Georgia has become what all the College Football Playoff expansion naysayers feared could happen.

This is the best program in the SEC. It won two straight conference titles, three in the last four years, came achingly close to making it four in a row, and …

Notre Dame 23, Georgia 10.

Ole Miss 39, Georgia 34.

Two appearances in the 12-team College Football Playoff, two instant outs.

The regular season still matters, but who wants to put on a 2025 SEC Championship t-shirt when the team left the playoff building in a hurry?

And that’s not fair.

Can Georgia Win Another National Championship?

Last year’s Georgia team was brutally flawed in several key ways.

It was too inexperienced, the defense couldn’t rush the passer, there weren’t enough downfield shots, and to be totally honest, it’s not like it dealt with a tough Big Ten-level schedule.

Including the playoff, it played all SEC teams, Marshall, and Austin Peay. The only Power Four non-conference game was Georgia Tech, and that was a 16-9 fight of a victory.

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And even with all of the problems, and all the inconsistencies, that team not only gut-checked its way to thrilling wins over Tennessee, Ole Miss, Florida, and Georgia Tech.

It totally dominated Bama in the SEC Championship, rolled at will over Texas, and it got a prime spot in the playoff – it came super-close to being 14-0 and on the way to deal with Miami.

And that was in a relatively just-okay season under Smart.

The defense is about to be a destructive force, the offense will pound away like it did last year, and there should be more consistency to it all.

There will be plenty of preseason hype around Texas – and rightly so. Alabama is good, LSU is a burgeoning monster, Oklahoma is great, and it’s still the SEC. (These things go in cycles.)

Georgia is the SEC standard-bearer, but it has to be even better.

– 2026 Georgia Schedule Analysis

Georgia Quick Hits

• Head Coach: Kirby Smart (11th year: 117-21)

• Best Case / Worst Case: Win the national title/A three-loss regular season and out of the CFP

• Biggest Question: Can Georgia keep on winning the SEC and take the momentum into the College Football Playoff?

Georgia Key 2025 Stats

• Sacks: 20 for 130 yards, Opponents 20 for 77 yards

• 2nd Quarter Scoring: Georgia 154, Opponents 53

• Time of Possession: Georgia 33:52, Opponents 26:07 

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Offense

Mike Bobo’s offense keeps on humming, even if there are some knocks against the too-conservative nature of the attack at times.

Tough and efficient last season, it kept the chains moving, dominated the time of possession battle, and was nice and balanced.

It ran well, threw fine, didn’t have a major problem with turnovers, and it did almost everything right. The key parts are back to do it all again.

What’s Working

Gunner Stockton is a very, very good quarterback. He’s not as flashy as Trinidad Chambliss, he doesn’t have the tools of Arch Manning or LaNorris Sellers, and he’s not in the same NFL Draft mix as Dante Moore or CJ Carr.

But might just be in the Heisman mix again after finishing seventh last season.

Last year he completed close to 70% of his passes for 2,894 yards and 24 touchdowns with just five picks, and he’s a good runner, taking off for 462 yards and ten touchdowns.

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The backfield is terrific. Along with Stockton a factor on the move, leading rusher Nate Frazier is back after running for 947 yards and six scores, and No. 2 back Chauncey Bowens also averaged over five yards per carry on his 526 yards and six touchdowns.

Kentucky transfer Dante Dowdell was a key signing, adding another big running style to the rotation, but he’s out indefinitely after suffering major injuries in an ATV accident. Dwight Phillips is more of a smallish-quick back who should pick up the slack.

All the backs in the offense get work, because …

The offense runs the ball – a lot. It might not be scintillating at times, but it’s effective considering the idea in the Bobo attack is to control the clock, grind games down, and keep the chains moving.

Georgia went 9-0 last year when hitting 40 carries or more – and that’s by design. How many times did the offense get to 40 carries in 2024? Zero.

Since Kirby Smart’s second year as the head coach in 2017, Georgia is 53-2 when running 40 times or more. The two losses? 2017 to Alabama in overtime, and to South Carolina in 2019, also in overtime.

What Needs Work

The downfield passing game needs to open things up a bit more. It was the big beef going into last year – the 7.7 yards per attempt weren’t enough. 

And last year’s passing game averaged 7.4 per throw.

This has been a little bit overblown – the big plays were offset by Stockton’s accuracy on midrange throws – but the Dawgs were 8-0 when he averaged more than seven yards per throw.

