The 2026 Season · Preview
No. 3 in the country, and the only question that matters comes in January
Georgia has won back-to-back SEC championships and lost its first playoff game both times. Year eleven under Kirby Smart is not about getting there.
The Bulldogs open the season ranked third in both major polls, behind Ohio State and Oregon and ahead of Notre Dame and Texas — the ninth straight year they have started inside the AP top five. Nine SEC teams made the preseason poll and Georgia is the highest of them. None of that is the story.
The story is a 39–34 loss to Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl that ended a 75-game streak of winning when leading entering the fourth quarter, one year after a quarterfinal exit that looked much the same. Georgia returns quarterback Gunner Stockton, who finished seventh in the Heisman voting, a defense that should again be among the best in the country, and two questions that will decide the year: whether anybody rushes the passer, and who catches the football.