A Look Back at 2025

Regular Season: 11-1 (1st in SEC)
SEC Championship: Beat Alabama
Sugar Bowl: Bye + Lost to Ole Miss

Notable: 

• Georgia scored on 91% of their red-zone trips while allowing scores just 74% of the time.

• The Bulldogs also dominated time of possession, holding the ball roughly seven minutes longer per game than opponents.

What Changed This Offseason

Key Departures

• WR: Zachariah Branch (NFL)

• OL: Monroe Freeling (NFL)

• DT: Christen Miller (NFL)

• LB: CJ Allen (NFL)

• DB: Daylen Everette (NFL), Joenel Aguero (Transfer)

Eight players were drafted and another five signed as undrafted free agents. Receiver and secondary were hit hardest. Five of Georgia’s top six pass catchers from 2025 are now in the NFL, while six of the program’s 14 outgoing transfers came from the secondary. Overall, though, the transfer portal barely made a dent in this roster.

Key Additions

• WR: Isaiah Canion (Georgia Tech)

• DL: Amaris Williams (Auburn)

• S: Khalil Barnes (Clemson), Gentry Williams (Oklahoma)

Four of Georgia’s nine portal additions landed in the secondary. Canion and Williams ranked as the No. 31 and No. 36 transfer prospects available.

Coaching Changes

Georgia brought in new linebackers coach Larry Knight to help address one of the defense’s few weaknesses: generating sacks. The Bulldogs finished with only 20 sacks last season, ranking 108th nationally. Arkansas State, meanwhile, ranked ninth in sacks under Knight a year ago.

Breaking Down The Offense

Key Returners

• QB: Gunner Stockton (All-SEC)

• RB: Nate Frazier (All-SEC)

• OL: Drew Bobo (All-SEC), Dontrell Glover, Earnest Greene

Strength: Familiarity With the System

Georgia returns its starting quarterback and running back, while every projected starting offensive lineman was already on the roster last season. All five key returners started at least nine games in 2025.

Another year operating in Georgia’s methodical offensive system gives this group a major advantage over most teams. Continuity matters, especially in an offense built on timing, execution, and avoiding mistakes.

Biggest Question: Explosiveness

The Ole Miss loss remains the clearest example of Georgia’s biggest concern.

Ole Miss won because it generated explosive plays and got elite quarterback production when the game tightened up. Against great opponents, margins become razor thin. In those moments, simply being efficient is not always enough.

Georgia will have talent, that much is guaranteed. The Bulldogs recruit too well not to have playmakers all over the field.

The bigger question is whether they have enough trusted vertical threats to consistently create chunk plays when they need them most.

Breaking Down The Defense

Key Returners

• DL: Elijah Griffin (Freshman All-SEC)

• LB: Quintavius Johnson, Justin Williams, Raylen Wilson

• DB: KJ Bolden (All-SEC), Ellis Robinson IV (All-SEC)

Strength: Depth + Elite Talent

Every player listed among Georgia’s key defensive returners has legitimate All-SEC potential. Several possess All-American upside.

Bolden already earned All-American recognition from multiple outlets last season, and the linebacker room may be the deepest unit on the roster. Georgia can throw multiple looks at opposing offenses, rotate fresh bodies constantly, and overwhelm teams with high-end talent across every level of the defense.

Biggest Question: Can They Generate Sacks?

Despite the low sack totals, Georgia’s defense never consistently felt passive or incapable of creating pressure.

Still, the issue mattered enough for Kirby Smart to bring in a new linebackers coach specifically to address it.

Even if Georgia finishes somewhere near the middle of the pack nationally in sacks, this defense should still be good enough to carry the Bulldogs comfortably into the College Football Playoff.

X-Factor: Defense

This unit has the potential to become one of the best defenses Georgia has fielded this decade, which says a lot considering the 2021 group has an argument as the greatest defense in modern college football history.

The linebacker corps is loaded. Georgia’s fourth-best linebacker would probably start for most teams in the country. The secondary features multiple future NFL players, and depth exists at every level.

The one weakness from 2025 involved finishing pressures with sacks. Georgia responded by hiring a coach with a proven history of fixing exactly that issue.

On paper, this defense alone feels good enough to get the Bulldogs to nine wins.

Schedule Breakdown

Win Total: 9.5 (Over -172, Under +140)

Most likely wins: vs Tennessee State, vs Western Kentucky, @ Arkansas

Georgia is one of the few programs where almost every matchup will feature the Bulldogs as betting favorites. But these games in particular will see them giving double digit points, and it would be shocking if any of these games finished within two scores.

Toughest stretch: @ Alabama, vs Auburn, vs Florida, @ Ole Miss

If Georgia is an underdog anywhere this season, it will probably happen on the road against Alabama or Ole Miss.

Auburn and Florida both enter the year with new head coaches eager to prove themselves in the SEC. Those games carry real trap-game potential.

And Georgia already knows the Rebels are capable of beating them.

Potential Swing Game: vs Georgia Tech

This mainly matters for anyone betting the under.

Could Georgia lose two SEC games? Absolutely. Three? That has not happened since 2016.

That means a third loss would likely need to come against Georgia Tech.

Recent history says it is at least possible. The Bulldogs needed double overtime two years ago, and last season’s matchup stayed within one score.

Final Outlook

Frankly, 9.5 feels about as close to stealing as you will find in gambling.

Yes, the schedule contains difficult games, but Georgia avoids Texas, LSU, and Texas A&M. According to most oddsmakers, those are three of the SEC’s top contenders alongside Georgia and Alabama.

Losing NFL talent and portal pieces does not concern me nearly as much at Georgia as it would at programs like Arkansas or Kentucky. The next wave of NFL-caliber players is already on campus, and in some cases, the backups may end up being even better than the players they replace.

Most of the important contributors for 2026 were already starters or heavily involved rotational players last season. Even concerns like receiver turnover do not move the needle much for me because Georgia continues replenishing talent at an absurd level.

The ceiling, like always, is a national championship.

This defense could easily finish among the best in the country. Georgia has consistently been the SEC’s standard throughout the decade, and there is nothing unrealistic about this roster producing both a top-15 offense and top-15 defense nationally.

The talent and coaching are there.

So where could this projection go wrong?

Injuries would be the biggest derailment scenario. Auburn, Florida, and South Carolina should all improve this season, too. I still do not think any of those teams are good enough to beat Georgia, but college football seasons rarely unfold exactly the way people expect.

There is also a chance I am rating this defense too highly on an all-time scale. Even then, it still projects as one of the premier defenses in the country.

Outside of major injuries, it is difficult to find a realistic path to worse than 10-2.

Prediction: 11-1, Over 9.5 (-172)

Up Next: Kentucky

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