Is Georgia the Most Underachieving Team in College Football?

The 10-win mark is usually a measure of success for most programs, but Georgia doesn't get judged by the same standards. Instead, getting that 10th victory in an otherwise meaningless bowl game only makes Bulldogs fans wonder what could have been.

Georgia rushed for 292 yards against a team that came in allowing fewer than 94 per game, overcoming the loss of quarterback Hutson Mason to convincingly beat Louisville 37-14 in Tuesday's Belk Bowl.

It meant head coach Mark Richt had achieved 10 wins for the ninth time in his 14 seasons at Georgia.

Yet one of the most talented teams in the country sees its season end prior to New Year's Eve for the first time since 2009, and the Bulldogs will spend the rest of this holiday week like the rest of us: watching the big bowls and the first ever College Football Playoff semifinals instead of playing in them.

It's a fitting end to arguably the most underachieving program in college football this season, based on what Georgia has had to work with.

Nell Redmond/Associated Press

"It's an optimistic conclusion to a season filled with some bitter disappointments," wrote ESPN.com's David M. Hale.

While the future looks amazingly bright—how can it not be when a true freshman, Nick Chubb, runs for 266 yards and to complete the fourth-best rushing season in school history despite hardly playing in the first five games?—the same could be said back in August.

However, it seemed like every time that we were ready to declare the Bulldogs as having arrived in 2014, each peak was followed by a significant valley.

An impressive opener against Clemson preceded a disappointing loss at South Carolina, a result made even more dubious by how the Gamecocks looked this season.

Then back-to-back dominant victories at Missouri and Arkansas—the first a shutout of the defending SEC East champs—are followed up by a major egg being laid against left-for-dead Florida.

By the time they lost in overtime against rival Georgia Tech in the regular-season finale, a game they took the lead in with 18 seconds left in regulation, the Bulldogs had already failed to make the SEC title game.

That home loss ensured a second-tier bowl appearance. The romp over Louisville looked good but would have looked even better if it had been in one of the big bowl games set for New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

Georgia's year doesn't line up with a year full of individual and team-level superlatives.

Chubb set a single-season school record for yards per attempt, averaging 7.08 on 219 carries while finishing with 1,550 yards and 14 touchdowns.

This was on top of what Todd Gurley was able to accomplish (911 yards, nine TDs) despite missing four games because of an autograph-fueled NCAA suspension and then going down with a knee injury.

"

The best player in the country goes down, and you get this gentleman. That seems moderately unfair.

— Adam Kramer (@KegsnEggs) December 31, 2014"

For the year, Georgia averaged 257.8 rushing yards per game, which will end up ranking in the top 15 in the country.

Mason didn't blow anyone away with his passing numbers in 2014, but he did manage to set a school record for completion percentage.

Before leaving late in the first half against Louisville with what the team described as vision issues, he'd completed 10 of 15 passes for 148 yards and a touchdown and ended the year completing 67.9 percent of his throws for 21 TDs and only four interceptions in 277 attempts.

And that defense, which was so mocked in 2013, ended up allowing 20.7 points and 337.2 yards per game, both major improvements.

Based on that information, and Georgia's pedigree and placement in the SEC, the Bulldogs should have done better. Much better.

Underachieving isn't a new thing at Georgia, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating.

A year after replacing much-maligned defensive coordinator Todd Grantham with Jeremy Pruitt, fresh off his national championship work with Florida State, more of the disdain was focused on offensive coordinator Mike Bobo. The play-calling seemed to veer more toward wanting to mix it up rather than just feeding the ball to Georgia's great running backs.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the critical moments of the 38-35 loss at South Carolina, when instead of handing off to Gurley on 1st-and-goal from the Gamecocks' 4-yard line, the play called for a Mason pass.

Mason was called for intentional grounding, moving the Bulldogs backwards and ultimately resulting in a missed field goal that would have tied the game.

Grant Halverson/Getty Images

Gurley wasn't involved in the late-season letdown to Georgia Tech, but Chubb was. He had generated his seventh of eight straight 100-yard games to end the season, yet in overtime it was a Mason pass play that resulted in a game-ending interception instead of more power running.

Georgia will be starting a new quarterback for a second straight year in 2015—and redshirt freshman Brice Ramsey didn't do anything to ensure he'd be that guy with his Belk Bowl performance—yet the promising young defenders and the likelihood that Chubb will be even bigger and stronger after a full offseason of in-school workouts and training will once again lead to high expectations in Athens.

But anything short of a New Year's Six bowl game will make it possible to write this article again next winter.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.