Georgia is ranked No. 1 by Sports Illustrated and will be on the cover of their college football preview issue this week.

Calling the Bulldogs “the team to beat,” the analysis of Georgia starts off Below is copy sent in an e-mail from SI: “Go ahead. Try to find a weakness in a team that has 17 starters returning, finished 2007 on a seven-game winning streak and averaged 37.8 points in its final six games.

Look closely for the chink in the armor of the team that features a third-year starter at quarterback (Matthew Stafford), possibly the second coming of Herschel Walker (sophomore Knowshon Moreno), one of the nation’s best linebacker tandems (Dannell Ellerbe and Rennie Curran), a stout defensive line and a shutdown secondary.

Pretty heady stuff. Here’s the complete top 20:

1. Georgia
2. Ohio State
3. USC
4. Missouri
5. Florida
6. Oklahoma
7. Auburn
8. Texas Tech
9. LSU
10. Wisconsin
11. Clemson
12. Tennessee
13. Texas
14. West Virginia
15. Kansas
16. Arizona State
17. BYU
18. Oregon State
19. Pittsburgh
20. Oregon