling time in the history of UGA, SEC and college football.
By the time the summer rolled around, Newman was being held out of workouts with a minor foot injury, and insiders thought fellow transfer JT Daniels had gained ground in the race to start. Daniels, who transferred to Georgia in late spring, had been the starter at USC before suffering an ACL injury. Insiders said that although Newman was probably still the likely starter, he had not closed out the quarterback competition. Daniels was seen as perhaps less of a playmaker but was catching on quickly with Monken’s offense.
“With Jamie missing with the foot issue - we’re talking about walkthroughs. It’s not like we’re out there… there’s a misnomer that we’ve been able to practice,” Kirby told reporters five weeks before the Bulldogs kicked off the season. “They haven’t been able to practice. We’ve been able to walk through. (Jamie) does a really good job of standing behind the huddle, standing behind the play, imagining taking the snap, getting the mental reps, but until you get out there and do it, it’s not as easy.”
Newman was behind — or at least he was not as far along as folks had hoped. That was for obvious reasons — he had not been able to compete in early practices. But he was struggling to pick up the playbook, too, insiders said.
“This is a real-deal NFL-level offense,” said one insider of Newman’s struggle. “It’s not easy.”
“I don’t think anyone has separated if that’s what you’re asking,” regarding the quarterback situation, Kirby told reporters on August 29. "As far as the time table for that, I don’t have a time table for that. It’s got to happen. JT (Daniels) is not cleared still. You all think he’s cleared, or what you think of is cleared. Cleared to me is, I can go out and play a full game of tackle football. He gets to scrimmage but he wouldn’t be cleared for a game in terms of contact yet.”
But practice rolled on, and by the end of August there appeared to be a real fight for who the starting signal caller would be — Newman or Daniels.
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“I’m pretty sure we had every quarterback go with the 1s at one time. I don’t think Stetson (Bennett) got to go with the 1s. Stetson did a good job in the groups he did go with,” Kirby added during a press conference that day. “Jamie [Newman) operated with the 1s, and JT (Daniels) operated with the 1s. D’Wan (Mathis) got a red area series with the 1s, as well. The reps came out pretty balanced. Stetson had a bit fewer because we had seen his stats a lot more and know more about him because of his time spent with us last year.”
Four days later Jamie Newman opted out of the 2020 football season.
“With much prayer and discussion with my family I would like to announce that due to the uncertainties of this year amid a global pandemic I will officially opt-out of this football season to prepare for the upcoming 2021 NFL Draft,” Newman wrote on social media.
The news was a devastating punch to the hopes of the Bulldogs’ season. Newman was a multi-year starter at Wake Forest. He appeared to be just what the Dawgs needed to effectively run the new offense. Plus he was healthy while Daniels was not.
Georgia’s 2020 season looked like it was going off the rails.
“We are moving forward, and we respect Jamie. I respect Jamie,” Kirby said three days after Newman’s announcement. “He has done a tremendous job. I respect any kid that chooses to opt-out. He came and let me know on Tuesday. It was a non-practice day for us. I think he announced it on Wednesday.”
Insiders say that Georgia’s coaching staff was surprised by the move — not seeing it coming as the season was only four Saturdays away from kicking off. Those same insiders felt like Newman thought he might not start and made the decision to leave to lock in his status as a top quarterback for the 2021 NFL Draft.
Still, many were puzzled by the move.
Daniels was even—or maybe inching ahead of him during a competition for the starting job, but Daniels had not won the job (which was something insiders continued to point out on background) and was still not cleared to play due to his knee injury recovery.
It felt like Newman had jumped the gun.