BREAKING: UGA Football to Face Ole Miss Rebels in Sugar Bowl CFP Quarterfinal
ATHENS - Kirby Smart’s UGA Football team is headed to the Big Easy to play in the College Football Playoff Quarterfinal against Ole Miss at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
The Bulldogs’ 28-7 win over the Alabama Crimson Tide the first Saturday of December in Atlanta to qualify as the SEC’s automatic bid to the bowl.
“No one knows who they are more than Georgia,” ESPN college football analyst Booger McFarland said earlier in December about the Bulldogs. “I don't think anyone wants to see this version the Bulldogs.”
The Bulldogs’ back-to-back SEC championships is the first time the program has accomplished that since the days of Herschel Walker in 1981-82.
Should the Bulldogs win the Sugar Bowl against the Rebels they would advance to play in the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday, January 8th in Glendale, AZ against the winner of the Miami-Ohio State (-10.5) game.
Georgia leads the all-time series with the Rebels 35-13-1, including a 43-35 win in Athens in October. The Bulldogs lead the series over Ole Miss in neutral sites 4-3. Georgia topped Ole Miss 49-21 in Jackson, Miss., in 1985 to mark the last neutral site matchup.
Georgia has appeared in the Sugar Bowl 12 times and are 5-7:
Jan. 1, 1947, Georgia 20, North Carolina 10
Jan. 1, 1969, Arkansas 16, Georgia 2
Jan. 1, 1977, Pittsburgh 27, Georgia 3
Jan. 1, 1981, Georgia 17, Notre Dame 10
Jan. 1, 1982, Pittsburgh 24, Georgia 20
Jan. 1, 1983, Penn State 27, Georgia 23
Jan. 1, 2003, Georgia 26, Florida State 13
Jan. 3, 2006, West Virginia 38, Georgia 35
Jan. 1, 2008, Georgia 41, Hawai’i 10
Jan. 1, 2019, Texas 28, Georgia 21
Jan. 1, 2020, Georgia 26, Baylor 14
Jan. 2, 2025, Notre Dame 23, Georgia 10
This will be Georgia's 64th bowl game appearance - second most of any team in the country. The Bulldogs' all-time bowl record is 38-22-3. Georgia is making its 29th consecutive bowl appearance, which ranks as the longest active streak in the country.
Currently, Georgia's senior class has a record of 51-5, making it the third straight UGA senior class to win at least 50 games. The Bulldog seniors are also seeking their ninth postseason victory, a mark that already includes the CFP Semifinal Orange Bowl and CFP National Championship during the 2021 season, the SEC Championship Game, the CFP Semifinal Peach Bowl and the CFP National Championship in 2022, the 2023 Capital One Orange Bowl, the 2024 SEC Championship Game and the 2025 SEC Championship Game.
The Ole Miss-Georgia series dates back to 1940 with the Bulldogs holding a 35-13-1 advantage all-time. The two schools have played seven times at sites that are considered neutral (Memphis, Atlanta, Jackson), but they have never met in a bowl game.
This year’s Sugar Bowl will mark just the fourth time in its history that two SEC teams have squared off in the game – the previous three also involved Ole Miss. In the 1953 Sugar Bowl (Jan. 1), SEC Champion Georgia Tech earned a 24-7 victory over the Rebels, who were making their first major bowl appearance since 1936. On Jan. 1, 1960, the Rebels posted a 21-0 victory over LSU to avenge a regular season loss to the Tigers in a memorable Halloween night showdown. The Miller-Digby Award winner as the Most Outstanding Player of that 1960 game was Bobby Franklin, who will be inducted posthumously into the Sugar Bowl Hall of Fame on Jan. 1. Then in the 1964 Sugar Bowl (Jan. 1), Alabama took down Ole Miss in a 12-7 defensive battle despite the Crimson Tide not having its star quarterback Joe Namath who was suspended by Bear Bryant – that game is also memorable as it was played between snowbanks following the largest New Orleans snowfall since 1895.
As Georgia defeated Ole Miss, 43-35, on Oct. 18 this season, the Sugar Bowl will be a rematch of a regular season game for just the fourth time in its history. The first was the 1960 showdown between Ole Miss and LSU in which the Rebels gained revenge. The other two were battles between Florida and Florida State. In the 1994 season, the Gators and the Seminoles battled to a 31-31 tie in the regular season to set up the “Fifth Quarter in the French Quarter” at the Sugar Bowl (Jan. 2, 1995). In the 1997 Sugar Bowl (Jan. 2), Florida rolled to a 57-20 win over Florida State to avenge a 24-21 regular season loss and earn the national championship.
This year’s Sugar Bowl will be the 35th edition of the game featuring 10-win teams and just the fifth involving a pair of 12-win teams. Of the 184 teams that have come to the Sugar Bowl, there have only been 18 12-win teams (including this year’s pair).
This will be the 64th bowl appearance for Georgia; it has an all-time bowl mark of 38-22-3. Nine of those bowl appearances have come under the leadership of head coach Kirby Smart, who has posted a 7-2 bowl record in his 10 years at the helm of the Bulldogs. Ole Miss will be making its 42nd bowl appearance with an all-time mark of 25-15.
2026 COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SCHEDULE
Friday, December 19
Alabama beat Oklahoma, 34-24 in Norman
Saturday, December 20
Miami beat Texas A&M, 10-3 in College Station
Ole Miss beat Tulane, 41-10 in Oxford
7:30 PM, TNT - James Madison (+21.5) at Oregon
Wednesday, December 31
Cotton Bowl
7:30 PM, ESPN - Miami vs. Ohio State
Thursday, January 1
Orange Bowl
12 PM, ESPN - Oregon-JMU vs. Texas Tech
Rose Bowl
4 PM, ESPN - Alabama vs. Indiana
Sugar Bowl
8 PM, ESPN - Ole Miss vs. Georgia
Thursday, January 8
Fiesta Bowl
7:30 PM, ESPN
Peach Bowl
7:30 PM, ESPN
CFP National Championship Game
Monday, January 19
7:30 PM, ESPN
