FiveDimes recently released over/under regular season win totals for college football teams.

Here is an early-season look at the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC.

Over/under

FiveDimes has Georgia at nine wins. Last year, the Bulldogs went 9-3 in the regular season. The line features a more favorable under for bettors at -105, while the over is at -135.

The upside

No LSU. No Mississippi. No Mississippi State. And Alabama, Missouri and South Carolina must go between the hedges.

The schedule won’t be as easy as some other teams in FBS, but it’s manageable for a SEC team.

It helps that Georgia returns two of the best linebackers in the country, Leonard Floyd and Jordan Jenkins, to an already improved defense. Sophomore standout running back Nick Chubb also returns to a Georgia team that will feature four returning starters to the offensive line.

The Bulldogs must break in a new quarterback and a new offensive coordinator, Brian Schottenheimer. However, with Chubb and a solid presence up front offensively, the offense won’t have to do too much other than rely on the running game, at least in the early going.

That early part of the season should help the Bulldogs prep for the meat of their schedule. A home game with South Carolina is the only game in which the Bulldogs will likely be only slight favorites during September. Georgia plays host to the Louisiana-Monroe and Southern, and travels to Vanderbilt during the month.

The downside

October and November won’t be as easy.

The Crimson Tide will play the Bulldogs for the first time during the regular season since 2008. A lot has happened since that time, including a close loss for the Bulldogs against Alabama during the 2012 SEC championship game.

Sandwiched in the middle of games against Alabama and Missouri is at Tennessee. Then, the Bulldogs will look for revenge against Florida after last year’s double-digit loss, before turning its attention to possibly the toughest match-up this season two weeks later at Auburn.

The Bulldogs also must travel to Georgia Tech to conclude the regular season.

Those two months will tell a lot about Georgia. The Bulldogs enter this season as the favorite to win the SEC East and with home games against Alabama and South Carolina, there’s reason for optimism in Athens, Georgia.

However, Georgia must still break in a new quarterback and rely on a defense that played much better last season after years of disappointment.

The verdict

The Bulldogs will likely be heavily favored in five games and mildly favored in three contests. Toss-up games are against Alabama, Auburn, Florida and Georgia Tech.

Bettors have to depend on the Bulldogs winning all eight of the games they should win, while at least splitting the toss-ups.

The only issue with the toss-up games are that the Bulldogs must square off against Auburn and Georgia Tech in true road games, while facing Florida on a neutral field.

Those will be tough assignments for an unproven quarterback.

In the past, Georgia has been too prone to slipping up in games that it should win. Since 2008, the Bulldogs have won double-digit regular season games twice. Should Georgia win at least 10 games? Yes. However, in years past, the Bulldogs just haven’t been able to be trusted.

Take the better value with the under and wait for the difficult months of October and November.

 

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