Georgia is a whole lot closer to the SEC title game than one may think

Georgia finished 2016 with a seemingly quiet 8-5 record capped off with a Liberty Bowl victory, but one thing that Bulldogs fans, along with all SEC fans shouldn't do, is sleep on them in the SEC-East this season.

In a division, much less a conference where the top competition for Georgia is losing key players, the Bulldogs are gaining elite level recruits to compliment their already formidable roster of returning players.

The likes of Florida and Tennessee are in need of a No. 1 quarterback after Austin Appleby and Joshua Dobbs played their final collegiate games. Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart went through that exact same phase last season, and landed on Jacob Eason as his go-to gunslinger.

Eason established himself as a capable quarterback in college football's toughest conference, and showed glimpses of being able to take over a game against a tough conference in a 13-7 win over Auburn. Eason finished his freshman season with 2,430 passing yards and 16 touchdowns along with a Bowl game victory that has given him a basic idea of what a high level of success at the college level tastes like.

In order to continue his growth into a potentially game-changing quarterback, Eason must have a strong supporting cast around him, and he will have just that at his disposal in 2017.

Arguably the strongest running back tandem in the nation is back for more, as Nick Chubb and Sony Michel both announced in December that they will be returning for their senior seasons. A fully healthy Chubb/Michel duo will take up a great deal of attention from opposing defenses, giving Eason the room he needs to work and preventing Smart from relying solely on the passing game to get the job done.

Tennessee will have a thinner depth chart at running back with the early departure of Jalen Hurd last season and the loss of Alvin Kamara to the NFL draft. Each team saw their leading receiver head for the NFL, however Georgia returns each of the subsequent four leading receivers along with four-star wideouts Jeremiah Holloway and Mark Webb entering the picture.

The area of strength for Florida, the winner of the SEC East last season, was undoubtedly its defense, and where they have lost staples such as Quincy Wilson, Teez Tabor, and Jarrad Davis, among others, Georgia has retained. The Bulldogs welcome back a solid core of defensive players from last season, led by leading tackler Roquan Smith and linebackers Lorenzo Carter and Davin Bellamy.

Where the difference may end up lying, not necessarily for this year alone, but also the near future, is Smart's recruiting efforts and accomplishments. Out of the 15 five-star recruits in the entire 2017 class, Georgia has four of them spread out all over the field on their spring roster.

Recruited as an athlete, Gibbs is currently listed as a defensive back on Georgia's official spring roster.

Even if these four elite recruits were disregarded, Smart has still managed to add 14 other ESPN 300 recruits to the program alone. The total of 18 outnumbers Florida's and Tennessee's combined total of 15, with Butch Jones' only edge on Smart being No. 1 overall recruit Trey Smith.

The only thing that tends to hold back this much talent from being successful is a lack of work ethic.

Related: Georgia's Smart: 'We're in a better place' ahead of Year 2

Smart spoke with Edward Aschoff of ESPN on April 11 and said that there are no issues when it comes to the effort he has seen thus far, and that the Bulldogs are "sold on what our staff and what myself believe in." Smart isn't denying that there is still work to be done on the developmental front however, saying that three years from now, "we'll look back on this class and say it was either really good or really overrated."

The only thing that will prove Smart's statement correct in one way or the other is time, but as it stands in the spring, Georgia has the returning players, the young guns, and the elite prospects to make a serious run for its first SEC title since 2005.