This puts the spotlight on …

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Do the Dawgs have the receivers? Again, the idea was to get more pop last year, so Georgia went out and got new-Atlanta Falcon Zachariah Branch from USC, and he led the team with 81 catches for 811 yards and six scores.

No one else on the team caught more than 27 passes. London Humphreys is back – he averaged over 15 yards per catch, but made only 18 grabs.

6-4 Georgia Tech transfer Isiah Canion has to be a star right away on the outside.  

The offensive line depth and rotation are baby-young. Even for Georgia, it’s playing with fire to rely on brand new recruits to play massive roles on the offensive front.

The Dawgs have a good veteran at center in Drew Bobo, Earnest Greene III will work at a tackle spot, and Juan Gaston worked just fine last season as a 6-7, 360-pound freshman seeing time at guard.

Zykie Helton isn’t huge, but he’s a talented guard recruit who can move, and Ekene Ogboko will eventually be a mainstay at tackle. They’ll both be early factors.

Player to Watch

Lawson Luckie, TE Sr.
Georgia won national championships helped by one of the greatest tight ends in college football history, Brock Bowers, leading the way.

Oscar Delp caught 20 passes last season, but had the skills to be selected early in the third round by New Orleans.

Now it’s Luckie’s turn to be a featured target.

He’s a 6-4, 240-pound veteran who caught 15 passes for 158 yards and four scores, best known for the monster five-grab, 43-yard, three-touchdown performance in the regular season win over Ole Miss.

Defense

The Georgia defense was fantastic right up until the moment when it couldn’t do a thing to stop the Ole Miss offense in the College Football Playoff Quarterfinals.

It allowed fewer than 300 yards and 18 points per game on the season, was fourth in the nation against the run, and decent enough on third downs, but it had a strange inability to get into the backfield.

Last year’s Bulldog defense was good, and this one could be special.

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What’s Working

Everyone is older now. Yeah, of course, we all are, but the relative youth movement last year – only one senior among the regular starting 11 – was part of the Georgia defensive narrative.

It wasn’t a rebuild, but overall it was a relatively inexperienced bunch. Six starters are back along with a whole slew of key parts from last year.

Only three Bulldog defenders were drafted, as opposed to the seven selected in the 2025 NFL Draft. 

Not shockingly, the defensive tackles fit the Georgia mold. There isn’t a Jordan Davis or a Jalen Carter on the inside, but Jordan Hall is a 6-4, 320-pound space eater, Elijah Griffin is a 6-4, 310-pound rising star, and 6-4, 315-pound Xzavier McLeod will soon be a factor.

The Bulldogs have a pair of first round talents in the secondary.Ellis Robinson IV might have one of the first corners off the board in the 2027 NFL Draft – he led the SEC with four interceptions last year and seven broken up passes. 

KJ Bolden should be a top 20 overall pick at safety, with 135 tackles and three picks in his first two seasons. 

The safety combination of Ja’Marley Riddle (East Carolina) and Khalil Barnes (Clemson) makes an already great situation elite.

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What Needs Work

The pass rush. How could a defense this good fail so miserably at getting into the backfield? This hasn’t always been a devastating pass rushing team – 2021 was a major exception – but last year was crazy.

Georgia was dead last in the SEC in sacks with 20. By comparison, the 2024 defense came up with 37.

That should change fast.

The Bulldogs brought in top transfer Amaris Williams from Auburn to help the cause, and there will be a concerted effort to get Game Harris Jr. and Quintavious Johnson going right away.

The tackles for loss. To keep this going, sometimes teams have a bad pass rush, but can get behind the line with pressures and big plays. That wasn’t Georgia last season.

The 2021 national championship Bulldogs averaged 6.73 tackles for loss per game – 101 in all. The 2024 version averaged 6.21 a game, with 87 TFLs.

Last year’s Georgia defense averaged 4.21 tackles for loss per game, and 59 in all – dead last in the SEC.

Is the NFL-claiber talent on this defense? When Georgia ruled the world, the defensive talent was at an otherworldly level. 

Five Bulldog defensive players went in the first round of the 2022 draft.

Obviously there’s talent. There’s plenty of buzz around safety KJ Bolden and corner Ellis Robinson IV, and, as always, others will rise from the pack.

