It's almost time to commence spring practice, which — much like spring training in baseball — inevitably leads to a lot of serious over-reaction narratives that fans will chew on and debate through the summer.
I tend to take the approach that it's just spring, which is a time to return to the basics and, perhaps, tinker and experiment with a few things if you'd like.
It'll all commence with the G-Day Game on April 22 at 2 p.m. where everyone will suddenly have a new favorite player (Carlton Thomas, anyone?), or a "hot take" on a player poised for a big season this fall.
Have I lost you yet?
No? Good.
With all those qualifiers on the table, let's take a look at a few things to watch this spring.
1) The early enrollees.
I take this one with a two-fold approach. The first is the cautionary tale that these guys are true freshmen, and will probably look like it.
What you hope to see are a few flashes of progress, and maybe the raw talent that'll be developed over the next few years. Just don't be surprised if they don't look NFL-ready just yet.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, here are the early enrollees (courtesy of the AJC): Jake Fromm (QB), DeAngelo Gibbs (S), D'Marcus Hayes (OT), Jeremiah Holloman (WR), Richard LeCounte III (S) and Monty Rice (ILB).
The other part of this two-fold approach is that we can still be excited about the future, especially guys like Fromm, Gibbs and Holloman, and we can hope to see a few explosive and athletic plays from the freshmen during G-Day.
Heck, it's not unreasonable to think a couple of these guys could see the field this year, especially Holloman, who fills the role of a taller, bigger-body receiver that Kirby Smart likes. (He's 6-2, 195 pounds.)
But please remember that they are freshmen.
2) The kicker.
Lost, perhaps, among the hoots and hollers of National Signing Day was the on-going saga of Georgia's kicking position.
The Bulldogs added a graduate transfer from Wofford, who will apparently go on scholarship, along with a couple other extra walk-on legs in the mix.
And then, of course, there's Rodrigo Blankenship, the freshman All-America, who returns this year, still sans scholarship as of this writing, at least as far as the public is aware.
I'm sure his dad, who has publicly criticized Smart over this, is thrilled.
Anyway, will "Hot Rod" and his fantastic rec specs stick around, even if another kicker gets put on scholarship? (Reports indicate the Wofford transfer, David Marvin, will "blue shirt" and be put on scholarship later.)
Or will Blankenship even hang onto the job at all? Remember, he wasn't the starter last year until the Ole Miss game. William Ham was.
I know some folks don't think it's important to have a good kicker, but you might be singing a different tune if Isaiah McKenzie didn't haul in that fourth-down catch to beat Missouri. Remember, Ham missed two field goals earlier in the game, which Georgia trailed 27-21 before McKenzie's catch.
3) The offensive line.
I'm sure a lot of Georgia fans are hoping it'll be a case of addition by subtraction, since last year's abysmal offensive line loses three starters going into 2017.
Of course, it should be noted this will be the first time since 2014 that the Bulldogs offense won't be learning a new system, so that should help, at least from a continuity perspective.
With Nick Chubb and Sony Michel returning, the pressure will be on to establish the run, something this team struggled to do in 2016, save for the North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia Tech games.
Get Chubb going, and suddenly I think we'll see a much better version of Jacob Eason.
(Don't forget Greyson Lambert, who had much better run support in 2015, finished his career with an 11-2 record.)
Fingers crossed, folks.
