Georgia enters the 2019 season with incredible expectations. Dawg Nation is chomping at the bit for a national championship and considering the talent Kirby Smart and his staff have signed in Athens, that goal isn’t unrealistic looking ahead to the fall.

But don’t try to sell Smart on the fact that this season is national championship or bust.

When asked whether Georgia enters the season with national championship or bust expectations, Smart took issue with that comment during his latest media availability.

“I don’t view success and failure based on that. I think you guys do that. Some of the things you guys write where it’s ‘This or bust or this or that.’ Here’s what we’re focused on — how good can we be tomorrow,” Kirby Smart said on Wednesday. “Can we be the best we can? Do they have expectations of Georgia? Absolutely. They got expectations and we got them for ourselves, but I’m going to measure success and failure on one thing. It’s not fair to these kids who give everything they’ve got to the program and their blood sweat and tears and all the people in the organization who give everything they got to measure success and failure on one thing. I’m not gonna do that.

“You guys may do it, fans may do it, everybody has the right when it comes to that. I’m worried about what we’re gonna do the next 15 minutes or you’re gonna watch this tape.”

Considering the Bulldogs have been on the cusp of winning or competing for a national championship in consecutive seasons, Smart was asked to expound on his comment that 24-5 (over the previous two seasons) wasn’t good enough. Does that mean the only thing that would be “good enough” is winning a national title? Not necessarily.

“I said, ‘Do more’ is what I actually said. So when you go 24-5, we want to do more. And that’s really what the mantra is,” Smart explained. “24-5, we want to do more. If we were 29-0. I would say that we needed to win the other ones by more. So, it’s never enough. You show me a person is satisfied with what they’ve done, and they’re done. It’s called retired.

“So that’s just not the way I look at things, and that’s not the way that this program is going to be run that you’re in constant pursuit of excellence, not perfection. We are trying to be excellent.”