Georgia Baseball Primed for Promising 2024 Season
With new leadership

With a prospective top-ten choice and fresh leadership, the Diamond Dawgs hope to turn heads in 2024.

Former National Champion Wes Johnson will lead Georgia baseball into a new era following 10 seasons under Scott Stricklin’s direction. The Diamond Dawgs, captained by Charlie Condon, a potential top-ten MLB draft pick, are poised for a successful 2024 season, which has the Bulldog supporters thrilled about the new leadership.

Less than a week separates Georgia from the beginning of their new chapter under the former LSU assistant. Featuring eight of the top 25 slots in the preseason rankings, the Diamond Dawgs play in one of the hardest conferences in college baseball. Let’s take a look at their schedule. While returning nine players that saw time on the mound, Georgia comes into this season with a total of seven returners who saw any playing time in the batter’s box.

Despite the roster’s small number of returners, the Dawgs’ hitting leader and ERA leader have both chosen to stick around and support Johnson’s transformation of the team.

They begin the season against a UNC Asheville team that finished with a 26-26 record in 2023. After that, they play games against Georgia State in Atlanta, Northern Kentucky, Presbyterian College, Michigan State, Georgia Tech to begin the March season, Georgia Southern, Stetson, Northern Colorado, No. 20 Iowa Hawkeyes, and finally, they begin SEC play.

They opened conference play against the Kentucky Wildcats, who went on to finish fifth in the East with a 40-21 record the previous season. Despite being ranked ninth in the nation at the time, the Wildcats defeated Georgia once and went on to host an NCAA tournament regional round. The Wildcats’ home field of Lexington, Kentucky, where they finished 21-7 the previous season, will host the three-game series. The Dawgs won’t have an easy game in the Bluegrass State, but both teams have time to assess their rosters for that match.

Georgia’s next opponent is Alabama, who is currently ranked 19th in the nation, after they play Wofford. After missing out on them in the 2023 campaign, the Diamond Dawgs are excited to host the Crimson Tide in Athens.

Alabama, with a 43-21 record and a trip to the regional round in Tuscaloosa, placed fourth in the competitive SEC West. With the addition of two additional clubs to the league, this late-March series will serve as a true test of what Georgia baseball will look like in 2024. They travel to another challenging baseball setting in the SEC after their game against the Mercer Bears.

The Tennessee Volunteers, the No. 9 team in college baseball, will host their rivals for a series in Knoxville, Tennessee. With a 44-22 record and a fourth-place finish in the East last season, Tennessee has mostly emerged as a major player in college baseball throughout the past two years. Even though the Dawgs prevailed 2-1 in the series the previous year, they ultimately traveled to Omaha to lose to Johnson’s LSU Tigers.

Although Georgia was far inferior to LSU in terms of talent, the former pitching coach of LSU understands how to defeat the Volunteers. Johnson might succeed once more now that the Diamond Dawgs have shown they can match the top teams in the SEC.

Following a series against Mississippi State, which concluded with a record identical to Georgia’s from the previous season, Georgia has one more game against Georgia State. After facing Missouri in a series, they will play Kennesaw State. Despite finishing with a 30-24 overall record and a 10-20 SEC record, which landed them last in the East, they did manage three series sweeps versus Georgia. The Ole Miss Rebels, one of the more well-known teams in college baseball, will be the opponent for the Dawgs in their next series.

With a 6-24 record, they were last in the West last year, but they did win two of those games against Georgia. In that sense, the Dawgs will have to reverse the script.

The Diamond Dawgs play host to the No. 10 Clemson Tigers, then go to Texas A&M Aggies (ranked No. 8) for a series, play another game against Kennesaw State, and then play at home against the No. 6 Vanderbilt Commodores. They next visit the No. 25 South Carolina Gamecocks before hosting the No. 2 Florida Gators, the runners-up for the national championship, to wrap out their regular season. Georgia will go into the SEC Championship, which is held from May 21 to May 26, having won this mid-May series.

Georgia’s preseason schedule includes seven games against teams ranked in the top 25. Despite having a small number of returning starters, the Bulldogs signed 31 new players, ranking eighth overall in their recruiting class. Among the newcomers are Stanford pitching transfer Brandt Pancer, Daniel Padysak, who started for the Czech Republic in the World Baseball Classic, and Kolby Branch, who earned the “Triple Crown” for Baylor as a freshman. This upcoming season, the Diamond Dawgs could be significantly better. This Friday at 3 p.m., they play UNC Asheville, and the series concludes on Sunday at 1 p.m.