But at the moment – and remember, this will be one of the nation’s best defenses – there aren’t as many sure-thing NFL dominant forces.

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Player to Watch

Raylen Wilson, LB Sr.
The 6-1, 235-pound senior got better and better over the last three seasons, turning into a powerhouse in the middle of the linebacking corps with 74 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and 6.5 tackles for loss.

He and Chris Cole will pack a whopper of a 1-2 linebacking punch against the run.

Keys to the Season

• The pass rush has to not only be better, but dominate at times

• More big pass plays down the field

• The offensive line depth has to develop early on

Player Who Needs To Shine

London Humphreys, WR Sr.
The 6-2, 200-pound veteran has been through the SEC wars, with one year at Vanderbilt and the last two with Georgia.

He hasn’t quite broken out, but with 55 career catches for 959 yards and nine scores, averaging 15.3 yards per grab, he’s good enough to grow into a true No. 1 target. He’ll get his chance.

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Biggest Concern

The defense has to always be wonderful.

Over the last two seasons, Georgia had major issues when the defense struggled. When it gave up more than 380 yards – not a whopping number – it’s 3-4, and all three wins were in overtime.

Here’s the problem with the way the Georgia offense plays – it means the defense has to hold up. That’s mostly by design.

Control the clock, keep the chains moving, wear down defenses, and let the rested Dawg D take over. It’s almost impossible to complain about the style in any way considering the results under Kirby Smart.

It almost always works, except when it doesn’t – and that’s the problem.

The offense has to be stronger when out of its comfort zone – like in the last two College Football Playoffs – and last year against Ole Miss, it couldn’t come through.

Biggest Game

at Alabama, October 10
The Crimson Tide made their season with the win over the Bulldogs in the regular season, and then didn’t look like they belonged in the same conference in an ugly SEC Championship.

If Georgia is Georgia, even with a few landmines on the schedule, a win in Tuscaloosa should all but secure a spot in the College Football Playoff.

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Transfer Portal

This is probably the least surprising transfer portal run among the true national title contenders.

Georgia brings back a ton of key parts, good recruiting built up the talent for the near future, and there wasn’t much of a need to do much in the portal.

A few signings should make an impact – the Dawgs didn’t mess around with the few players they did get – but outside of the secondary, there’s not a lot here to make a major splash.

Best Signing

Ja’Marley Riddle, S (East Carolina)
It’ll be fun to see what he can do on a bigger stage on a regular basis.

The 6-0, 185-pounder isn’t that big, but he brings the big plays, making 134 tackles with six interceptions and ten broken up passes over the last two years for the Pirates. 

And for everyone looking for more plays behind the line from this year’s defense, he has 7.5 career tackles for loss.

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Biggest Loss

Elo Modozie, EDGE (Purdue)
To be nice about it, if Georgia really wanted anyone who left through the transfer portal, it would’ve figured out how to keep the guy.

Modozie was a nice idea coming from Army – coming off a 6.5 sack season in 2024 – but he didn’t see much of the field for the Bulldogs.

However, the line could use as many pass-rushing possibilities as it could get.

Other Names to Know

• Isiah Canion, WR (Georgia Tech)

• Khalil Barnes, S (Clemson)

CFN Season Prediction

There’s no reason for a Georgia team with this much talent and experience to go anything less than 10-2 with this schedule.

It’s not a breeze, but with a defense that’s this experienced and has this strong a starting 11, and with an offense that should be able to bash away to its heart’s content, at least make another College Football Playoff.

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And go ahead and win another SEC Championship – or don’t – it shouldn’t matter. Get to ten wins, and get in – but this team should do better than that.

CFN Prediction: 11-1

You don’t want to play LSU this year, and the Bulldogs miss Lane Kiffin’s crew.

You really don’t want to play Texas, and missing Texas A&M and Tennessee will help.

Georgia Tech gave the Dawgs fits last year, but that’s it for the non-conference fun – even though Western Michigan is the best team in the MAC.

There’s a tough stretch of three games away from Athens in four dates, going to Alabama and Ole Miss, and with the Cocktail Party against Florida in Atlanta this year.

Going to South Carolina is dangerous, and Oklahoma and Missouri will be tough outs, but it’ll take a faceplant for this not to be a fifth CFP appearance in six years.

Because going to the College Football Playoff is what Georgia does.

Related: Georgia 2026 Football Schedule Breakdown and Analysis