These Players Could Determine How Successful Georgia Football is This Season

These players could determine how successful Georgia is this season.

Tony Walsh/UGAAA

These players could determine how successful Georgia is this season.

In prior years, predicting a national champion used to be predicated upon two factors: returning production from last year and the overall blue chip ratio of a roster. Those two things still play a role in today's world of college football, but other factors have emerged as well.

Primarily, the transfers that teams bring in tend to play a major role in just how far a team can go. Some programs rely more heavily on the portal than others, and Georgia is a team that has continued to rely on the players they recruited out of high school.

However, Georgia likely needs this year's transfer portal class to play a bigger role in the teams' success than they have in previous seasons.

Georgia's Transfer Class Could Be the Biggest Factor in the Team's Success

Tony Walsh/UGAAA

For example, last season, Zachariah Branch ended up being the biggest hit out of last year's portal class. Other names like Josh McCray, Noah Thomas and Zion Branch became factors as well, but they didn't have the impact that Branch did. This year could be a different story.

Isiah Canion is expected to be in the starting lineup for Georgia as the team's X receiver, Khalil Barnes looks like he is going to be the starter at STAR and Dante Dowdell looks like he is going to complement Georgia's running back room very nicely. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though.

Safety Ja'Marley Riddle could certainly be an impact player for Georgia this season; however, he was rehabbing an injury he suffered during his time at East Carolina. Cornerback Braylon Conley showed signs of being a contributor on defense this season during Georgia's spring game.

Perhaps that is something that has been missing for Georgia over the past couple of seasons. The Bulldogs have hit on several transfer prospects over the years, but they haven't managed to align an entire transfer class into something that tips the scales for them that same season. This year could be different, though.

Georgia has continued to recruit at a very high level at the high school ranks, so there is plenty of talent on the roster, but adding experienced and valuable players to the roster out of the portal can really change the direction of a team's season. This year's transfer class could be exactly that for the Bulldogs.

Things would really be looking good for this season if Amaris Williams had not torn his ACL during spring practice. Despite his injury, it seems like Georgia managed to not only find some great players in the transfer portal this year, but players who can impact the roster this season for the Bulldogs. And that could be the deciding factor in just how successful Georgia is this year.