Transfer Tuesday: Can Ja'Marley Riddle Be An Instant Impact Player for Georgia Bulldogs?
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ATHENS - With a little bit of uncertainty in terms of who will make up the starting secondary for the Georgia Bulldogs in 2026, Kirby Smart brought in four defensive backs via the transfer portal in January.
One of them is the ultra productive Ja’Marley Riddle, who played safety at East Carolina the previous two seasons and will now don the red and black. Riddle, a former three-star from the 2024 high school recruiting class is entering his third year of college football.
Over the last two seasons, Riddle has accounted for 133 tackles, 10 pass deflections and six interceptions. That is a ton of production for a safety no matter what level of college football it came in.
As discussed in Khalil Barnes and Braylon Conley’s Transfer Tuesday features, there are two obvious spots in Georgia’s secondary that there is going to be a competition for. After the portal cycle, Georgia finds itself with depth at the safety position, and there is going to be more than one capable starter at each spot.
KJ Bolden will man one of the safety positions but his counterpart is not set in stone. Neither is the nickelback (STAR) position.
As far as the deep safety spot, Georgia returns two players that either started or saw a lot of playing time opposite of Bolden. Kyron Jones started at safety the first six games of 2025 before suffering multiple injuries that sidelined him for the final eight contests. Zion Branch, one of last year’s transfer recruits, played in 10 games this season and was on the field a lot in Georgia’s Sugar Bowl loss to Ole Miss.
Joenel Aguero was Georgia’s starting nickelback for most of the year. When he suffered a late season injury that held him out of the postseason it was true freshman Resean Dinkins that stepped up to start and looked good doing so for someone with so little experience.
Unless an incoming freshman makes big strides this offseason, there will likely be four players competing for two starting roles in Georgia’s secondary: Riddle, Barnes, Branch and Jones. There could be more depending on how the coaching staff feels about trying to convert fellow transfers Conley and Gentry Williams to a STAR.
Riddle has more total production in his two college football seasons than any other defensive back on Georgia’s roster. Whether or not he can produce stats is not a question for him. His instincts don’t seem to be either.
The biggest question for him will probably be about how he will tackle the challenge of the uptick in competition both in practice and the games in the SEC. Branch was the only one of Georgia’s transfer defensive backs from the 2025 cycle that got any sort of meaningful playing time last year. Now the others have transferred out.
If Smart goes with seniority, then the new transfers would again see little playing time. If Dinkins is ready to be a starter, the natural progression would be for him to take over for the next 2-3 years at one of the safety spots. Jones and Branch already have the system down and the trust of the staff to be on the field in big moments.
Riddle is one of the more under-the-radar transfer recruits in the class, being ranked as a three-star prospect last month, but he has not gone under the radar in Athens and online. Georgia media and fans seem to believe that he will immediately push for playing time. If his production translates, that will likely be true, but he will have to perform better than a bunch of four and five stars in practice.
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